Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
He Who Must Be Obeyed, November 12, 2004
This spectacular cookbook beats out even Julia Child for one special thing: no matter what he tells you, do it.
Cajun cooking is based on a number of principles not all of which are normal in the French-American styles dominant in most cookbooks, and which still aren't normal in the Asian-influenced or Italianate cookbooks that have increasingly garnered attention.
Loooong cooking times, in some cases. Very high heat. Complicated sauces. Intricate spicing. Cooking "the hell out of" some ingredients.
These things are antithetical to Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, and Spanish cooking, from which come almost everything you might think you know about cooking. The whole concept, in so many cases, is to "bring out the true flavor" of some ingredient, which prompts all that "fresh and perfect" stuff about ingredients. All of which is grand, of course, but a little arch, don't you think?
This kind of Cajun country cooking, however, often takes unwanted ingredients, or ones that are a tad old, and makes something spectacular out of them. Looks like hell, tastes like heaven: it's brown and gooey, but by god you'll get down on your knees and beg to be allowed just a little more!
Now if you're an accomplished home cook and you've never cooked this type of cuisine, you're going to find instructions that you will naturally want to ignore. The Sweet Potato Pecan Pie, for example, has you bake it for something like an hour, at high heat. So quite naturally, you assume it's a typo or something and you "correct" it in the cooking. DO NOT DO THIS. My wife did this with that pie, and it was very good. I did exactly what I was told and it was spectacular, just absolutely to die for.
Here's some examples.
Barbecue shrimp. Will kill you if you eat it too often, but it's basically shrimp just barely poached perfectly in a spicy butter sauce, and you will beg for more.
Sweet Potato Pecan Pie. My very hard-core Yankee relatives who never eat anything they don't know were faced with this thing one Thanksgiving, and finally my uncle-in-law had a piece just to be polite. Within 30 minutes the entire pie was gone: word spread, and nothing was left over.
Chicken Etouffee. Heaven on earth. Chicken cooked the way it would have wanted if it could have known how good it could be after its demise, as Garrison Keillor put it.
Chicken-Andouille Gumbo. Bet you thought gumbo was all about seafood and okra, didn't you? Nope. This is amazing.
Crawfish Magnifique. Oh my god. Will make you worship at the altar. Unbelievable. Good with shrimp, but with crawfish it'll make you pound the table in ecstasy.
Oyster-Brie Soup. Huh? Yup. Just do what he says, will you please? Serve this at an elegant dinner and watch people sit up straight, realizing this isn't just messing about but serious eating happening right here.
I have now cooked about 90% of the recipes in here, and never once had a miss. I'm no great chef, but I can follow directions, and Paul Prudhomme never ever steers you wrong. Just do exactly what he tells you and brace up for some truly fine dining.
A hint: if you don't like spicy food, decrease the spice mix total. That is, make up the spice mix as he directs, and then instead of a tablespoon put in 2 teaspoons. Don't just decrease the hot stuff; it will not be perfectly balanced.
Another hint: if you use stock from a can or box (ugh), decrease the salt in the mixes and reduce the quantities of spice mix accordingly.
Yet another hint: read his notes at the start about ingredients and especially about cooking roux. It matters. Get a cast-iron pan and a good whisk, too.
One last hint: if you're making something with chicken in it, and it's too hot just before you put in the chicken to heat up, don't worry. The sweetness of the chicken will make it balance perfectly.
The man is a genius!
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Bible of Cajun/Creole Cooking, October 26, 2002
I am a chef, and this book is THE Bible of Creole/Cajun, or as it's now called Southern Louisiana cooking. Wonderful book, now in about it's 80th printing! I use it all the time.
I truly consider this book one of the best cookbooks ever from the USA. It ranks up there with "The Joy of Cooking" and "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" as classics, or standards that all serious cooks need to have in their library.
Many people think that New Orleans has the best food in America, and Paul is without a doubt one of the (if not the) best New Orleans cooks. If you want to explore one of the only true American cuisines, this book is a must.
As a hint for those worried about the 'heat' levels in some of these foods, do what most professional chef's do: Simply start with 1/4 or 1/2 the amount of 'hot' ingredients when you make a recipe. You can always add more heat if you want it, but you can't take it out!
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The techniques in this book can be adapted even for low fat, March 29, 2001
Later on in his career, Chef Paul Prudhomme took up low fat cooking to save his life. However, this book was written before he got "religion" and is not for the fat-conscious. Having said that, can there be anything in this book for people who do not wish to eat a lot of fat? The answer is "yes" and here is why: Chef Prudhomme gives a very useful set of techniques to maximize the flavors that make the complex spice bouquet of real Louisiana cuisine. As an example, I have used the Jambalaya recipe in this book many times. It is different from most recipes for this rice-sausage-and-meat cassarole. Prudhomme's version is served with a wonderful spicy tomato sauce surrounding a molded cupful of the rice mix. This is a very elegant presentation, adds moisture and flavor to the dish...and allows you to substitute ingredients and still get the sense of the genuine thing. (I use turkey Kielbasa, cut way down on the oil and use lean chicken breast for the meat.) The sauce is what makes this work so well. Chef Prudhomme recommends "building" flavors by adding spices and herbs in stages. Some at the beginning, sauted at first, some later on near the end, to freshen the taste. He also makes a very important instruction about the miripoix mix--the onion, green bell pepper and celery base of many Cajun and Creole dishes. He says it's best to cut the vegetables, especially the bell pepper, very fine as that preserves the taste. It's true. Larger pieces of pepper taste bitter and flabby. This kind of advice makes Prudhomme's book extremely useful. If you follow the flavor building advice, you can cut out a lot of the fat and substitute lean meats and still get good results from this book. Of course, you can't make a roux (flour and oil, cooked dark for a thickener) with no fat. So that can limit you. Or you make the recipes as written every once in a while for party occasions when the brakes are off. Either way, the techniques in this book are very useful.
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