Cook's Country

-Today on "Cook's Country," we're headed to "The Big Easy."

Bryan makes Julia a New Orleans classic, shrimp po'boys, Jack challenges Bridget to a tasting of King Cakes, and Ashley makes Bridget a regional specialty, chicken sauce piquant.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-A po'boy sandwich is found all over Louisiana.

It's a baguette-like roll stuffed with seafood or meat or even french fries and gravy.

-Mmm.

Now, it's said that the name started with Benny and Clovis Martin.

They were New Orleans street car conductors until they opened Martin Brothers' Coffee Stand and Restaurant in the French Market in 1922.

-Then in 1929, New Orleans street car workers went on strike.

-During this two-week standoff, local businesses donated goods and services to the street car union, including sandwiches from the Martin Brothers' Restaurant.

-Benny said, "We fed those men free of charge until the strike ended.

Whenever we saw one of the striking men coming, one of us would say, 'Here comes another poor boy.'"

-The brothers also brought the free sandwiches out to the strikers so that no one had to put down a picket sign.

-Today we're celebrating the po'boy sandwich, and Bryan's gonna show us how it's done.

There are lots of different types of po'boy sandwiches from roast beef to shredded barbecue.

But today Bryan's gonna show us how to make the classic shrimp po'boy.

-That's right, and shrimp po'boys are probably my favorite sandwich in the world.

-So, I hope you know what you're doing then.

-You know, I've messed around with it a fair amount, so I've got it down pat.

And you get this crispy, slightly spicy shrimp and remoulade, which is basically mayonnaise on steroids, fortified with horseradish and hot sauce.

-And it's a messy sandwich.

I know you can rate a po'boy by how many napkins you use when you eat it.

-Yeah, it should be dripping down your arm down to your shirt.

-Exactly.

-We're gonna start by making our own Creole seasoning blend.

You could buy Creole seasoning blend from the grocery store, but oftentimes, they're very salty, and when we make it at home, we're able to control the amount of salt that we put into it.

And this one's gonna make about 3/4 cup, and we're only gonna need 2 tablespoons for our recipe.

But this is great to throw on all kinds of dishes and on grilled meats especially.

I have 5 tablespoons of Hungarian paprika, 2 tablespoons of garlic powder.

-I can really smell that garlic powder.

-Yeah, it's good.

A tablespoon of dried thyme, a tablespoon of cayenne pepper, a tablespoon of celery salt, a tablespoon of table salt, and a tablespoon of ground black pepper.

So, we're only gonna use 2 tablespoons of this for our flour mixture.

So, we can pull that out right now.

And we'll transfer that to 2 cups of all-purpose flour.

And to that, we're going to add 1/4 cup of yellow cornmeal.

Now, the cornmeal's important because it gives the shrimp a little bit of texture once it's fried.

Okay.

Now, we found that a lot of times, if we were just to take the shrimp, dip it in egg, and then dip it in the flour, the coating would fall off the shrimp.

So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna create a little bit of a batter.

So, we have 4 whole eggs here, and to that we're gonna add 1/2 cup of our flour mixture.

Now we can turn our attention to the shrimp.

Now, these are 31/40 shrimp meaning they're 31 to 40 per pound, and we have one pound of them here.

So we're gonna begin by peeling and deveining them.

So, the way I like to peel and devein a shrimp is I like to invert my knife so the blade is facing up, then I hold the shrimp in my hands like that, and I just about 1/8 of an inch from the top of the shrimp, kind of come in with the tip of the knife, and start sliding it and wedging my knife upwards a little bit at a time.

-Oh.

-You almost want to move the shrimp around the tip of the blade not force the blade into the shrimp.

And oftentimes, if there is a vein to remove, it will stick to the knife, and you can just peel it and wipe it on the side.

So then I've got the shell in my hand, I can just kind of peel off, and then to remove the tail, you want to squeeze right at the base of the tail to kind of force that meat out.

