Great Chefs of New Orleans - First Season

I like food with soul

Like Shrimp Creole and café au lait

I like Jambalaya and Crawfish Etouffee

Red beans and rice, they sure are nice

That old New Orleans way

Great Chefs of New Orleans

They're coming your way today

Great Chefs of New Orleans

Louisiana

- Welcome to Great Chefs of New Orleans,

featuring chefs' recipes and cooking hints

from the finest restaurants

in one of America's premier dining cities.

This time from Gretna, Louisiana,

LeRuth's and Chef Warren Leruth.

It is an unpretentious building

in an even more unpretentious neighborhood

on the west bank of the Mississippi.

But LeRuth's is also one of the city's

most critically acclaimed restaurants.

Chef Leruth has built his operation to a point

where reservation time is measured in months.

The menu contains dishes that food writers

have described as "high Creole".

Indeed, some have said that Warren Leruth

has single-handedly created a new category

of New Orleans cookery.

Although he has turned the restaurant over to his sons

Larry and Lee, very little on the menu has changed.

Chef Leruth brings the precision of a scientist

to seasoning steps.

So pay close attention.

With him, a pinch reflects years of experience

as a taste expert for large operations

such as Procter & Gamble.

- Chef Leruth offers two appetizers,

Oyster Soup, and a signature dish of the city,

Shrimp Remoulade,

followed by Medallions of Pork,

served with cucumbers and cap bread.

The dessert is Genoise with amaretto and chocolate.

We begin with Margie's Oyster Soup.

Chef Leruth begins with chopped white and green onions,

two cloves chopped garlic,

one finely chopped celery heart,

and chopped parsley.

It's the prelude to a dish that's a family affair.

- Oyster soup is very common in New Orleans.

In our home, especially, it's served up with big dinners

like on Thanksgiving or Christmas.

And the recipe that I'm furnishing

is the best one that I have,

and I learned it from my mother-in-law.

Most people say you never use garlic

when you cook with seafood, and milk, or cream.

And hers does call for just a smidgen of garlic

and she always used to be known for this soup.

All the oysters that you buy,

opened already, and in the jars, in the stores,

although they're fresh and beautiful oysters,

they've been washed.

And when an oyster's washed,

it removes quite a bit of the salt and the sea taste.

So that's why we always recommend to people,

if it's available in the area,

to buy fresh, opened oysters,

making sure that the shucker saves as much

of the liquor or the juice that's on the oyster.

If you don't have fresh oysters to make the soup,

I don't recommend using canned oysters

because it just has an entirely different taste.

But I know in most areas,

the large supermarkets are even going to the extent

of putting fresh fish markets in their supermarkets.

You don't see too much of this in New Orleans

because we have so many private,

individually owned seafood stores.

But I noticed in Chicago, and New York, and Cleveland,

and out in Texas, many of the large supermarkets

have that available.

Most of them have the jarred oysters available.

It does make a good soup,

but it just doesn't have that extra finesse

if you use the fresh shucked oysters.

- Seasonings include salt,

and both red and white pepper.

- The most important thing when you're making oyster soup

is to be very careful you don't return it to a boil

after you add the cream to it

because it tends to give a little curd-looking effect,

however, the soup will taste well,

but it just doesn't have as great an eye appeal.

When we cook, boil ahead the shrimp at the restaurant

that we use for Shrimp Remoulade,

what we do is actually, the shrimp,

we always wash the shrimp tails.

This is headless shrimp, but the shell are on.

We wash them very well in cold water.

And you'll notice a foam that comes off the shrimp.

That's very important.

Then we have a pot of boiling water.

And we dump the raw shrimp into the boiling water.

And as soon as it comes up to a,

the water returns to a boil, we take the shrimp off

and we soak the shrimp in a salted water,

almost like a briny water.

To each gallon of water, we use about a half a cup of salt.

And also we put ice cubes in this.

The reason why we soak the cooked hot shrimp

in the brine solution is to flavor with salt

and also to stop the shrimp from shrinking any more

than what they have during the cooking process.

This makes the shrimp real moist and tender.

And also flavors them with salt.

We never put the salt in the cooking water

because we feel that

it drains extra juices out of the shrimp.

So after you peel the shrimp,

remove the backstrap and clean the backstrap.

The strap should come out very easily.

By using this chilling method in the brine water,

you'll find that the shrimp are extremely easy to peel.

I grab the first underside of the shrimp,

about an inch down with my two fingers,

and just in one motion, peel off the tail of shrimp.

Squeeze the shrimp tail and it's very easy to remove.

So when you make this sauce,

I set the shrimp aside and chill 'em.

You take the 3/4 cup of Creole mustard

and if you would like, if you like a more subtle sauce,

you can add two tablespoons of ketchup at this point.

And also two tablespoons of horseradish.

I would recommend using some horseradish

if you don't have Creole mustard available in your area.

Add the chopped celery hearts and the chopped onion,

and the sugar,

and the paprika.

You mix all those ingredients together with a hand whip

and then slowly begin to add the chilled corn oil

or cotton seed oil, you can use either.

The reason why we use these two oils

is because for flavor, and just not a plain vegetable oil.

And it will make a motion, in other words,

all of the oil will whip into the mustard.

But it's a temporary emotion.

So if the remoulade sauce oils out a little bit

it doesn't mean that it's ruined or anything.

- In this version of remoulade sauce,

there's not ketchup or horseradish.

It began with two tablespoons of paprika,

3/4 cup of Creole mustard, 1/2 cup of chopped celery hearts,

1/4 cup chopped onion,

a teaspoon of sugar,

two tablespoons of chopped parsley,

and one cup of chilled oil.

There are countless recipes for remoulade in Louisiana,

but the principle of the dish is cold, fresh seafood,

married to a tangy mustard-base sauce.

And the combination is irresistible.

The final assembly is preceded

by a few splashes of Tabasco sauce,

an obligatory condiment in Louisiana.

After you mix the sauce,

you can stir the sauce over the shrimp

and marinate it for two or three hours before serving.

This gives it a chance for the sauce

to penetrate into the shrimp

to give it a real excellent taste.

Now remoulade sauce in New Orleans

always differs from remoulade sauce

in other areas of the country.

The sauce, remoulade that's made in France

is very similar to our tarter sauce as we know it.

The remoulade sauce type that we make in New Orleans

is entirely different, and basically, it's a mustard sauce

that's colored with paprika.

So I think it's something that, it's as particular a sauce

that you only see in a

with the reddish color.

This is an excellent dish and you can use veal

to substitute for the pork if you would like to.

But we find that pork makes a very delicious tasting dish.

And it's quite a bit less expensive.

First, the pork tenderloin,

or you can use the slices of pork from the loin itself.

You would pound those between paper.

And then they're sprinkled with the flour

and sauteed in the oil and butter mixture.

The cucumbers are cut and seeded,

and cut into diagonal pieces.

- His flare for unexpected ingredient

combinations and precise seasoning stems from work

with corporate product testing and development.

That influence is obvious from slogans,

which are tact on kitchen walls,

to an involved series of tests

before a dish goes on the menu.

It all has to do with numbers,

and is a pervasive factor at LeRuth's.

- The one subject that I was good in school was in math.