The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy

-Funding for "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy" was provided by... -Reflecting its commitment to the Trem neighborhood in which it is located, today, we trace changes to Dooky Chase's restaurant, including an expansion for the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans and a challenging rebuild following Hurricane Katrina.

The events are recalled by Chefs Dook and Zoe Chase through preparation of three dishes that tell the story of the restaurant's evolution.

Pompano with crab meat imperial sauce represents Chef Leah's elevation of the Dooky Chase dining experience, from sandwiches to haute cuisine.

-So we have a beautiful two filets of pompano.

Of course, Pompano is one of our best Gulf fish that we love.

And its flavor is so delicate and nice, you don't really have to do much to it.

We'll start here.

This is a little olive oil in butter.

And as always, how I mix both of them is I don't want that butter to brown fast, right?

So that olive oil is going to help that go slow that butter down from browning.

-And we'll just lightly season the fish with some salt.

And a little bit of pepper.

-And you can see here, I'm just moving that butter around, mixing it in with olive oil.

And I don't want that butter to start to turn brown.

We're going to work this pompano skin side down for about five minutes.

We preheated the oven to 350.

We'll finish it in the oven for about 10 minutes in there.

So this is exactly what I'm looking for.

You can see that butter mixed in well.

And you want to go skin side down, and we'll cook this pompano all the way on its skin side throughout the whole process.

This part right here is what we're trying to do is sear that skin in.

So when we put it in the oven and you go to take it out, the skin is not sticking to that pan.

You get that whole fish fillet to come out.

As always, when we cooking fish, remember we like to watch the sides, right?

As those sides start to turn that white color, you know, you almost say, I like to let it go about half way up until I remove it and put it in the oven.

I'm not going to move it around right here.

I'm not going to put a spatula underneath.

I really want that skin to sear in.

And you talk about when my grandmother came in and she started to introduce lobster and she started to introduce pompano and duck and all these other elevated dishes that she loved to see people eat in the French Quarter, right?

We just didn't have it in our community.

So when she came, you know, my grandmother, she wanted her community to have the highest that anybody else had.

So she brought that here to Dooky Chase.

As you can see, I want you to see here, you see that white coloration starting to rise.

We're almost about half way up.

Right before we move it into the oven, I want to just put two little lemon circles on there.

One is to give it that good little citrus flavor that goes well with fish.

And two, I want to put a little color on these lemons, a little char on these lemons for the presentation, as well.

Zoe's going to work on the crab meat imperial sauce that we love to top our fish with.

-We're heating up our pan with the medium heat.

We're going to add a couple of cubes of butter.

We're going to let our butter melt.

And we don't want the pan too hot because we don't want to burn our butter.

To that pan, I'll add a little bit of flour.

Not too much.

Maybe like a tablespoon.

Once our butter finally melts... ...we'll add some cayenne, and not too much, but you could add as much as you like.

But remember, it is spicy.

We'll add some salt.

Some Worcestershire sauce.

Some lemon juice.

And we'll let that cook for about three minutes.

-You see how thick that is in that pan, right?

All she added, was the sauce and that lemon juice.

You see that blond roux as it thickens up these sauces.

So when she adds this evaporated milk, it'll have that nice consistency to coat that spoon.

-And we'll just add a little bit at a time.

-So we use evaporated milk.

Certainly you can use heavy cream.

If you do use heavy cream, you don't need as much flour, right?

Because that cream is a little bit thicker.

But we like to stay true to Miss Chase's recipes and what we grew up learning.

And you can see that beautiful texture that Zoe has.

That's just going to coat that flavor of that fish with that crab meat.

-All right.

Now we're going to taste to see where our flavors are at.

Mm.

A little more salt.

And maybe a pinch more cayenne because I like spice.

-You don't want to taste too much pepper because you don't want to overshadow or overpower that lump crab meat and that fish, but you want it to have a little bit of hit to it.

-All right.

-Let me get one last taste.

Mm.

That's right on.

-So now we'll add some of our crab meat.

And some of our parsley.

We'll fold that in.

Look how beautiful this sauce is.

It's going to coat the fish so perfectly.

-That pompano is starting to talk to me, right?

I start to smell it getting ready, coming out of this oven.

So we're getting ready to pull that out.

We'll move all this, get it cleaned up, and be ready to plate it up for you.