-And you wiggle it a little bit.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-Okay.

So, all the shrimp is peeled.

Again, this is 1 pound of shrimp, and that will make four sandwiches, so you'll get anywhere between 9 and 10 shrimp per sandwich.

-Not skimpy.

-No, these are big sandwiches.

Okay.

So, we're going to start by working with half of the shrimp at a time.

We're gonna hit it into the dry mixture, and we'll take it from the dry mixture and put it into the batter and then back into the dry.

-So, oh, it's a little two-step.

-Two-step po'boy.

And we're only working with half the shrimp at a time because we don't want to oversaturate this flour mixture.

It'll introduce too much water to it.

Just kind of shake off the excess flour.

Okay.

So, all the shrimp's in there.

So, I'll take my wet hand here, and I'll just kind of toss the shrimp in the batter and then we go right back into the flour mixture.

And we'll just lightly toss those in the flour, and we'll transfer them to our rimmed baking sheet.

This shrimp is a little bit more wet than it was when it came right out of that bowl so we don't want to add too much of this battered shrimp to the flour mixture because then we just create... -Two batters.

-Yeah, exactly.

All right, Julia, we're gonna finish breading this shrimp here, then we're gonna wrap the tray in plastic wrap and throw it into the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

And that time is really gonna allow the batter to stick to the shrimp.

-Sounds good.

-And I might also wash my hands or something.

-Yeah, I was thinking you might want to do that.

-All right, now we're ready for my favorite part of the sandwich, of Cajun life.

This is remoulade, and remoulade is just souped-up mayonnaise.

This is a very simple version of it, but they can get very complicated and very long ingredient lists.

We're gonna start off with 2/3 cup of mayonnaise.

To that, we're gonna add 2 tablespoons of horseradish, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon of hot sauce, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper.

The sandwich is all about hitting you upside the head with some flavor.

Okay.

And that sauce is done.

So now we're going to do our vegetable garnish for the sandwich.

Traditionally, a po'boy comes with lettuce, tomatoes, and some pickles.

All right.

So, we're just gonna shred 2 cups of lettuce.

And I saw this neat trick once on how to core a head of iceberg lettuce.

Apparently, you just slam it down on the core.

-Wow.

Hey, actually.

-Kind of worked.

-That kind of worked.

-All right.

-And then you kind of went in there and took out its heart.

-I don't want the shreds to be too long so I'm gonna cut this portion in half, and we'll just finely shred this.

And that's about 2 cups right there.

And now we're going to slice 2 tomatoes.

These are vine-ripened tomatoes.

We're gonna first twist off the stem there, and we're gonna remove the core from the tomato.

I like to do this by holding the tip of the knife by my thumb and forefinger about 1/2 inch away from the tip.

So, I go in right next to the core, at about a 45 degree angle, and I stick my thumb right in that core, and then I just rotate the tomato.

Not really doing anything with the knife but just holding it still.

And I move the tomato around the core.

-Very cool.

-And we'll just slice the tomato in thin sandwich slices.

Now before we are gonna turn our attention to the shrimp, we're gonna toast up our rolls here for our po'boys.

Now, traditionally in New Orleans and Louisiana, they have a very specific kind of bread, you know, it's crispy on the outside and pillowy, almost cottony on the inside.

Outside of Louisiana, it's hard to find that exact roll so you look around and see what you can find.

It should just have a little bit of texture on the outside, but the inside should be nice and soft.

You should be able to push it in with your thumb and leave a nice, little thumb print.

Okay.

So, I'm gonna lay them out here, splayed open, and I'm gonna broil them on the upper-middle rack which is about 6 to 8 inches away from the broiler element for just one to two minutes.

You don't want to walk away from it because they tend to burn very quickly under the broiler.

Okay, so the shrimp has been chilling out in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, and you can see that the coating looks a little bit more hydrated on it.

-Mm-hmm.

