There's a community near the marshes of South
Louisiana called New Iberia. It's a place where live oaks vow to touch the earth, where blue
collar, white collar, science and art live together. A place marked by the presence of
the serene Bayou Teche. A place where making the best of living off the land and gulf waters
transforms to stories of perseverance, resiliency and unique flavors. It's gumbo, it's a network of
home gardeners, small farmers and local fishermen. It's gumbo, it's what we do best. More than
food, it's community, friendships old and new. It's a long history of assimilating
culture served up with a smile. Join us for gumbo! Hi, I'm Kernis Louviere, 10 times World Champion
Gumbo Cook and the recipient of the Jimmy Picard Award. It was the first annual award that
I achieved and I'm gonna do a chicken and sausage gumbo for you like a champion. Okay,
we're gonna go ahead and start our gumbo and I'm just gonna let you know, my roux, this
is the way I do my roux. And, like I said, everybody has their own method. My method is I
use one cup of oil to a cup and a half of flour, and the reason for that is I like the consistency
of a roux like a peanut butter, and the reason I do that is as it it's going to be thick when we
start, but as it cooks it starts to thin out. I find it's just a better process for the finish,
so I'm going to do that and I'm going to add the flour. And the way we're going to do it today,
we're gonna do a four stage, we're gonna do a four stage roux, and by that I mean we're gonna start
on a high fire and we're gonna stir constantly. And every time that roux changes colors, I'm gonna
lower the fire. You know, when we do the gumbo, we like to use, we love our black pots. Our
black pots are cured and they're seasoned. They call it seasoned, which has got the color to it.
And what you really want for your pot for a roux, you want your inside to be very very smooth. What
happens is if you have the pores from a new pot, the flour and the oil stick into the
pores, and that's how your rouxs get burnt. If you burn that roux, throw that away. Don't
ever let anybody make you believe that if you burn that roux, it's gonna be okay. It's not gonna
be okay. In fact, when we do the gumbo cook-off in New Iberia, that's where we put our noses up in
the air and see who's going to burn the first one. And you know anytime you go to a cookoff,
always have extra flour and extra oil, always. And we just and I like to constantly
stir, and if I have an opportunity I'll have a rum and coke or two while I'm stirring. And
we're going to stir it around, and we're going to lower that fire to about three quarters of
the way. It's on high right now. We're going gonna lower it to three quarters. It's going to
turn that color again. We'll lower it to half, and then once we get to the fourth stage we'll be
on a low fire. You want it about right there. And that's why they put a knob on the stove.
They have high, medium, low and super low some people like a really dark
roux the only thing you have to be concerned about with a very dark roux is that
your gumbo is not going to be a thick gumbo it's gonna be a thin gumbo because you've broken
down that flower so much and it's gonna make a nice dark and it's gonna have a real dark
rich flavor but it's not gonna be thick now i'm at stage three of my color and i've
lowered my fire and it's on about a medium to low fire we started out full and now we've reduced
it and we're at stage three as i like to call it so what you can do is if you're
really not sure about your ratio you pull some of that roux out and you
can add it you can add it as you cook it you can't take it out once you put
your vegetables and your stock in there and we're going to turn it off
this is where the magic happens now hi stranger i'm gerald falk from a
board member with the chamber of commerce long time cook-off supporter volunteer and head
of the security team you found yourself here in bulandi plaza home and heart of
the world championship gumbo cook-off you know everything happens here in the plaza
in fact if i were to sniff a couple of times i can smell the gumbo now you'll look down
we have all of our misen plots done we do my method is three two one for vegetables
that means in this particular i'm gonna use three cups of chopped onions i'm gonna use two
cups of vegetables and when i say vegetables i mean bell pepper and bell pepper or the red
yellow and orange and i use poblano versus bell pepper i don't like the bitterness of the
bell pepper personally so my method uses the poblano and then we're gonna finish with
one cup of celery so it's a three two one so we're at the stage now where we have the
vegetables in okay and what the vegetables are doing they're stopping the roux from cooking
what we're going to do is get the onions and all the vegetables to translucent just clear we don't
want to cook them down all the way we just want to make sure that we've imparted some of the
flavor from those vegetables into that roots and as these vegetables cook not one time
have you heard me say anything about garlic garlic does not belong in a gumbo garlic
belongs in a stew you find a recipe it shows you me some garlic and i'm gonna tell
you it's not a cajun that wrote that recipe and i'm gonna raise the fire because i'm about
to add that stock to this thing because this right where i need for it to be my vegetable if you're gonna this roux is hot my stock is
cold if you add hot to hot there's a possibility that this stuff will break apart on you and you
never and you can never you can never go back with it so just keep that in mind when you're
doing it that you always want to make sure if your roux is hot the stock is cold or
your broth if you're if you're using your broth or your stock and it's hot you're going
to add the root to it you add cold roux to it and about five minutes from now it's going
to start boiling like you're about to see on the edges it's about and it's going to foam
and what most people don't realize you want you want that gumbo to foam because what you're
doing is you're breaking down the flour in the root whatever part of that flour is not totally
finished cooking it's going gonna once it foams it's breaking down that flour to finish that's
what gives that gumbo a velvety touch to it into the mouth and you can see right now it's
bubbling and it's breaking down that flour and it looks thick but you have to remember
as you add your ingredients like your proteins your meats your sausage your chicken all
of those pieces of meat they have liquid and that liquid is going to break down okay
and it's going to thin out that gumbo for you so you don't have to worry if it's a little
thick by the time you're done it's going to it's going to thin out the right the perfect
consistency that you're looking for for a gumball you can add filet and i like filet and
there's two different kinds of filets you know and they're both made with sassafras you
have the if you can find the people who grow the sassafras tree and make the filet for you you're
going to see that that filet is a dark green and it's a super super thickener versus the filet
that you find in the bottles those are are brown that's a commercial i call it that a commercial
feeling but if you can get your hands on the filet that the people in up around units in that
area they do have a lot of bottom land with the sassafras trees like to grow in in moisture they
like low bottoms and stuff and it's a three three leafs and they're all different shapes on
a sassafras tree that's the distinguishing marks of a sassafras but back to the thickening
part you use very little of the the homemade filet is what i call it very green and it thickens
your your gumbo or whatever you're going to put in very quickly the filets that you've that are
commercial take a while they're going to thicken but you have to be very careful because what
happens it doesn't look like it's working and then all of a sudden it gets thick
on you you know so you have to like i said the homemade filets are instant they're
gonna thicken that gumbo really really quick that thing smells pretty good you see we talked
about the foam earlier you can see it's starting to foam right here all along those edges and we're
doing breaking down that flower for us and that's what i want it to do whenever i'm going to add
the meats into it i want it i want this thing just bubbling without any kind of foam whatsoever and a
lot of times once you add your meat and stuff and you see foam once you add your protein if you
see foam start skimming because that's grease i'm gonna give you a little secret about this
stuff too we do this to let for the thickness you're looking for coat the back of that spoon
that's what you're looking for for the thickness when i made my broth we took the heart
the liver and the gizzards and we put that in the in to make the broth but we're
going to put that in the gumbo because every chicken has all three of those parts in them why
throw it away so we're gonna add that to our gumbo that foam is blown away so i know my flower
