Louisiana Coastal Cooking

-Funding for "Louisiana Coastal Cooking" was provided by the Melvin S. Cohen Foundation, Inc., and by the Plaquemines Parish Tourism Commission.

A short drive from New Orleans, Plaquemines Parish offers a diverse variety of fishing, fresh seafood, rich history, and environmental activities in Louisiana's Delta Country.

Learn more at visitplaqueminesparish.com.

[ Birds chirping ] -Louisiana seafood is the star attraction that draws visitors from around the world to New Orleans.

Diners savor the city's culinary creations, but with imported seafood flooding the market and changing coastal ecosystems, it's essential that authentic Louisiana seafood ends up on their plates.

Responsibly sourcing seafood is the key.

This time on "Louisiana Coastal Cooking," we'll head to the Gulf with Chefs On Boats.

Delta guide Richie Blink and Erik Nunley, chef educator for Chefs On Boats, lead the educational excursions for restaurant professionals out of Empire, Louisiana.

They're joined by Chef Dana Honn and some of his staff.

-We're out here on the Chefs On Boats, part of the Chefs Brigade program.

We're trying to bring chefs out to this beautiful delta, this beautiful gulf that we live in to really try to connect, uh, where our food comes from, the sources, actually trying to put some eyes on what's going on just an hour out of New Orleans, how it actually affects us not just food-wise, but climate-wise, weather-wise.

-So what's going on?

Like, these are mounds that were built by indigenous people.

Even 5 to 300 years after occupation, they're still useful for the local ecology.

You can see there's like three mounds, and the one in the distance over there, those trees just died in the last couple years.

Between, like, the sinking and the raising water levels, some of these sites are starting to kind of fall off.

-In response to warmer conditions, black mangrove trees are spreading in Louisiana's wetlands.

This adaptable species has become an important part of the coastal restoration strategy.

-So these black mangroves started showing up around the 1970s or so.

Mangroves can handle sinking soil and sea level rise.

If it wasn't for these black mangroves, there wouldn't be much other marsh just in this particular area.

-Out here, you know, there's a lot of wide-open water that didn't used to be wide-open water.

This is our estuaries.

This is where our fish come to be born and to grow up.

And once you take all that protection away, you know, these species are left with fewer opportunities to avoid their predators.

And this is their nursery.

They can come, they can hang out under these trees.

-As Louisiana's barrier islands disappear, so do the coastal marshes they shelter.

-So we're standing on Shell Island, which is a rebuilt barrier island along the Mississippi River Delta.

This was built with dredged materials from the Mississippi River, and it serves two purposes.

One is storm surge knockdown power, and the other purpose is habitat creation.

And it's doing a good job of that.

As we can see today, there's lots of birds here.

Look at that.

Nice.

-In addition, you can see some of the tide pools that this island helped create here.

And that's more protected habitat.

We use a lot of the brackish species like redfish, speckled trout, like drum, like sheepshead.

All of these species have their start out here.

Many of them, this is their primary habitat.

Without these areas, we would just not really have much on the plate in New Orleans.

-Chef Erik combines his family's traditions in Shreveport, Louisiana, with his experience as a private chef for our first dish, deeply flavored shrimp and grits.

-The basis of grits is always want to make sure they are going to be their creamiest, creamiest self.

A lot of tips that I like to do that I actually learned from my mom was to actually start with your water and grits in there first and then let it get to a boil.

Most people get water and everything to a boil first and then add it in, but it's a little trick I picked up from her.

So I've always done it this way.

So I have here a little half-and-half, and I'm going to start with about 1/4 cup.

I'm actually going to whisk in my grits just to make sure they're nice and incorporated.

I'm going to do also about 1/4 cup.

And the great thing about with grits is that I always keep water, I always keep some more milk on hand with me, because we can also always add in some more.

I do love the homestyle original grits, because it's just kind of the best grits that you can find out there.

And we're just going to add in a pinch of some kosher salt.

And what I like to do special if I'm doing anything earthy, anything shrimp and grits related, anything that's going to be like a nice savory-type dish, I do like to just add in just a little bay leaf.

And these will cook.

We're just going to watch them on and off.

They're going to cook at least for about 20 minutes.

So I have some tasso here.

Um, I love using tasso in this dish.

The pork, right?

It gives it a nice depth.

If you have non-pork eaters, I love to use mushrooms as a substitute to get that nice umami flavor, right?

All about depths of flavor.

Not going to make it a nice small dice.

Just going to keep it nice and julienned right here just 'cause I want those extra bites.

We have our shrimp here.

And I like to get just a nice sear on one side.