-And we have 2 quarts of vegetable oil here that I've heated to 375 degrees, and now we're ready to fry the shrimp.

So, I'm gonna do half a batch at a time just so we don't overcrowd the oil.

-Oh, I was gonna say, I'm happy to see you using tongs.

He always likes to tempt fate a little bit.

-I like to do both, tongs and fingers.

-Wow.

You get your fingers dangerously close to that oil.

-Well -- -It's impressive.

-It's actually safer to get your hands close to the oil rather than let the food drop from way up here, 'cause that way you don't create the splatter.

-It's safer to use tongs.

-[ Laughs ] So, that's about half the shrimp.

We're gonna let that fry until it's nice and golden brown, and that takes about four minutes per batch.

All right, you can see our shrimp are nice and golden brown, and they're starting to float to the top.

-Gorgeous.

-That just means they're cooked through.

-Oh!

-We're just gonna transfer them to a paper-towel lined plate.

-Look at those beauties.

-So, we're gonna return the oil to 375 degrees and fry up the second batch of shrimp.

And now we're ready to build some po'boys.

You need to put an ample amount of remoulade on these.

-Mm-hmm.

-So, this makes about approximately 1/4 cup per sandwich.

-Oh, you're not fooling around.

-No, this is a heavy-duty sandwich here.

-Quarter cup per sandwich.

-All right.

And then we'll do a little bit of lettuce, and about three slices of tomato, now a few pickles.

-Oh, lots of pickles on mine.

-Extra pickles?

-Yes, please.

-I also like a good number of pickles on mine.

Now the star of the show, we have our shrimp.

How many we can fit on here and how many we have available is two different stories.

So -- -You fit as many as you can on.

Now you're up to eight, that's pretty good.

-So, I like to give it a smash here... -Mm-hmm.

-...with the right hand, and with your left hand, forcefully press down the top bun.

I like to take on a wide-legged stance here.

-[ Laughs ] To protect your shirt?

Mmm!

It is perfection.

The little bit of seasoning, you're right, with all that cayenne and black pepper, I thought that spice mixture was gonna be too spicy, but it's pretty mild, all things considered.

-Yeah, you get each one of them on the tongue, but you hit that hot oil, it really tempers down the spiciness.

-Oh, and the mayonnaise with Worcestershire and the horseradish.

-Yeah.

-Mmm-mmm-mmm!

-And you can get a little bit of the crunchiness from the cornmeal.

-Bryan, this shrimp po'boy is something else.

-Well, it was my pleasure.

-If you want to make an authentic shrimp po'boy sandwich, start by making a batch of Creole seasoning with paprika, cayenne, and celery salt.

Combine some of that seasoning with flour and cornmeal, then combine some of that flour mixture with eggs.

Dredge in flour, one pound of shrimp, then the eggs, then the flour again, and let the coating sit before deep frying.

To serve, layer the remoulade sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and fried shrimp in a toasted sub roll, and don't forget the napkins.

From "Cook's Country," a bona fide recipe for shrimp po'boys.

Well, I put her down.

Shouldn't have done that.

-You're in trouble now.

-[ Laughs ] -They say in New Orleans, there are three foods that typify Mardi Gras, and that is King Cake, fried chicken, and King Cake.

So, I think King Cake's pretty important.

Now, there are mail-order versions, but are any of them worth the price of postage?

Jack's here, and he's gonna tell us more.

-We're having a party here today.

-It's party gras.

-This is totally fun.

We mail-ordered cakes.

We spent from $45 to $70 including the shipping in order to have a little Mardi Gras come to us.

Brought three samples here for you to taste.

-Okay.

Let's start with this one.

-You can start wherever you like.

So, the audience chose our winner.

Now, the test kitchen made sure to remove the baby from their slices, I'm not promising anything for you.

-Oh, really?

So, I might find a baby in mine?

-Well, you know, you never know.

So, this cake is a Mardi Gras tradition, as you know.

A part of it is baking in little babies.