has broken down and it's where it needs to be and i'm going to add the
rest of my stock to it now and like i said i used i cooked
it so i'm going to use it you know and and as you're cooking your
vegetables your vegetables break down you'll notice your vegetables and in some
instances we'll add some chopped sweet onion about 45 minutes before we'll add that onion
just to give it so you can have a little bit crunch from the onion because you cook it
down and everything just kind of goes away we're gonna add a little bit boneless skinless
chicken breast and it's already seasoned that's why you haven't seen me with salt pepper or
anything at this stage of the game because my meats are marinated and they have flavors in them
so we're going to try to impart those flavors out of that chicken before we start adding any kind of
seasoning whatsoever to it so we're going to let in the in this raw so we're going to it's going to
take a while to cook for that you know and i say a while it takes 10-15 minutes for that chicken
to be cooked and we're going to start adding our other proteins to it which is a smoked sausage
and we can talk about you know the different varieties of the smoked sausages and stuff that
they're up there everybody out there has a smoked sausage that they prefer we try to buy local we
have a local butcher legnan's boucherie who we like to patronize for the grumble cook off he does
a really good job with his smoked sausages and it just has a very unique flavor i think as far as
seasoning goes you can over complicate a gumbo salt a little bit black pepper and i like chinese
red pepper okay those are my three the only other thing i and i will stop at a certain point with
black pepper and i'm going to switch over to white pepper and i'm going to tell you the reason
that i find why white pepper works better white pepper is already it's a powder so once you
put it into your food whatever intensity of of spice that that pepper gives off white pepper
is going to give it to you instantly black pepper black pepper has to break down okay and you might
put it and you put it and you think it looks like you don't have enough and you do because as it
starts to break down and melt it starts to get spicy and before you know it it's too late it's
really really spicy with black pepper people will handle the red pepper the black pepper is very
offensive to them so that's why i'll use i like white pepper because i can taste it and get
what i'm looking for and stop at that point now we're going to add the smokes out there
we talked about it a little bit earlier and you can see where we cubed it okay
and what we did we put it in the saute pan get most of the grease out of it that
way i'm not fighting grease in my gumbo and it's bite-sized pieces for all the
trollers so everybody get some sausage and listen and people do potato salad and they
use those potatoes from the crawfish boil no yeah they'll take the potatoes that's left
and make a potato salad with that number why because it tastes nothing but crab water for gumbo is just potato salad with eggs and
and not a whole lot of stuff in it and then you put it right in that gumbo you don't need
the rice you know but i don't know and it's and i think it's just here it's just low kind of
local southwest louisiana kind of thing that where we do the potato salad in the gumbo because
i went to south carolina and they did a gumbo with potato salad john fose and told people
he said you put your potato salad in the gumbo you know and they they're like oh my god it
was like like evangeline made sliced bread too and what i do is like and you look at these
chicken thighs and what i do to these chicken thighs is i partially bake them i just want to get
enough of the grease out of it but when you flip this thing over this is where all the fat a lot
of the fat in that chicken thigh is in these areas here so what i'll do is i'll scrape i'll scrape
the skin on the back side get that fat off of it and on this side right here on this edge
of a chicken thigh you have that fat on every chicken thigh and
i will take that fat out of every one i will pull that fat off every
time scrape it off of there and then i wrap i wrap the chicken breast when i bake them all the
chicken breasts look like this when they come out of the oven or even the smoke or whatever i'm
doing what it does it protects that meat on the bottom okay if you pull that skin off on this
thing this bottom is all exposed and it gets way way overcooked so you may try to make it cover
as much of that bottom as you can when you bake it and what we're doing with these chicken thighs is
they're pre-seasoned and they're partially baked and what we're doing is adding
another layer of flavor into that into that gumbo with that chicken thigh because
like i said it's not fully cooked but we're gonna get it in there and all that liquid is gonna
come out and make it taste really yummy and i don't know if you guys thought i was gonna
throw this away but look at here there he goes at this stage of the game we're gonna
add a little bit parsley fresh parsley if you can get fresh as much fresh as you can if you add it too late you never really
cook out all the flavor of that parsley coming along y'all i'm gonna add some green onion fresh green onions
out of my garden that mindy just went cut and i like to i like to use the scissors some people use
the knives and they're not good with the knife so this is what we use to make the broth this is the
chicken we only put it in there until a certain point we didn't want to cook the chicken until it
falls apart we want to get some of the flavor out of the bones from the chicken so we just use
a whole chicken drop it in there boil it for about 35 40 minutes and take that chicken out and
then finish cooking finish cooking the broth with the chicken and this is going to go back in the
gumbo and it only has to cook for about 25 or 30 minutes for it to be done so we're gonna add all
the eight pieces of the chicken to the gumbo now you have the breast and the smoke sausage you
have the chicken thighs you have the gizzles the livers and the hearts and then you have the
whole chicken that we just dropped in there and now at this point of the game this is magic and now if you look at this you'll notice
that this gumbo is almost done during all the defatting processes that we go through skinning
and pulling fat off of stuff and cooking it down and extracting the grease from everything
you can see our gumbo has zero grease to it this is a winner this is one
of them winter gumbo's this is got some body to it that's the kind of
stuff when it's cold it's stick to your ribs we're gonna serve that one in
world championship gumbo cups so here's our finished product our gumbo
is done and what we're going to do is now is we're going to go ahead and in a couple
of seconds we're going to stir it around a little bit and we're going to plate it up and
everybody's going to sit down and enjoy some gumbo voila all right so here's the finished product i want
to thank everybody who cooked with me today and hopefully i gave enough tips and little pointers
that will help improve some of your gumbo games so with this being said this is our finished product
and we're fixing to sit down and need some gumbo check this out if you want to try some of this
you'll see us in october come and get something a sorry good afternoon i'm walter voris i'm
head cooked for uncle's barbecue sauce here in new iberia louisiana i'm also on
the chambers board for the gumbo cook-off i'd like to welcome all y'all here today we're
going to try to cook a melange gumbo for you and uh melange gumbo if you're not familiar
with that according to our rules would be any gumbo that is not chicken and sausage or
traditional seafood today we're going to be doing a shrimp and okra gumbo some people would term
it as as a seafood gumbo but the main component in our gumbo is going to be the okra so that's
what's going to make it a little bit different than a traditional seafood gumbo so today
we'll have shrimp and okra gumbo i've been with the gumbo cook-off from its inception over
31 years now uh i oversee the judging process i have not cooked in the com in the cook-off for a
few years now but i do oversee the judging process hi i'm alex patsy with uncle's barbecue sauce
and the first thing we do to make great gumbo is we make a roux now it's quite obvious to a
lot of people how difficult a roux is and of course it's not so what a roux simply is is flour
that's browned in oil that's it so what we do to expedite it so it doesn't take forever is we get
the oil very hot we whisk in a little bit of flour looking for the color of what we want the root
to end up looking like once we obtain that color then we add some more flour and
we continue to repeat the process until the thickness that we desire has been
achieved and when that happens your rule is done so one of the things about the the cook-off
uh is the time restraints that we have you know when you consider that most rules are
going to take about an hour put together chef alex has a unique process where he cooks