So I have some nice just Cajun Creole spices here.

This has no salt in it.

So just be very generous with the seasoning here on top.

Get a nice pat in.

And I'm just going to do one side, because I want a nice hard kind of sear on this side 'cause it's going to be my show side when we plate up.

I just have some olive oil here.

And these are some beautiful Louisiana shrimp that I got this morning.

We're just going to add these shrimp in here.

I'm just looking for a little color.

You can tell when your shrimp is starting to really cook when they start to curl over.

We want to stop it right before we get to that process.

This is exactly what we're looking for here, just this nice, beautiful golden brown.

That's all I'm going to get on this shrimp.

From this step on, now we're just looking for color and taste.

So I'm going to start out with my leeks and my shallots.

And just going to give this a quick stir.

So now I'm going to add in my bay leaf and thyme, a couple of sprigs of thyme.

And now I'm going to add in my tasso.

Just a little salt here.

Going to add in some Cajun seasoning.

Not going to add too, too much 'cause we're also going to add in some other things, some other different layers.

And some of our pepper blend.

So I have red and I have orange bell peppers, just some nice, beautiful colors that we're adding in.

So what I'm going to add in now, just a little butter.

We're looking for color on the veggies, right?

And we're just going to give this a quick stir, making sure everything gets incorporated.

So this is getting to a great color.

So we're going to add in our garlic and our ginger.

Ginger and garlic, they're a fragrance piece.

They want to be able to smell it.

You want to be able to taste it.

We're going to deglaze with our sherry vinegar first.

Then we're going to come back with some Worcestershire sauce.

So we're actually going to add in a little hot sauce.

A couple of dabs, nothing too crazy.

So we're going to add in our seafood stock from here.

Set it and forget it, right?

And we're going to make a quick little white roux.

So we're going to have about 2 tablespoons of butter to 2 tablespoons of flour.

Still one and one.

We're just going to give this a very quick stir.

Not looking for much color at all, just nice incorporation.

Very quick white roux.

And then we're going to add that back to our gravy that we are building.

And we're going to incorporate all of this together.

Perfect.

We're going to wait for our grits to finish.

They are almost done.

Our beautiful shrimp that we had from earlier.

And again, we only seared that one side, right?

So now the side that we did not cook, just lay them gently in so they can just finish their renderings.

And while these cook, we'll clean up and get ready for plating.

So on to my favorite part.

Let's plate and let's eat.

We have our beautiful grits here.

They came out amazing.

Just a nice, beautiful swirl there.

We're going to lay down a little bit of gravy here.

Just going to lay down three beautiful beauties here.

And we're going to add in some parsley and some chives.

Got to make it pretty.

There we go.

Chef Erik's shrimp and grits.

-We know fishers now that we didn't know five years ago.

And now they're part of our lives.

This -- People talk about sustainability.

Sustainability is just relationships.

But they're relationships that keep on going and sustain people.

-Our next stop is Carmo in the Warehouse District for a Peruvian ceviche from Chef Dana and Chef Wataru Saeki.

-My name is Wataru Saeki.

I'm from Japan, Chiba city.

It's near Tokyo.

I've been working with Dana for 11 years.

We're talking about ceviche in Peru, so my ancestors, like, Japanese immigrants to Peru, they landed in Peru and they found the ceviche.

But it was entirely cooked.

But Japanese people like me really like seafood eat raw.

So my ancestors, I really appreciate that.

They start making the ceviche not fully cooked.

They start ceviche with a raw, like quick cure.

-So we'll kind of get started with -- with our fish.

Today we have some almaco jack.

This fish is one of my favorite Gulf fish, and almaco jack is part of the amberjack family, one of the -- what they call the lesser jacks.

It's perfect for ceviche because it's got a really nice, firm texture.

It's a little bit sweet.

It's not overly strong in flavor.

-Okay, so I'm cutting the fish in half-inch cube.

-What we're going to do is just kind of season that a little bit with a little bit of sea salt.

Gastn Acurio, who's one of the great chefs of Peru, would say he used just a kiss of sea salt on the fish, and what that does, it actually kind of quick cures, uh, the fish.

And it's essential when you make ceviche.

Just going to put some lime on here.

Fresh lime is best, and you don't really want to over-squeeze.

Sometimes you see people doing this.

The problem with that is that then you're going to get a lot of the oils, which can make your ceviche a little bit bitter.

And then go ahead and add, uh, some red onions to it.

The red onions you can add in kind of first with everything else and kind of let them sit.

They'll actually season the fish a little bit.

And then the peppers, too.

What's important is that you have some fresh peppers.