-Little baby figurines.

-Little baby figurines.

There is some argument among New Orleans historians whether this related to Epiphany and this is supposed to be Baby Jesus.

Other people said it's the only thing that was available when the tradition started and somebody just baked something into a cake... -Right.

-...and that it doesn't have anything to do with Epiphany.

The colored sprinkles do.

The purple, green, and gold sprinkles, they translate to justice, faith, and power.

-Justice, faith, and power.

I like that.

-They're also the jewel tones for the three kings.

-Gotcha.

Okay.

-All right.

So, this is, you know, it's brioche, I would say, so it's buttery, it's tender.

There's cinnamon in there, icing.

A couple of these come with icing you DIY yourself and then you put the sprinkles on.

Some of them come already decorated.

We didn't really find a plus or minus.

Some of them come with the baby already baked in, some of them come with a baby that you can stick in yourself.

-[ Laughs ] Oh.

Well, finding a baby this way would be the easiest way I've ever had a baby.

That's for sure.

[ Laughter ] -That is the goal of the Mardi Gras party with the King Cake, is to actually get the slice with the baby.

-And what if you get if you get the slice besides the Heimlich maneuver?

-Well, you get to wear the crown, you get to have an extra drink, you get to have a kiss, I mean, you get to decide what you want, Bridget.

How does that sound?

-I'm gonna tear these up to find that baby, then.

-So, anything you're noticing here that's different about these?

-Mm-hmm.

These two definitely have a cinnamon presence, especially streusel in the middle.

This one, there might be a little bit of cinnamon baked in there, but I'm not tasting a lot.

There's a little bit in there.

This is very soft, very brioche-y.

Quite a bit of frosting on the top which I like.

-Okay.

-I don't think you can get enough frosting, and I love the crackly sugar.

This one has a very distinct cinnamon layer which I like a lot.

I'm gonna just take another bite and make sure I still like it.

-Now I should say, so, these -- all of them with the exception of one, which is from Mississippi, the rest are from Louisiana.

-That's sacrilege.

They still celebrate Mardi Gras in Mississippi.

-Yeah.

None of them are from Boston.

Let's just put it that way.

-Yeah, that's true.

-That might be sacrilege.

-That is sacrilege.

All right.

I'm gonna say, I really like this one.

It's light, it's fluffy, it's very brioche-y, which I'm loving.

Usually, I love a big cinnamon swirl, you know me and my cinnamon bun addiction.

So, this one I certainly would not get rid of.

I'm gonna take that with me, as well.

This is my favorite.

This is my second favorite.

This is fine.

It's a little bit too coarse, a little too yeasted.

It tastes slightly dried out to me.

-Okay.

Well, the good news is, and really, there is only good news here.

Is that you perfectly aligned with the audience and with the expert panel.

-Nice.

-So, let's start with what you liked.

-All right.

-That's the winner.

That's Joe Gambino.

We loved it for just the reasons that you loved it.

It's kind of simple, but it's delicious.

It's the cakiest of all.

I think that's what I like about it.

It's like a pillow you could put your head on it at night, isn't it?

-And that's one you get to decorate that yourself.

-Oh, you do?

It's DIY?

-Yeah, you can frost and sprinkle them on yourself.

-Ooh.

I like that, I could put "Bridget's King Cake" all around it.

Okay.

And then this one.

-This is the runner-up.

It's delicious.

-Yeah.

-And you said it, it's a lot more cinnamon-y but another great choice.

-Okay.

And then this one, which wasn't bad.

It was just a little bit...

I don't know it tasted like it had been around for a couple of days.

-So, this is from Rouse's, which is a supermarket chain, and it was at the bottom of the rankings.

I mean, it's sweet, it's cake, it's good, but it didn't seem quite as spectacular as the winner.

-Right.

Well, there you go.

We've got a winner of a King Cake, and it's got a little DIY.

Joe Gambino's Bakery traditional King Cake, and it retails for $65.78.