You can see our lemons started to char a little bit.

Before I take it out, I do want to just baste it with a little bit of that brown butter.

And put this piece right here, and you can see.

Skin is intact.

You can see the pan, no skin left on the pan.

That's because we allowed it to sear right there before we put it in the oven.

Zoe has that beautiful imperial crab sauce.

I mean, you can just smell it.

I mean, look at this dish.

You talk about something that's elevated.

Oh, wow.

We'll finish that with a little parsley on top.

And I'm going to grab another lemon wheel.

So if you like, if you're someone like me who likes to squeeze a little more citrus on my fish, you're talking about our pompano with our crab meat imperial.

-The 1984 Louisiana World Exposition transformed New Orleans and Dooky Chase's restaurant.

The Chase's were supporters of the exposition that showcased the city and served on a planning committee.

An expansion before the expo added two dining rooms to the restaurant's existing footprint.

Chef Leah turned the grand opening into a fundraiser for the I've Known Rivers Pavilion.

-That was an exciting time, preparing for the 1984 World's Fair.

My grandparents served on the Planning Committee for the World's Fair at the request of our former mayor, "Dutch" Ernest Morial.

We were able to expand into our current footprint in 1984.

My mother, Emily Chase Haydel, was working alongside of her parents and her grandmother at that time, so she was a part of that expanding time.

-Steak au poivre, with its rich French cream sauce, became a menu item after the World's Fair renovation.

-Now we're talking about, as the restaurant evolved, and we talk about a big event that's coming to the city of New Orleans.

We're talking about the World's Fair.

And with that, we talk about the expansion of Dooky Chase Restaurant.

As you know, we started off on a corner just with the bar, and then we had what we called the Gold Room.

But later on in the '80s, my Aunt Emily came with my grandparents and expanded this restaurant into the dining rooms that you see today, our main dining room and our Victorian room.

And what that came our expanded menu.

And you talk about something just with those fine dining tablecloths, steak au poivre, and that's what my grandmother loved.

And it's really just a good piece of beef, whether you like a filet mignon or whether you like a T-bone steak.

Me personally, I love a great ribeye because it has that fat and that marble all throughout.

So here I have a great ribeye that you just want to season with a little salt, not too much.

And what we have here is these little black peppercorns.

Nowadays you have the grinder where you can grind those peppercorns, right?

Back in the day, you had to crush these peppercorns out, which I did here.

And I'll show you just a little bit, if you want to do it.

Get some peppercorns from your store.

If you have a little mallet.

I'll put it in a paper.

Couple beats.

That's it.

And this is what you're looking for, right?

You're looking for -- you still want some of those peppercorns to shine through, but you want it to break and release some of that, right?

We'll start to season this beautiful ribeye I have here with these peppercorns.

And always I like to tell people when they first starting to cook beef, right, if you think you got enough pepper, do a little bit more.

That beef can withstand a good bit of seasoning and a good bit of pepper.

So we'll do both sides here.

I'll pick this up.

And I have some already done on this side.

And while I'm doing that, I have my pot getting hot on medium heat here.

I'll put that down.

So we'll go in with a little butter.

And again, if it's a little high, always remember you can pick him up.

We'll throw in a little oil.

Slow it down just a tad.

And you can see I started to slow that butter down, and all we're doing is just mixing them in.

And we'll get ready to get this searing going.

So I'll put that steak down.

-[ Sizzling ] -And you can hear.

That's what you're looking for, right?

Not too high.

Not too low.

You want that right sizzle on it.

I want to keep it on the low heat.

And again, this is not one of those where you just got to flip and flip and flip.

We don't flip that much, right?

We want that good sear to come on that steak.

Let that go for about five minutes.

We'll flip them over and let that go again for another five minutes.

So you can see here, it's starting to come up a little bit right below half.

We'll turn him over.

And that's what we're looking for.

That good sear on that beef.

We'll do the other side.

And here you're going about five minutes, right?

I want to get a good medium rare.

And a trick, when you start talking about the temperatures that you like, right, I hold my thumb loose, right?

And it's like this.

You're looking at a rare.

A little tighter, that's a medium.

And if you want it, well, just squeeze your fists and make that fist, and that's your well done.

That's what we're looking for here.

So you can see I can do this.

Right there, you see that movement that lets me know it's rare, right?

I'm going to let it go for another four minutes.