that ruined you know 10-15 minutes most of us are taking an hour to an hour and 13 15 minutes to
cook that roux and so the first hour is that for sure is involved in cooking room and sauteing
vegetables and getting the stock up to temps it's hard to believe so the concept is you want to stop the cooking
process if you left it in the skillet it would continue to cook so if you reach the color you're
looking for put it in a separate pan and let it cool down laissez le roulette chef started
i'd like to tell you the components that we're going to be putting in today's gumbo starting of
course with garlic uh we're going to use about a pound of garlic the gumbo that we're going
to make is going to be about a 5 gallon gumbo we'll have about 25 pounds of shrimp we'll
have 15 pounds of okra and then we'll have uh two and a half pounds of celery two and
a half pounds of red and yellow bell pepper uh and i think that's it we're going to
be adding a tomato component to this gumbo so we'll be using some tomato paste
and we'll be using rotel tomato at this point i'd like to go ahead and start
we have a pound of butter in the pot melted we're going to go ahead and start with the
garlic first today's gonna be we're gonna have a right at a pound of garlic
that we're gonna saute into this i like to cook in my hard vegetables uh before the
onions so we'll go ahead and we'll add our celery the sauteing process will take about 20-25 minutes that's our onion going into the pot over the years we've seen quite a few different
types of gumbos being made at the cook-off we've seen things that really blew my mind people
putting beef in gumbos of course the melange gumbo's with having just about anything imaginable
from wildlife to alligator to guinea to turkey and it's an interesting category
the uh the cook-off has been one of one of my pride and joys i've had a lot of
camaraderie and made a lot of good friends over the years you can imagine after 31 years and
having a multitude of 75 to 95 teams at a time there's quite a few characters that come out on
the plaza for this event and uh that's that's the thing that makes it in my mind is the people
you know this is this has been a a wonderful event for the chamber but a even better event for the
community and for new iberia and iberia parish it's just amazing to see the little mom and
pops that come we started a youth gumbo my friend curtis luviere he started a youth gumbo
and i think we have about eight to ten teams that compete in that event that's been going on for
four or five years now and it's turned out to be a nice little event to start bringing in younger
people to evolve into the into the cook-off welcome to iberia parish which is located
on the bayou test national paddle trail it's the home of tabasco unique island adventures museums and plantations and even a 100 year
old rice mill that you can tour with so much to see and do we
invite you to visit iberiatravel.com to plan your trip today see you soon okay so i'm gonna go ahead the onions and the
garlic and the and the celery has started to wilt i'm going to go ahead and add in our red and
yellow bell pepper and we have green bell pepper and that'll be the combination
of all the vegetables that's going into the pot we'll get that
cooked in and then we'll add our roux in we've got our vegetable sauteed pretty good i'm going to go ahead and start
adding in the tomato paste we'll get that incorporated real
good and then we'll put our hotel in over the years you know in the beginning
it was just pretty much local teams that would come in for the cook-off and we've
seen teams come as far as japan california we have teams from mississippi texas uh i think
we might even had a group from memphis at one time and uh new york city so it's uh it's gaining some
some worldwide recognition if not worldwide for sure some u.s wide recognition and uh it's always
nice and interesting to see these other teams come in because they always bring another kind of
element in uh the one thing that that i've noticed about the the guest teams that come in is how much
they like the cajun people how much they like the culture in iberia parish and new iberia the fun
that they have and the people that they meet this is a very very colorful gumbo we've got
reds and yellows and greens and whites and and some brown it is a it's
a gorgeous start for a gumbo uh in a few minutes we're going
to go ahead and incorporate our seafood stock and then our roux
you ready for that now okay so we have about two and a half gallons of
stock here we're gonna go ahead and incorporate and i don't think i'm gonna put quite all of it
yeah the seafood stocks can sometimes be a little bit potent so we're gonna back off on instead of
using the whole amount we'll water that down a little bit okay so the stocks the seafood stocks
uh it's kind of interesting some people prefer using shrimp some people prefer using crab some
people use the combination one thing for sure about seafood stock is it's a delicate stock and
and so it's really important to not boil it hard we like to you know myself i like to put a
mirepoix which is a combination of different elements we put carrots garlic onion we put lemon
and whole black peppercorns and we'll we'll tie that up in a cheesecloth and we'll drop that in so
that we get those flavors into that stock as well but we don't boil sea chicken we don't boil
the seafood stock for very long and we don't try not to boil it at all actually try to get
it just to where it's in the 8 185 to 200 range and uh it only takes probably about an hour
to put that together we basically will uh remove uh any of the gills from the crabs so
that we don't have that bitterness in there and and use the crab shell caps and any fat or
anything that might be left over from picking in the shrimp we'll use the heads more so than the
bodies and if we if we do use fresh shrimp heads we start a process where we sweat those heads
and a little bit of butter in the bottom of the pot before we add that water and that
fat's going to cook and it'll turn that nice orange reddish color that we like to
have for the color in the in the stock so the seafood stock is a very important component
sometimes you don't have you know depending on the weather and elements and stuff in hurricanes
sometimes we don't have those so we'll use uh seafood bases the one thing that that we like
to do is we check the sodium count make sure that we don't have a high concentration of salts
in those bases and we'll go ahead and make our stock like that as well and it gives pretty good
flavor it's not mandatory but i can tell you it's hard to beat fresh shrimp heads that are that are
sweated and the fat cooked like that for the gumbo today's stock was made primarily with
crab shells is what we had available uh with a hurricane two hurricanes blowing
through here in the last couple of weeks it put an interference in in the
amount of shrimp that were available so we made with what we had on hand i think i'm
gonna go ahead and add another gallon of water so in the roux you know i like a i like a
light rule with my uh okra gumbo so that i can see the the beautiful green color of the
okra i don't want to wash that out and uh in this gumbo 5 gallon gumbo we're
going to use right at a quart of room okay we're gonna go ahead and
bring that into the gumbo now so like chef alex was talking about earlier aru is uh just two elements you know it's oil
and it's flour so we love cooking with oil in south louisiana we love fat we love oil but we
like to cook with it we don't like to eat it so at some point if there's if there is oil
that develops on this gumbo we're going to go ahead and pull that off but usually there's
not much oil to come off of an okra gumbo we're going to try to cook this hard for about 35
to 40 minutes and that way we can get the oil to separate from the toasted flour and we'll get the
thickening consistency that we need from the flour there in dalcombe at least mushy's mother uh they
they would take those pre-cooked potatoes and they would mash them a little bit so that you didn't
have great big chunks and uh you know the trick with a good potato salad in my opinion is i don't
know that i want my potato salad to be al dante you know where it's got that that firm texture
to it i like for it to just sort of break when i bite into it and so the potato salad their
family had was kind of like that you know and they'd have a little bit of onion and they'd
have a little bit of celery but if you had that little bit of onion that little bit of celery you
better chop it really fine okay because what they didn't want to have was great big pieces of
that coming in there they wanted to be potato salad so they wanted the other stuff to be less
noticeable in the potato salad myself personally if i'm going to do a potato salad i like to take
my egg yolks and blend them a bit with a little bit of olive oil and mayonnaise to make mine i
personally like sweet relish and i'll use a relish i've eaten it both ways i prefer my potato salad
on the side but depending on the gumbo that you have in the thickness of the gumbo if it's just