Thanks, guys!

King cake for everyone.

If you think of Louisiana cooking, what do you think of?

Gumbo.

There's jambalaya, touffe, sauce piquant perhaps?

Well, it's a lesser-known dish.

It's a braise, and they cook all sorts of things in it down there in Louisiana, everything from alligator to today's chicken.

And Ashley's here.

She's gonna tell us more about this dish.

-I sure am, yeah.

If you didn't grow up in Louisiana, the chances are you probably haven't heard of chicken sauce piquant.

-I had never heard of it till before we tried it here in the test kitchen.

-Yeah, and I'm so excited to share it with everybody today because it is a really, really good dish and easy to do.

So, no squirrel, no alligator.

We're going to be using chicken.

Here we have 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs.

And I just want to show you how we got this to look like that.

And I'm gonna start just by trimming the fat off, and then I'm going to quarter it.

So I'm just gonna run my knife really lightly along the top and then I'll run my knife just along the outer edge there.

-Cleaning it up.

-Cleaning it off -- that's exactly right.

So, now I'm gonna run my knife just right down the center to quarter it.

Turn that to the side and run that just along the center, just like so.

And this really is just going to make life a little bit easier when we are ready to eat.

-Great.

-Gonna wash my hands real quick.

All right, so here we have what's called Louisiana seasoning.

This is 1 tablespoon, and I'm just gonna sprinkle that over the chicken.

And then I'm gonna toss just to make sure it's all nicely coated.

-Great.

And you can buy Louisiana seasoning at your supermarket.

Sometimes, it called Creole or Cajun seasoning, I'm not gonna get into that argument, or you can make your own.

We've got a great recipe on our website, cookscountry.com.

-And here I have 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour.

Gonna toss in here, as well.

So, I have some oil that's been heating.

This is 1/4 of vegetable oil that's been preheating in this Dutch oven.

It's been set over medium-high heat, and as you can see, it's shimmering nicely.

So I'm gonna add in two batches the chicken to the pot.

And an important note -- don't get rid of the extra flour in the bowl, we're gonna use it a little bit later on in the recipe.

-Great.

-Three to five minutes per side and then we're gonna transfer the chicken once it's nice and golden brown to a plate.

-Great.

-All right, so as you can see, the second batch is nice and golden brown, so let's take it out.

Now, I just want to bring attention to these beautiful brown bits that are forming on the bottom of the pan.

Now, as you know, that is called fond, and that is... -Flavor.

-...flavor.

All right, so I am gonna set that aside for now.

I'm gonna just turn that off for just one second 'cause I have a few things to focus on over here.

Now, this is gonna be the foundation of our sauce piquant.

So, here I have one green bell pepper, and I want to chop it.

So I'm gonna start by trimming off the top and then trimming off the bottom.

Set that aside 'cause I will be using that.

Now just cut a slit down the side there.

And then you're gonna open it up and then run your knife just along the outer interior of the pepper, and then you have a flat pepper to chop from.

About 1/2-inch pieces is perfect.

So, you notice I don't have any carrots on the counter.

It's not a traditional French mirepoix, and the French use carrot, celery, and onion, but it's Louisiana.

-That's right.

-So we are gonna be using celery, onion, and green bell pepper.

-That's the trinity.

-All right.

Perfect.

So, I'm gonna turn my pot back on.

Now we have it back on medium-high heat, and now let's add the rest of our ingredients.

-Okay.

-So, one onion that is chopped.

[ Pot sizzling ] Good sizzle sound there.

And our chopped green bell pepper.

Starting to smell good.

One rib of celery that was chopped, as well.

This is two cloves of minced garlic, and 1 tablespoon more of vegetable oil, and then one more 1/2 teaspoon of that Louisiana seasoning.

And it's missing our last ingredient, and that's the remaining bit of flour that we set aside earlier.

-Oh, yeah.