It's going to get right to my mid-rare that I'm looking for.

Now as we make this peppercorn sauce... ...it's just a few ingredients.

It's butter.

It's your heavy cream.

It's your cognac.

Cognac, for you, it's optional.

If you don't want to put any cognac, that's perfectly fine.

Just remove that.

Use your butter, your peppercorn, and your salt.

And I'm gonna make that touch.

That's right where I want it.

You see it firmed up just a little bit.

We'll look on this side.

Look for that sear.

That looks beautiful.

And I'm gonna put this right over here to rest.

Turn that fire down just a little bit.

If you are using cognac, right, you're going to turn that fire down just a little bit.

And this is what you want to be careful if you're doing this at home.

Not too much.

It is going to flame up, right?

Any time you use alcohol or wine, you have a tendency to create a flame.

[ Sizzling ] There you go.

And that's what'll happen in your house, right?

But if you just want to let that cognac cook out without doing that, get a higher lip skillet.

That way, it won't hit that flame and you'll kind of protect yourself at home.

I am going to add a little salt to this.

A little more of our black peppercorn.

And here's where you want to go to a low heat, because we're getting ready to add in a little more butter.

Picking up that great peppercorn, and you can start to smell that peppercorn as that hits your nose to let you know you have enough pepper in it.

And right as we add that butter, we have heavy cream.

And you want to turn it on low.

I don't want it to break that cream.

So I'm going to add it in gently.

And just stirring it in, Right?

This is what you're looking for.

You can see that color.

As you're doing this, you can smell that peppercorn just hitting your nose.

And gently, because you'll see, you don't want to pour in too much, right?

You just want enough to create a beautiful sauce that you're gonna coat it with.

I'll add a little bit more butter in here to kind of pull this together for us.

Of course, we got to taste it to make sure we have enough peppercorn in there.

I'll get my tasting spoon here.

I'm going to hit it with a little more salt and a little more pepper.

You want that pepper to stick out.

This here is a peppercorn sauce, so we'll hit it with a little more peppercorn.

A little salt.

And we'll let that butter melt.

That's what we're looking for.

I'm gonna add a little more butter.

This will give it that shine.

And as we move, this is almost like cream and the sauce, right, when you're moving that butter around.

This is things that just gives it that shine.

When you talk about any sauce that you want to finish that has a shine to it.

My sauce looks great.

Tastes great.

I'll get ready to plate this beautiful ribeye with this peppercorn sauce.

Steak au poivre on the way, and I'm ready to dig in.

We're going to take that ribeye.

Put it right here.

I'm going to give some of that juice.

Good flavor back into our sauce.

And here, I'll take this pan here.

And this is -- I'm gonna add a pinch of parsley just for color.

Another thing, if you had just a little chopped chives, if you wanted.

Anything you have, you can add on.

And all you're doing -- and you can see it coats that back of that spoon beautifully.

That's all you want.

And it'll just -- look.

Oh, man.

This is what you're talking about.

An elevated steak.

Steak au poivre with a beautiful peppercorn sauce.

We'll finish that with just a little top of parsley.

Here, I just have some pickled red onions that we do in house just for color.

And you're talking about something that's just fantastic.

You talk about the growth of Dooky Chase, our steak au poivre and continued our evolution here at Dooky Chase Restaurant.

-In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, citywide flooding devastated New Orleans.

With five plus feet of standing water in the Trem neighborhood, Dooky Chase's restaurant suffered catastrophic damage and remained closed for over two years while the family rebuilt.

During construction, Chef Leah and Dooky Chase Jr., whose home also flooded, moved into FEMA trailers across the street from the restaurant to oversee the work.

-You know, a lot of people ask me, "Leah, why are you doing this?"

Even some of my sisters said, "Why are you doing this?

At your age, why don't you just give it up," you know?

I can't do that, because if I give up here, then there's no community here.

-That took a lot of resilience, and it showed the stamina and the perseverance, the fortitude they had that they were not going to be denied, that this restaurant would go to their next generation.

They had spent all of their lives working that this would go to the next generation.

-Finally, the Louisiana classic -- crawfish touffe, a mainstay on the Friday buffet that chef Leah instituted when the restaurant reopened after Hurricane Katrina.

-Today we're going to make a New Orleans favorite -- crawfish touffe.