gonna fall to the bottom of the gumbo in the broth i don't care for that too much but if you
have in the wintertime when it's real cold and you have a thick pasty gumbo i can i can do that
on the bowl a little bit i like that so this is fresh okra that was cut last week and about some
good friends of mine some some people from uh baldwin that we do a lot of bartering i cook
for them and they they bring me fresh vegetables so today we're going to put 13 between 13 and
15 pounds of cut okra and we'll start cooking that down some people like to saute their
their oprah down because of the slime and my reality is is that the slime is a good element
but if you cook it long enough you're going to get it out of there anyway so now we have a a full pot
uh we used about four four gallons of liquid but we're going to end up with the with the components
that we have in here we're gonna end up with almost seven gallons of product so shrimp gives
off a lot of liquid we personally if we're doing a seafood gumbo normally we would pink our shrimp
and when i say pink the shrimp we'd go ahead we'd put that in a pot with a little bit of butter and
we'd season it only with salt and cayenne pepper and we just get it to where it it has that
color where it's not opaque anymore where you know the shrimp are cooked they're not cooked
100 they still have a bit of moisture in them but about 50 percent of the liquid goes out of
the shrimp when you pick it when you pink it then you can add that into it without
disturbing the balance of your roux very much we've got everything incorporated into
this gumbo that we need incorporated minus the shrimp and the seasoning the okra needs
to cook for at least another hour hour and a half and then the shrimp another 20 minutes and about
20 minutes to season so at this point we'd like to leave this pot cooking and we're gonna bring
you to what we call a chef's pot which is a much smaller there's about a two gallon gumbo that we
did and we cooked this up earlier in the day and it is seasoned and finished to go and i'm ready
to put the shrimp in now so i'm gonna go ahead and drop these shrimp in i've got this the uh the
base boiling good and hot i'm gonna go ahead and incorporate the shrimp that we have today we're
gonna use a deveined and peeled 70-90 count shrimp and we'll go ahead and drop these in at this
point we'll have right at six pounds of shrimp going into this gumbo here so i'll go
ahead and get these out drop that in now this gumbo has been seasoned already
and um yesterday we finished this with the tabasco habanero hot sauce
which is my favorite hot sauce i'm just in love with the flavor of habanero
peppers so tabasco has a wonderful habanero hot sauce and we like to use that when
we're cooking our gumbo at the cook-off up top here we've got their traditional
this is their flagship sauce right here i don't have any habanero because i
used it all in the gumbo yesterday you know when you when your temp of
your broth is in the 200 degree range uh 10 to 15 minutes is all you need to actually
cook that shrimp some people cook it longer i find the longer you cook it the more water comes
out of it the more the meat tightens up i like for it to be kind of soft and tender so i'm going to
try not to cook all the moisture out of the shrimp but we have a real nice color today um we've
got uh that that blonde roux has got us right where we need to be we still have some sizeable
chunks of okra in there uh the okra is the main thickening component we use some roux but the
okra is the element that thickened this gumbo okay my name is ross freeman this is my wife
tony we own and operate freeman's food in front of you here in your iberia a supermarket
and furniture store all in the same location each year we cook uh rice for contestants that
the gum will cook off normally we cook about 12 to 1500 pounds of rice just
depending on how many people are participating uh we ask everybody in this
area whenever you come to new york you got to come to freeman's you come here and you'll see a
lot of things that you won't see in other stores that we do uh each year we uh we we make sure that
we tell all our friends everywhere the week to come to new iberia is during combo cook-off it's
a blast it's a lot of fun and a lot of excitement today we'll serve this gumbo on jasmine rice uh this is going to consummate
our gumbo cooking now i'm going to invite our guests to sit down and have a bowl of
this delicious gumbo that we cooked today i hope you all enjoyed our little segment we want you all
to come out next year and join us at the cook-off hello everyone my name is chef roman
landry for cypress valley casino today i'll be making some seafood gumbo for
everyone we'll be having like crab meat shrimp lump crab meat we can go over and i can show
you the beginning of the gumbo right now i have uh some uh shrimp stock and craft stock
going on right now and i already dissolved my roux that's right here in the pot with a little bit of
dried shrimp and shrimp powder already in the spot this is the main thing for the gumbo is the roux
basically a roux is a one part flower for one part uh all and you want to uh cook it until it gets to
like a reddish brown color for seafood if you want it darker that'll be more like for a wild game or
chicken and sausage gumbo but basically that's the type i want to go with like a reddish brown color
for a seafood gumbo you don't want to go too dark the darker it is the the more intense it's going
to be and basically this is this how the gumbo the color will come out to look right here yeah for
the stock we you can do a shrimp stock we take you know like if you peel the shrimp just keep the
heads in the shells and basically you're gonna cover the shells with enough water and you add a
little salt in it but i add onions bell pepper and carrots to the stock to give it flavor just
like with a crab you want to cut the crabs in half and break them up and let them you know cook
in that that stock to give them you want to cook it at least for a good 30 40 minutes to get a nice
flavor from it then you're gonna strain it through a column that'll get just get all your uh just the
broth from it you don't want no shells or anything in it for this gumbo i end up with uh at least
a gallon of uh crab and a gallon of shrimp and it's gonna come out to almost three gallons of
gumbo because i put one gallon of water in it too to balance it off and once you get that started
you're gonna start all that together your stock and your water with all your you know your onions
your bell pepper and your celery to the gumbo and your garlic uh bring that to a ball once they come
up to a bar then you add your your magic right here your gum your root we make this from scratch
there's no store bought anything but if you want to go store bought you can go out there and buy
it they have different kind of companies that have the the rue already they got the light they have
the dark they have the one that's just you know uh made with flour just a potted one if you want
to go that route and basically like i said we we all get all our seafood from louisiana we
we don't get nothing from overseas or not like this this is from louisiana our uh 60 70 count
shrimp our claw crab meat and lump crab meat and basically this is this is some uh
good stuff right here that gives gumbo a good flavor here's your your
dry shrimp and your shrimp powder and a few of the seasonings right what i have is
some black pepper onion powder granulated garlic cayenne pepper and gumbo filet and we have a
little creole seasoning right here and some salt and i add my onions my bell pepper celery
and garlic in there basically right now is the rooting dissolve and then trying to bring it up
to a ball for it can be you know get the roux flavor out you want it to cook for uh at least to
get your onions started for at least 20 minutes then after they get your roux wants to come to a
ball so it can dissolve you know you don't want to have no lumps from the uh ruin there you want
everything to be smooth no greasy gun i i don't like a greasy gumbo you know uh basically you
want to skim all the if you have making your roux from scratch let it cool skim the grease from
off of it where you can have a nice clean gumbo i welcome people to iberia parish barrie
parish have a lot to offer we have many places that people can visit such as the
conrico company here where i'm at the conrico company which is a company that have
been existing for years and years and years who have great state parks that people should come
to visit not very paris such as lake faucet point sipamo point these are a couple that we have in
liberia paris that people should come to visit jefferson island tabasco avery alvin the more
you learn about iberia paris the more i think you're going to want to visit our berry parish
we have great culture we have great food we have great people noah very has lots to offer you
know we have a downtown museum the bayites museum we have a national award-winning historic district