So in this case, we're using just some sweet, like, Italian peppers and some aji amarillo peppers, which are a Peruvian pepper.

You don't necessarily have to have these peppers.

Add in the cilantro.

The only ingredient that we're going to save back, really, is the sweet potato for when we -- when we plate it so that it doesn't get all mushy.

-The marinating sauce has tamari, ginger, garlic, mayo, aji amarillo paste, and a little sesame oil.

-In that time while the fish is marinating, we're actually going to make the second part of this dish, which is a little bit of fried shrimp.

We've marinated this shrimp in a little bit of -- of tamari, a little bit of olive oil, a little bit of passion fruit.

And this is tapioca flour and cassava meal.

You could use cornmeal instead.

We use the tapioca flour because it gives a real nice, uh, texture to it.

Actually, because we use a gluten-free organic tamari, it is also entirely gluten-free, this ceviche.

So I'm just going to do a few of those shrimp, kind of put them together... ...in my little spider here.

This actually is rice bran oil.

So rice bran oil is a great oil you can use for frying because it's a very high smoke point.

It's 100 degrees higher than, like, most vegetable oils or peanut oil, even.

The oil should be right around 360.

If it's too hot, you're going to end up with -- with a mess and burnt shrimp.

See, they've already curled up, and that's perfect.

Alright, so here we got our shrimp.

You can see that it's a nice color.

It's a nice golden brown, but it's got a real nice texture without being overly breaded.

So that's really why we use this type of a breading on it.

Now it's just about putting it together.

So, Chef Wataru, I think we're going to use this dish here.

-Okay.

-And we can kind of kind of just, um, lay it out there.

-That looks good.

-Alright.

-This is ready.

-And then, um, we'll go ahead and put our -- our sweet potatoes in here.

-So the sweet potatoes boiled with cinnamon, whole cloves, and a little sea salt.

-We have a few more peppers that we can kind of put on top.

We'll go ahead and add our shrimp in.

Nice bit.

Now, in Peru, they would say these are chicharrn, which a lot of other countries would be talking about meat if they were talking about chicharrn.

But they have chicharrn de pescado or camarones.

Little bit of cilantro on top.

So this is a ceviche, Nikkei-style, Peruvian, with the chicharrn de camarones.

-For Chef Mike Nelson of GW Fins, sourcing seafood not only provides important information about the fish he serves, it's also a way to support fishermen directly.

-What I consider sustainability is actually finding people -- that's, you know, the fishermen, the farmers, the foragers -- who we work with who actually are doing it right.

-This national expert on Gulf seafood has developed strong relationships with Vietnamese fishermen, dubbing them the unsung heroes of the Gulf fleet.

-In Louisiana, we have a longline tuna fleet, which has shrunk quite a bit over the last 20 years.

These guys are majority Vietnamese fishermen.

These boats go out for anywhere from 10 to 14 days at a time.

Typically, they're out there during the full moon, and that's when they catch all the swordfish.

This literally is the best place in the world to find seafood.

-At GW Fins in the heart of the French Quarter, dry aging enhances the taste and texture of Chef Mike's swordfish chop with black garlic Bordelaise.

-We take these really big primal cuts off these massive creatures, and we hang them in our dry-aging cabinets.

For swordfish, typically it's only going to go for about 11 to 12 days.

But at that point, we've kind of released a lot of the moisture out of it.

We've concentrated the flavors.

We've concentrated the kind of texture of the meat, but at the same time made it more tender and by far more flavorful.

So what we're going to do is just kind of give this a hard sear.

The idea is just to try to treat it like you would a pork chop or even a thick-cut steak.

So today we're going to serve that with a black garlic Bordelaise.

In New Orleans, traditional Bordelaise here is pretty different than most places.

It's basically parsley, garlic, and olive oil.

In France and other places, it's more of a red wine and demiglace, that kind of thing.

So my recipe is kind of an amalgamation between the two.

Black garlic is an ingredient not everybody's familiar with.

It's garlic that's been fermented.

It takes somewhere around 30 days or so to get it to this point, but it has this really caramelly, rich, almost a Worcestershire aroma to it, really incredibly deep, rich flavor.

And that's going to be kind of the background of our Bordelaise sauce.

-Using swordfish and tuna scraps, the chef swaps seafood for meat in seacuterie boards and puts together seafood muffulettas.

-We take the swordfish scraps and we make a pepperoni and what we call a sword-adella, which is basically a mortadella recipe subbing out swordfish.

So the only animal products in here are all from the swordfish.

Really great little dish.