So I have some pale crawfish tails right here.

And I have, to my pot, that's on a medium heat, I'm going to add some oil.

And also some butter.

And what we're going to be making is our roux And our roux is very essential for our crawfish touffe.

So we want to be constantly stirring our roux to make sure we're not burning it, and we want it to get to like a peanut butter color.

So we're going to constantly stir it for about 5 to 6 minutes.

You know, crawfish touffe is my favorite dish.

You know, after Katrina, we had buffet, and every Friday, we would do a bunch of seafood, and crawfish touffe would be the highlight of the buffet.

Also, as well as the whole fish.

It would be amazing.

So we want to keep stirring our roux.

You know, we wanted our peanut butter color.

And when we're stirring our roux, we want to make sure we're scraping our pot on the side so that nothing's sticking and that we don't have any extra little flour on the sides.

So now to our pot.

We're going to add some onions.

And this is also going to stop the cooking process a little bit.

And that's what we want because we don't want our roux to get too much darker.

We'll also add some celery.

And you can smell, you know, that roux has that great nutty flavor.

Just smells so amazing.

I've also added some bell pepper and some garlic.

We'll give that a mix.

All right.

Here we have some seafood stock, but if you know, you don't have any like crawfish or lobster stock, you could use -- shrimp stock would be perfect.

You know, some fish bones.

If you have those, you could use that as a stock.

All right.

Now we'll add our water.

-Mix that.

All right.

Now, my favorite part -- Seasoning time.

So we have some paprika.

And that's also going to give the touffe a beautiful color.

We have some salt.

We have some Creole seasoning with celery salt.

Some crushed red peppers.

And, you know, touffe is supposed to be a little spicy.

You're supposed to feel that kick.

And also some cayenne.

Mix that.

And we'll let this go for a boil for maybe like five minutes.

And once we're at a good simmer, we'll add in our crawfish tails.

Looks so good.

Let's give it a taste.

-Mm, so yummy.

-So we're at the perfect consistency.

We just wanted to get a little simmer.

So once we put our crawfish tails in, it will be hot enough.

That way, we won't have to cook it so long because we don't want to overcook our crawfish.

This is the consistency we're looking for, that velvety, you know, it's going to stick to your spoon.

All right.

Now that we're simmering, we're going to add our crawfish tails.

And remember, we only want to cook them for maybe about 2 to 3 minutes.

We're only warming them because they're already pre-cooked.

Also, we're going to add a little green onion.

And some parsley.

Smells so good.

And you could also, if you know you don't like crawfish, you could do a shrimp touffe.

It will be just as delicious.

You could do fish, you know.

All right.

Looks like we are ready.

Now I'll clean up, and we'll be ready to plate.

Now that our crawfish touffe is done.

Looks beautiful.

Look at that velvety texture.

Let's plate.

And we want to make sure we get a bunch of crawfish.

And this touffe will be paired great with white or brown rice, whichever is your preference.

Looks so delicious.

And I'll add a little more green onion, a little more parsley.

So the restaurant's been here for over 81 years.

I'm fifth generation, and I'm excited to continue on the legacy and the evolution of these beautiful and amazing dishes.

Crawfish touffe.

-Chef Leah Chase spent a lifetime uplifting the community and building bridges through food.

For more meals that bring people together, join the Chase family next time on "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy."

-Leah Chase's iconic book, "The Dooky Chase Cookbook," has been updated and includes all new recipes from this series you're watching.

The cookbook is available for $27.95 plus shipping and handling.

To order, please call 1-866-388-0834 or order online at wyes.org.

-It's big shoes to fill.

Our grandparents reached a lot of people, and it was just their genuine nature to do that, is to serve.

And so it's like we know that importance, and it takes a lot of us to fill those four shoes, right?

-So for us, carrying on the legacy and the tradition that my grandparents have put in place is everything.

And so it's with great gratitude and appreciation that we work together.

It's a blessing.

-Their love for the community, their love for social justice, their love for doing what was right is what made this restaurant what it is today.

-Faith and family has always been the guiding principles for this family.

It has gotten us this far.

It's going to continue on and get us through each and every thing that we face.

So, you know, we always have those higher powers up there.

You know, now my great-grandparents, my grandparents, and my aunt are looking down, making sure we're getting it right.

-For more information about "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy," visit... Funding for "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy" was provided by...