and it is a national registered district so we have tons of architecture tons of old buildings
to come and explore if that's what you like we have the historic bayou test it's 290
miles of our history running right through the middle of our community so bayutesh is
a great asset we have walking tours looking to do something come to liberia spend a
couple of days with us it's well worth it what i'm gonna be adding is
some of the uh creole seasoning a little black pepper a little gumbo fillet and uh some cayenne pepper and onion powder and garlic powder you want those ingredients to cook and then
i'm adding a little bit parsley parsley helps to filter the root flavor to get the bitterness
from it and i had a little green onions in it too all of the dry seasoning therefore you want to
put at least half of it to start it off to give it flavor then you can always go back and adjust your
seasoning to the taste how you want it you know but uh you don't want it too spicy everybody
thinks louisiana is spicy but we down here with flavor we love flavor out here and uh just
the basic this is the creole season which have everything in there but you can always use that
but you always want to add extra stuff to it that's that's the way i was brought up with my
uh my grand grandparents and my mom them they they showed me when i was young how to uh
cook uh basically my my great-grandmother i learned from them and my my grandmother and
my mom and my aunt uh you have some special ants that's out there that's you know rest they sold
right now but they they showed us a whole lot and uh i keep that to heart now i'm gonna add the
uh shrimp in it there's some uh 60 70 count shrimp and this right here that's like a pound
and a half of shrimp to once it gets to a pinkish color then i'll i'll add the crab
meat and let it simmer for another 10 minutes i'm gonna start adding some
of the crab meat right now this is the claw crab meat
say a pound of claw crab meat and a pound of lump crab meat this this part right here will feed at least i
want to say 10 to 12 people depending upon what size bowl you're serving because we love to eat
in louisiana you know we like the big quantities i'm freddie de court married the city of new
iberia home of the world famous gumbo cook-off it's not happening this year
i'm kind of bummed but it'll be back it's coming back next year in
october bigger and better than ever and while you're in new iberia please
don't forget about shadows on the test enrico our award-winning downtown and our
historic district we've got so much to offer please come visit and get ready for next october
gumbo cookoff will be here bigger than ever y'all can see how it's then
married together and how it the simmer once that simmers a little for about
10 minutes you can go ahead and put it in a bowl and serve it with some hot rice and garnish
with a little parchment green onions and for a side you can go ahead with
some potato salad of your choice you know or you can do a baked sweet potato with
it that'll uh go great with the with the gumbo that's how we do it in louisiana and uh louisiana
style i can't wait to let the family taste it or you know good friends that come by the house when
i see the face light up that that brings joy to me you have to show your love when you're
cooking you don't want to uh just play around in the kitchen if you if you don't love
what you do you don't need to be in the kitchen yeah i have a few other secrets that's in this
gumbo but uh i can't tell you this y'all not ready for this y'all some beginners this is some
uh professional stuff right there that's going on this would brought me back right here this
professional uh jumbo cookoff trophy right here on the 29th of uh this anniversary we had last
year and uh i have some good uh co-workers with me well we don't call co-workers we call them family
and uh like i said uh this way we do vlog in uh southwest louisiana with the with the
perfect roux we have right here and an uh nice stock you want to have a good
stock to start off this gumbo and uh good seasoning and you're good seafood right here all right i'd like to see y'all next year at
the world championship gumbo cook-off in liberia louisiana it'll be in october like the second
week of october and i love to see y'all there i'm wendell burrett i'm with louisiana direct
seafood and we're here for the seafood portion of our movie and our special chef guest
our chef john reason and chef david hewland they're going to be featuring our products of vermilion-based sweet shrimp and vermilion-based
sweet arches which you can find on louisianadraxyfoodshop.com we also have miss
kim clay who's going to be taste testing for us today so she's got the best roll of all so
thank you for joining us and we hope you enjoy how you doing today folks i'm chef dave with
cajun 180 and i have with me today chef john reason from baton rouge louisiana and today
we're going to showcase a couple of items from louisiana louisianadirectseafoodshop.com today
we have vermilion sweet bay oysters we're going to do some oyster shooters that is a bloody mary
oyster shooter and then we're going to have royal oysters on the half shell featuring the cajun
180 ultimate seafood probe oil so we're going to get started today we've already mixed uh in our
container here we've mixed with a bloody mary uh home-based bloody mary mix we've got a little
cucumber vodka in here and a little bit of uh hot sauce some worcestershire sauce a little black
pepper a little lemon juice and so we of course we already started with our oysters on them that
are de-eyed we're going to pour this right in here and get started now these glasses are rimmed
with the cajun 180 premium cocktail rimmer real simple real easy this is great for a
cocktail party this is great for a backyard barbecue party anything you would like to
get started perfect way to start your day all right so now we've got the oyster shooters
here again we have the raw issues on the have shell all we simply did was we put a little
worcestershire sauce on that and then we dusted the top of those oysters with the ultimate pro
seafood boil and so all we did was what dusted the top of those sprinkled a little lemon juice
on them and they're ready to go cheers you guys mmm lovely lovely that is fantastic and then
you taste the sweetness of that oyster in there all those flavors melt together and blend
just well oh yeah perfect million-based voices perfect for this dish right
wonder would you like to for taking the royal oyster there on the half
shell tell us what you think how's that wakes up those flavors huh tastes
good such a mild flavor you can still taste the sweetness of that vermilion sweet bay
oyster it's fantastic folks you can't go wrong with buying these oysters these are these
are harvested right out of grand isle louisiana perfect louisiana seafood for you get it fresh
right direct to your doorstep and now we move right on to the next dish chef john reason will
feature a shrimp toast let's move right on into it hey everybody chef john we're gonna go
ahead and get into our shrimp toast recipe and the first process we're going
to do is bring it over to the food processor and we're going to actually
bring it down and break it down to a paste that way it'll actually form and adhere to the
bread so when we go to fry it it'll actually stay on the bread instead of falling off all
right so we'll go ahead and put our shrimp in and normally you want at least a pound to
two pounds of shrimp don't want to go over and then we're going to go
with our sauce and this is a a red curry paste or red curry sauce and the
way that is it's got more lemon grass and aromatics in it so it actually brings more
flavor to the shrimp and this is our garlic and just a little of the cajun 180 then
we're going to go ahead and bring that to a paste or bring it down to the face form
we're going to pulse it just to get it started and then we'll go down and you want to get it to where it just rolls a
little bit and that's when you know it's done then that's how your pace is going to look i like
transferring to a different bowl instead of staying in my processor that way i don't have
to worry about the blades or anything like that and if you have too much or you overdo it
then you can actually freeze it for later so and as you can see it's a really good paste it's got good color to it you can actually
smell it too and you can smell the the seasonings and the blends and what we'll do
is we'll lather it so you want to put a good bit on your bread you want to mound it up but you also
want to make sure you seal in your edges so when you push it push down on your edges just a little
bit and that way that will actually seal and close to where when you're frying you don't have a lot
of grease going underneath and pushing it out so you don't have to be stingy with it so now that we got our sesame seeds all on we'll go ahead and cut a little corner make
it some triangles cut it at the bias you can go corner to corner or you can cut it in
strips however you want i like to do it in little wedges or a little paper football