-Again, we're not using a roux so we're gonna be pouring this remaining flour on top of the vegetables, and it's going to just help to slightly thicken our sauce piquant.

-Great idea.

You can really smell the spices as soon as they hit that hot oil.

You have a lot of oil-soluble compounds in them for flavor but also the heat is just really activating it.

-Yeah, and you can see I'm already getting some of that fond up.

All right.

It's been five minutes, and as you can see, our vegetables are nice and just softened.

-Just softened.

-So, now let's make the sauce.

-Okay.

-We have one 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes.

-And we're going with crushed instead of diced because we wanted it to fall apart.

-Yes.

-Okay.

-We love the texture of that as opposed to the diced tomatoes which held onto their texture a little bit too much.

Here I have 3 cups of chicken broth.

And as if things couldn't get any better than they already are, we're gonna add a little bit of bacon.

-Mm-hmm!

-Two slices of bacon, No need to render it or precook it ahead of time, it's merely in there just for flavor and to add a little bit of smokiness to the background.

-Mmm!

-2 tablespoons of Worcestershire for some umami and depth of flavor.

-Serious savory flavor going on there.

-Mm-hmm.

One bay leaf.

Now stir up any brown bits that formed on the bottom of the pan, that fond I was talking about earlier.

-Yes.

-I'm gonna return the chicken to the pot.

I'm gonna nestle it right on in there.

And sometimes some juices have accumulated at this step, so if so, I'm just gonna pour those right back into the pot because that is some good flavor right there.

-Sure is.

-All right, Bridget.

As you can see, the sauce is up to a simmer, so I'm gonna put the lid on the pot and transfer this Dutch oven to an oven that's preheated to 350 degrees, and I'm gonna cook it until the chicken is tender which should take about 45 minutes.

All right, the time has come.

-[ Gasps ] -Oh, yes.

-Beautiful.

-I do want to discard the bacon and the bay leaf.

-It sacrificed its flavor for the betterment of the sauce.

-A little bit of seasoning -- 1 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce.

Tabasco has that very distinct vinegary flavor.

So, I'm just gonna mix that in here, just taste for some seasoning real quick.

-And the great thing about braising, especially small pieces of chicken like that, you don't have to worry about taking the temp, you know, after 40-some minutes it's going to be done.

-Mm-hmm.

-And nice and tender.

-Yes.

-Great.

-Okay.

So, as you can see, we have some white rice.

I'm just gonna add a few spoonfuls of this gorgeous sauce.

-Mm-hmm!

-With a few pieces of that chicken.

Mmm!

-Gorgeous.

-Almost done.

Some scallions, oh, man.

-[ Sighs ] Tuck into that chicken first.

-Don't even need a knife.

-Nope.

-That's 'cause we quartered it.

And the sauce isn't too thick... -Mmm.

-...without being cooked with that roux.

-The tomatoes add a really nice acidic component to it, but what I like is that it's not too stodgy.

-Yes.

-That meat is fall-apart tender, it's gorgeous.

So uncomplicated and so complex with flavor.

-One pot.

-One pot.

-Yeah.

-Ashley, thank you so much for bringing this fabulous dish to our attention.

-You're welcome.

-Yeah, I'm gonna make it all the time, and you are, too.

Chicken sauce piquant, well, starts with chicken thighs.

Fry the chicken in two batches, then cook onion, bell pepper, and celery.

Add tomatoes, bacon, and Worcestershire.

Simmer the chicken in the sauce seasoned with Tabasco and served with rice and scallions.

So, from "Cook's Country," an amazing Louisiana chicken sauce piquant.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with tastings, testings, and select episodes on our website, cookscountry.com.

I'm starting to feel that Tabasco a little bit.

-Creeping up on you, huh?

-Right here.

-[ Laughs ] -Let us help with dinner tonight.

Visit our website anytime for access to this season's recipes, taste tests, and equipment ratings.

Or to watch current-season episodes, log on to cookscountry.com.