But when I tell you you can't tell the difference between, you know, this being a traditional muffuletta and one that's made out of swordfish, I kid you not, you can't tell the difference in the finished product.

So we're just going to put down our mortadella.

This idea came from the idea that we don't want to waste anything here in the restaurant.

And as a chef, we really don't like to see anything go to waste, and especially an ingredient as amazing as these swordfish, we're not going to let any of it not get used.

So, you know, it's been a goal for many years trying to get as close as I can to zero waste with our -- our fish and our seafood program and getting people excited about cuts of the fish that are not from the center of the fillet.

So, um, this is just an example of something that's really worked out well for us.

A little provolone cheese on top.

Pop our buns right there.

We have... a couple little skewers we can pop in there.

Take our little muffuletta sliders.

And there it is -- swordfish muffuletta.

Alright, so we're going to go ahead and cook this swordfish chop.

All we're going to do is hit it with a little salt and pepper.

Something this thick, I think you need a good bit of seasoning on it.

I prefer just to use straight butter on something like this, because I want that kind of caramelized crispy crust on the outside.

So we're just going to set that down... ...and kind of let it do its thing.

It's going to take a little while.

Okay, while this swordfish chop is cooking, we're going to go ahead and make the sauce.

Relatively simple.

We're going to take some olive oil... and that black garlic we talked about earlier with a little bit of fresh garlic mixed in there.

We got some fresh thyme.

Gonna throw that in there.

A little bit of salt and pepper.

And now we're going to deglaze that with a little bit of red wine.

Got to have the action shot.

There it is.

Alright.

Take a little bit of demiglace.

We're going to add a little of that to kind of allow it to thicken up a little bit.

And now we're going to finish it with some parsley and some fresh chives.

Turn off that heat.

And as quick as that, we have my black garlic Bordelaise ready to go.

So we're going to spoon that right on top of that swordfish.

Speaking of swordfish, let's see how it's looking.

Go ahead and try to give this a gentle turn.

It's looking good.

Got some good caramelization on there.

Can't really rush the process with this.

So we're gonna give it a couple more minutes on that side.

So for the dish that we're going to serve along with it, like I said, we have these white sweet potatoes.

If you haven't used the Japanese white sweet potatoes, they're the ones with the red skin on the outside and the white flesh on the inside.

They taste like somebody injected them full of maple syrup.

They are so sweet.

They are so delicious.

If you haven't tried them -- And a few people do grow them down in Mississippi.

You can get them locally.

They are fantastic.

These are just Granny Smith apples that have been peeled and diced, and we just got some nice little baby brussels sprouts.

At this point, you know, you could roast them in the oven, but for time's sake and we have a deep fryer sitting right here, we're going to drop them right in.

This doesn't take long at all.

I'm just trying to get a little bit of caramelization.

That's about what I'm looking for.

Take a little of that extra oil off of there.

And all we're going to have to do with these -- they got everything they need -- just a little bit of salt and pepper.

And why not?

You know, we'll throw a little butter in there just to boot, but okay.

Well, I think we're ready to plate this up.

Should only take a second to plate it up, and let's eat.

Alright, swordfish chop is good to go, nice and caramelized on the outside.

Let's take a look and see how it looks on the inside.

Yep, so that's where I want it -- just barely done all the way through.

Looks perfect.

Alright, now take a little bit of our... white sweet potatoes, apples, brussels sprouts.

That little bit of sweetness with this is going to go really great with this sauce.

Take a little bit of apple cider gastrique, which is just apple cider and apple cider vinegar reduced down together to make a syrup.

Kind of makes everything pop a little bit.

So take this swordfish.

Let's lay it right on top of there, fan it out a tiny bit.

Here comes our Bordelaise sauce.

Just go ahead and spoon some of that right over.

Give it a little bit extra demiglace just to make this pop a little bit more.

That looks perfect.

And we're going to finish it off with a little bit of fresh herb oil right there around the outside.

And voil, that's GW Fins' dry-aged swordfish chop.

-Sourcing seafood is the hook for sustainability.

By connecting with the coast, New Orleans chefs help protect the treasured species of the Gulf and the fishing community that depends on them for their economic survival.

-You can find recipes for all of the dishes in this series, chef profiles, and more information about "Louisiana Coastal Cooking" by visiting wyes.org.

Funding for "Louisiana Coastal Cooking" was provided by the Melvin S. Cohen Foundation, Inc., and by the Plaquemines Parish Tourism Commission.

Nature, tradition, and culture come together in Plaquemines Parish, where the Mississippi River and the Gulf meet in Louisiana's Delta Country.

Learn more at visitplaqueminesparish.com.

[ Birds chirping ]