so to say that's what my son calls them okay so now we're ready to fry so we have our
oil already pre-done at 350 degrees and that actually gets it a good toasting and frying of
the bread plus it cooks everything well done so what you do is we're going to go ahead and drop
it in and you can drop it in face up or paste down i like to do it to paste down so it'll actually
roll in and you don't want to do more than three or three at a time on it because you just don't
wanna cool your oil down and then bring it back up these are gonna fry for about two to maybe three
minutes and you just want that good golden brown and delicious look you can already smell it
to where it's starting to smell really good i love this shrimp because of the flavor
and it's wild caught here in louisiana i don't want anything imported
and i know what is in our seafood i know what is how much care they have especially
when it's it's hand shelled and it's deveined so they take their pride in the food so as
a chef that's what i want to look for is what they have makes it to where i can actually do
it and plus with it being a wild seafood it's our commercial fishermen working not somebody else not
big factory or anything like that it's our people working and that's what i love supporting
and promoting is our commercial fishermen and that's why i always thank our commercial
fishermen every time i get something from them all right so these are ready to come out so we'll go ahead and get them pull them out so we
can get them all dredged and plate it up for you we'll go ahead and do a little
garnish this is some green onion all right this is our romalod sauce that we made
just do a little drizzle on them get it to where you get the flavor of the
bromolove with the shrimp shrimp toast louisiana style and here you go this looks amazing so do i have to
be a professional chef to be able to cook like one no ma'am you don't uh all you got to do is just
follow the recipes which are our guidelines and follow the recipe and stick to it and
add the love gotta have to add a little very good thank you very good so the third and final dish is going to be a
red snapper on a half shell we're going to do some char grilled oysters featuring the the
trinity compound butter and we're going to do some asparagus tops so let's get prepping
and then we're going to go out to the grill and we're going to cook this up so what we're
going to get started with is we got some fresh a fresh filet of red snapper on the half shell
this all came from louisiana direct seafood shop the way i like to get this filet and you can see
how beautiful this is guys this is wild caught right out of the gulf of mexico here in louisiana
so what i like to do is take this nice big fillet one of the questions that i get asked all
the time is how do we incorporate the flavor into the seafood that we have here so
what i like to do is i take a fillet knife and what i like to do is score
fillet right on down almost to the to the shell right so we get
some nice deep cuts into our seafood then also featuring the louisiana i'm sorry the
cajun 180 trinity compound butter we have the recipe for this that you guys have we're going
to take this and what i like to do is take this compound butter and incorporate it right into
those slats so that way we get that flavor all the way down deep into the seafood
so we can slather this right on top so the butter is actually going to help this to to
blacken and char on the top it's also going as it cooks the flavors of this is gonna run right down
into those slots and cook right down to the shell okay real simple real easy
we got the butter on there now we're gonna take our actual trinity
we got some of this prepped up already so we're going to take some green and red bell
pepper we'll sprinkle this right on the top make it look nice and pretty on there we have some slotted medallion sliced
onions we'll put that right on top as well we'll take some chopped onions we'll put that
on top as well then we're going to top this off so that the cajun trinity is nothing more than
the cajun trinity that we just put on top of this in a powder form now to add the heat on
top of this as we call it we're just going to sprinkle just a little bit of the location gold
all-purpose cajun seasoning right on top of that it's that simple we're ready to put this on
our we're going to use some aluminum foil we'll pick this fillet up we'll
set it right on top of this we'll fold it over and make a seafood
packet as we call it here in louisiana and this my friends is ready to go
to the grill the next thing we'll do is we'll do the char grilled oysters
so i have here a black iron skillet my shelves and one of the things
that i get asked all the time too is how do we get the seafood prep so i'm going
to put my my seafood right here down this is a fresh caught vermilion based sweet oyster this
still has the eye in it so i'm going to diy this oyster simply going to take my finger i'm going
to fill where the eye is in the in the oyster i'm just simply going to take a fillet knife and cut
this eye right out of here a lot of folks don't like the grittiness of the eye and we're going
to bring this right back down to this moisture put it all back together we'll simply
just put that right on our shell i have another one here that's already died for us it's right on the shell and this is how simple
this is we're going to take some parmesan cheese we'll sprinkle this right on top then
i have some trinity compound butter already in its medallion form we're going
to set one or two pieces on top of there then i'm going to go back right
on top with some parmesan cheese it's that simple these are
ready to go to the grill third and final piece to this
dish we'll take another black iron skillet since we're cooking on the grill fresh asparagus tops we'll just simply put these right
onto the cast iron skillet here again going back to the trinity compound butter
already have them cut in its medallion form and we'll just put a couple of those right on top folks it's this easy we've done all the work for
you again you can get this cajun 180 product at louisianadirectseafoodshop.com it gets shipped
right to your door along with your seafood and there we have it this stuff is ready to go
to the grill amazing simple easy to do dishes anybody at home can do it we're ready to go
outside and grill let's take it to the grill all right ladies and gentlemen we're now out
outside of our grill we're gonna use our fresh wild caught louisiana seafood we're prepared this
now it is ready to go right to the grill so let's get right to the grilling got our temperatures
up now i'm cooking at about 400 450 degrees we're gonna take our plated vegetables here we'll stick
them on the top shelf we'll get those ready to go we have our red snapper on the half shell
we'll go ahead and we'll put these on the grill make sure that that foil stays nice and sealed to
keep all that moisture and retain all the moisture that comes out of that when that butter starts
to melt it's going to release some steam that's also going to help to cook your seafood as well
then we're going to take our char grilled oysters set those right on the grill as well you'll
notice that i have a little bit of aluminum foil already on the grill that helps me to keep those
juices from dripping down and making the fire come up and char those oysters
a little bit more than i want all right folks we got all this stuff on
the grill these things are going to cook at different stages your oysters aren't going to take
very long it'll take about three to five minutes maybe seven minutes for those to cook the fish
we're gonna wait till the fish is we're gonna check this periodically we're gonna make sure
that it's nice and flaky once it starts to flake i'm actually going to pull this off the grill
and allow it to rest and it's going to continue to cook a little bit after that and it's going
to be so perfect and so moist you'll be able to taste that louisiana goodness right onto your
tongue and the vegetables of course we're going to wait till those wilt down that butter is also
going to help to get that nice and and crispy once it begins to cook at a high temperature
so let's close it up let's start cooking all right ladies and gentlemen we're about 20-25
minutes into our cooking process the oysters are looking fantastic they're ready to come off the
grill and store our vegetables and this will also give me a great opportunity now to look at our
fish and make sure that it is starting to flake and see if it's ready to come off but before
we get to this we have a special message from a very special guest here in new iberia hello my
name is roy esquire i am the goodwill ambassador for the world famous gumbo cook-off on the second
weekend of october every year new hamburger is the best place in the world to be to enjoy the best
gumbo and food in the world i'll be waiting to shake your hand and help guide you to the best
weekend you will ever experience see you there so as you can see here i've opened up the fish
it's looking nice and golden brown on the top you can see here how the butter has caused it
to blacken as we call it here in louisiana and because i made these slits in it prior as i pull
it back you can see how the fish here is flaky on the inside this is ready to go this is how we
know that this is done so now let's take this back inside and let's get it plated all right
ladies and gentlemen we're back inside we're ready to plate our dish this food just came off
the grill about 15 minutes ago it's a lo i've been allowed to rest a bit and so that way the
flavors can then marry and become incorporated so what we're going to do now is
we're going to plate this fish and we'll plate this whole fillet so we'll set that right there these cast
iron skillets are still a little hot we'll plate this right up here right alongside and then we're going to finish it
off with the grilled asparagus tops look how beautiful nice char on those you see
the cajun trinity seasoning still on those and that butter has incorporated all that flavor
miss kim are you hungry and ready to eat fantastic so we have here prepared for you
red snapper on the half shell char grilled oysters with asparagus tops and
folks let me remind you you do not have to be a professional chef to cook like one let me tell
you the difference the difference is a trained chef is educated in presentation but here in cajun
country my grandmother and grandfather were not trained chefs but i guarantee you they can cook
a delicious savory dish just as well as i hear i did here and if i blindfolded you and put these
dishes side by side you wouldn't be able to tell the difference whether grandmother and grandfather
cooked it or whether a trained professional chef cookie so you can cook just like this at home just
follow the simple recipes that we provided for you today and you can enjoy these dishes just as
well as we are here today thank you for watching well welcome to the new iberia gumbo cook-off my
name is jd rigard and i am the chief nut officer for kane river pecan company located here
in new iberia louisiana where my family has been in the pecan business since 1969 and today
we're going to be cooking a bourbon pecan pie and i'm going to make sure that you
know how easy it is to make one of these southern staple dishes we got the recipe from
our cookbook that was written by my grandfather called pecans from soup to nuts and we are
broadcasting here in the cane river kitchens in new iberia louisiana and if you think making
the pie might be a little too difficult for you you can always go to cane river pecan.com to
order your own pie we do mail order these pies and we have a catalog that we send out as well
so if you're at home and you want to learn a little bit more about pecans and maybe buy some
pecans and have them shipped to you this year you can do that at cane river pecan dot
com so let's get into it bourbon pecan pie okay folks the first thing we're going to do
to get the pie started is you have to make a crust now i know some of you were thinking that
making a crust is intimidating but i'm telling you that it's not uh it's very very easy we've
got a surefire recipe so i'm going to show you how to make a crust but just in case you get a
little nervous you can always run down to your local supermarket and get a crust so we're going
to start with a cup of flour and a stick of butter and we're going to take our hands make sure
you wash them first and we're going to work the flour and the butter together the butter can
be room temperature it doesn't have to be chilled just has to be room temperature
so we're going to work this butter with your hands just like this so once
we work this butter in a little bit we're going to take just about two
tablespoons of water put it in there and we're gonna work it by hand this is kind
of the dirtiest part of the whole process you're gonna make a nice ball with your dough so there you go should look just like this very
very simple after you have your ball of dough you take your black iron skillet if you have one
this is an eight inch black iron skillet so you take your dough you put it right in the middle
and from there you actually press it out by hand now this is the part that takes the
longest you just want to work the dough in a circular fashion with your fingers and what you're doing is you're working the dough
along the bottom of the pan or the skillet rather and then you're going to slowly work that
dough all the way up the sides of the skillet just by pressing it in there now this takes
a few minutes you want to take your time this might be a great time to preheat your
oven so 350. somebody needs to put that oven on 350 so it's warming up and it's getting
ready to put our pie in in a few minutes so i'm going to continue to
work this until it looks perfect so when you're done your pie
crust auto look just like this takes about seven or eight minutes
you can see all the little finger indentations kind of gives your crust a little
character and that's what it should look like when it's in your black iron skillet of course
you can use a pie pan a regular pie pan as well now we're going to make our mixture for
the pie we're going to crack some eggs everyone's got different ways to crack
an egg i just do it the old-fashioned way once you get your eggs beaten these are
three eggs we just beat we're gonna add some vanilla now let me tell you this is an
important step good vanilla yields a good pie here at cane river pecan we use a company called
vane v-a-i-n and they're out of st louis missouri we discovered these folks a couple years ago
they make several different flavors of vanilla and the one that we're using today is a mexican
vanilla extracted in kentucky bourbon so we really like to throw a little bourbon in this pie when we
can in two different places and this is one of the two places so we use two teaspoons of the vanilla
extract and so i like to pour like a bartender pores you know i don't really have to i sometimes
overflow a little bit because you know it just makes it good so vain vanilla but you can get
vanilla at your local store it doesn't have to be this particular one we will be carrying this
soon on our website so you can get it from us if you wish i'm going to go ahead and add the
bourbon now because i put it in my egg mixture we use maker's mark bourbon now you don't have to
use this bourbon i've tried this pie with several different types of bourbon and it all works but
i tend to enjoy this bourbon a little bit more so we're going to do two
tablespoons of butter a bourbon one two good bourbon after we add the bourbon
and the vanilla to the eggs we're just going to stir it up a little bit
more get that all in there in the meantime i've taken another stick of butter
it's our second stick of butter and we have microwaved it and we are letting
it cool you don't want to pour your hot butter and mix it with your eggs because it will
begin to cook the eggs so you want to let that cool a little bit so we put it off
to the side and we're going to let it cool in the meantime we're going to go ahead
and make our sugar mixture right now this is a cup of white granulated sugar and in
this bowl we're going to put some cairo syrup so that's one cup right there and this is time
to add our secret ingredient and this is the steens molasses this is a little different
than their cane syrup this is the molasses i put just about a tablespoon of molasses
in my pie i add that to the cairo syrup so what it does is in my opinion it kind of
evens out the sugar there's a lot of sugar that goes in pecan pie and it's one of the things
that some people don't like about pecan pie but if you add this molasses it kind of takes
the sweetness out of just a tad bit which is nice we'll take the carrot syrup and the molasses
and we're going to add it to the cup of sugar so that's our cup of sugar that's our caro
syrup and that's our steamed molasses so what we're going to do is we're going to lightly
mix everything together but before i put all the ingredients together the other other ingredient
we want to put is we want to put a little salt i like to use about looks like about a quarter
of a teaspoon so i'm going to sprinkle that sea salt in there and i'm going to put my egg
bourbon and vanilla extract mixture in there and i'm gonna cook put my warm
butter this is one stick of butter in there it's been cooling for
a few minutes so it's not hot and finally we're gonna add a cup of cane river
pecans let's do that now we sell these pecans in these nice bags here in new iberia we
also ship these pecans throughout the country these are our mammoth halves and i'm going to go on a limb and say that probably most of
you've never seen a pecan this big these are our mammoth pecans and you can see they're
called mammoth for a reason they're huge you can toast these pecans if you
want before you put them in your pie we're gonna add our cup of pecans to our
mixture look at that that's beautiful and then we're going to take a wooden spoon and we're
going to slowly put all the ingredients together every time i go to a party or
some family gathering and i show up with a pecan pie and a black iron skillet i get the seat at the top of the table once we get everything mixed it's
time to add it to the pie shell man look at that like we say down
here keyhole that's beautiful once your oven has preheated to 350
and you're going to put your pecan pie at the bottom rack that's real important at
the bottom rack in the center for one hour all right folks it's been an hour and a little
bit and we've pulled our pie out of the oven and we've let it cool you want to let a pecan pie
sit for about three four hours you want to let it really set is what they call letting the pie set
and this is what it looks like absolutely gorgeous you got a beautiful handle here hold it when you
bring it into the home or the your your party you can walk in with confidence holding your
black iron skillet and um well we just think it's beautiful you can see those big beautiful
mammoth pecans on top some people like to use pecan pieces i like to use whole pecans it
might make it a little bit more difficult to cut but it makes such a better presentation at
the end of the day the very last thing you want to do if you want to give it a little bit more
bourbon taste is you can take a barbecue brush pour a little bourbon in a cup take that brush
and lightly brush the top of the pecan pie with a little bit more bourbon take the bottom
half of a teaspoon doesn't take much it'll make it just a little bit more fragrant and this is
our bourbon pecan pie in a black iron skillet straight from cane river pecan company in new
iberia and we hope to see you next year at the world championship gumball cook-off in new
iberia louisiana our hometown you all come my name is philip media and today i'm here
with my father stephen maddie and my brother jonathan merrier and collectively we're the
owners and operators of distillery acadian located in new iberia louisiana here at distillery
acadian we make two main products we make a product called t-moon which is a aged spirit and
we also make a product called cadence cut which is louisiana straight bourbon whiskey we also
have a special whiskey that's aging right now we're patiently waiting and we think it's going
to make a big splash in the whiskey market here in the not so distant future so we're here today and
we've been asked by the iberia chamber of commerce who very graciously asked us last year to
be a part of a demonstration for the gumbo cook-off last year where we came in and we taught
individuals how to make their own drinks so that's why we're here today we're here to teach you to
make some of our favorite cocktails that we have so why are we here we're we're here for the gumbo
cook-off we wish we were there in person but this is the next best thing as most of us growing
up in louisiana we often learn early to make a good gumbo there's a couple essentials you need
to make that gumbo one is a pot this is our pot here at distillery acadian it's a 300 gallon pot
but it's certainly essential in what we make here at our distillery the next things are ingredients
there's a variable nature of ingredients that are out there but essentially that's what you need
to make a good gumbo two very important things that also come with a good gumbo are love we put
a lot of love into our products everything is done here in-house whether it's mashing the grains
distilling the alcohol bottling and even labeling every single bottle that we do here in house so
there's a lot of love that go into our product and lastly patience you need a whole lot of patience
to bring forth a really good gumbo also bring forth a really good bourbon and distilled spirit
both products age for at least two years to bring the best possible product we can to the
marketplace now we come to the part where we're ready to show you and teach you how to make
one of our favorite cocktails which is a play off of old-fashioned now old-fashioneds are easy
bitters sugar spirits but here at distillery kitty hand we do things a little bit differently and
with gumbo you always put filet in it which is a little bit of spice that's what we're calling
this this cocktail today filet fashion this would be an old-fashioned with a bit of spice in it so
to start we'll start with our cages cut bourbon now this bourbon is 94 proof it's made with four
grains corn rye wheat and barley malt you get the sweetness of the corn coming through on it you
have the mellowness of the wheat as well as the spiciness of the rye that's why this bourbon lead
perfectly to an old fashioned so we'll start today and we're going to go ahead and
we'll add two ounces of bourbon one next we're going to add a dimmer syrup now
this particular denmark syrup is out of new orleans louisiana it's actually a spice demerara
syrup which will put a little bit of a play on it give a little bit of spiciness and old-fashioned
would be a perfect uh exact match to what we're looking for today so i'm gonna go ahead and
i'm gonna add a quarter ounce of dimmer syrup and then i'm also add two dashes of angostura bitters now i'm gonna go
ahead and give that a stir and next i'm gonna add a large piece of ice now finally i'm going to add a peel of orange and i'll go ahead and give that a little squeeze and put that right in my drink
and give it one last stir now let's go ahead and try
it oh wow that smells amazing the citrus of the orange coming through
the spiciness of the demerara syrup the the boldness of the bourbon this is an
amazing drink i'll tell you throughout the world most business is done over alcohol and
this is the exact drink that i think about in that type of situation so now we'll go
ahead and we'll clean this up and i'll bring my father along so he can tell you a story about our
friends down the road all this talk about whiskey uh reminds me of some good friends of ours and
actually these are good customers of ours too and appropriately they're named thibodeaux
and boudreaux like every saturday night they go to the city bar and last saturday night
as they were drinking for a couple of hours thibodeaux all of a sudden just fell
off his stool backwards hit the floor passed out cold and you know budo looks
at him looks at the bartender and says you know that's what i like about thibodeau
i really admire him he knows when he's done all right so we're back phillip thank you for that
filet fashion dad thanks for that uh joke that reminds us of knowing when to say when
we're gonna get to a little more refreshing drink here it's what we call our tea slush our
tea slush pairs perfect with a hot louisiana day and as most of you know that can be august they
can even be january so this drink is basically a year-round item that you can make for yourself
enjoy for yourself or your friends and family first of all we're going to start with t moon we
mentioned this a little earlier this is our very first product that we put out onto the market it's
a unique spirit in that it's not quite a whiskey it's not quite a bourbon but we add louisiana
cane sugar to our mash prior to distillation so we'll start off with the first ingredient
one cup of tea moon you heard that right one cup we like sharing here in louisiana
and this certainly facilitates that this tea moon has a nose for freshly baked
bread with tasting notes of caramel sweet florals as well as other peppery notes that come
through when you're drinking our next ingredient is a nice tea again equal parts so we used
a cup of tea moon you use a cup of tea this can be sweet tea or unsweetened tea it
all depends on how your tooth wants it next we'll use a lemonade and by the way any lemonade or tea
will do it's all in your preference we like to support local
here at distillery acadian so typically we'll go out and find a lemonade in the
tea that's brewed either within our city or region again equal part another cup of lemonade now for the flush and what the
slush is is ice typically we like to typically we like to add two to three cups of ice depending on your preference you
want it more slushy you add more ice you want it less flushy you have less ice it's
going to be good either way let's blend this up you're going to want to blend it until all of
your ice is completely blended in your drink get a nice pour oh nice and frothy perfect for the pool perfect for being out in the
field on the first day of dove we're going to go ahead and garnish
with fresh blackberries and limes i'm gonna be the first taste tester oh yeah just like laying around a pool with a
nice drink a nice tea slush well there you have it there are two drinks that will
suit two very different occasions whether your chile fashion or your tea slush
enjoy yourself and then drink responsibly we'd like to leave you with some words of
wisdom you know we started our business on a dream about five years ago with some hard
work everything has worked out what we'd like to tell everybody is that if you have a dream go for
it i mean go all the way put everything you have into it there's going to be ups there's going
to be downs but the trip is going to be worth it you know alcohol is not going to solve
anybody's problem but why not take a shot rocking in the cradle of the south you
