It is easier and faster to prepare Cajun specialties with Paul Prudhomme's new Magic Seasonal Blends--a new feature in this book. More than thirty color photos illustrate Cajun greats such as Gumbo, Jambalaya and Etouffee.

Here for the first time the famous food of Louisiana is presented in a cookbook written by a great creative chef who is himself world-famous. The extraordinary Cajun and Creole cooking of South Louisiana has roots going back over two hundred years, and today it is the one really vital, growing regional cuisine in America. No one is more responsible than Paul Prudhomme for preserving and expanding the Louisiana tradition, which he inherited from his own Cajun background. Chef Prudhomme's incredibly good food has brought people from all over America and the world to his restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, in New Orleans. To set down his recipes for home cooks, however, he did not work in the restaurant. In a small test kitchen, equipped with a home-size stove and utensils normal for a home kitchen, he retested every recipe two and three times to get exactly the results he wanted. Logical though this is, it was an unprecedented way for a chef to write a cookbook. But Paul Prudhomme started cooking in his mother's kitchen when he was a youngster. To him, the difference between home and restaurant procedures is obvious and had to be taken into account. So here, in explicit detail, are recipes for the great traditional dishes--gumbos and jambalayas, Shrimp Creole, Turtle Soup, Cajun "Popcorn," Crawfish Etouffee, Pecan Pie, and dozens more--each refined by the skill and genius of Chef Prudhomme so that they are at once authentic and modern in their methods. Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen is also full of surprises, for he is unique in the way he has enlarged the repertoire of Cajun and Creole food, creating new dishes and variations within the old traditions. Seafood Stuffed Zucchini with Seafood Cream Sauce, Panted Chicken and Fettucini, Veal and Oyster Crepes, Artichoke Prudhomme--these and many others are newly conceived recipes, but they could have been created only by a Louisiana cook. The most famous of Paul Prudhomme's original recipes is Blackened Redfish, a daringly simple dish of fiery Cajun flavor that is often singled out by food writers as an example of the best of new American regional cooking. For Louisianians and for cooks everywhere in the country, this is the most exciting cookbook to be published in many years.

When one of America's most talented and best loved chefs reinterprets the great American classics, the result is Chef Paul Prudhomme's Seasoned America, a beautifully illustrated collection of American favorites made even better. In his new book, Chef Paul works his culinary magic on America's classic regional recipes--San Francisco cioppino, Texas chili, Maryland crab cakes, for example. The results are more than 150 recipes that represent a whole new way of interpreting traditional American cooking. Special sections encourage home cooks to experiment and take risks for the sheer taste of it. Some text and images that appeared in the print edition of this book are unavailable in the electronic edition due to rights reasons.

Chef Paul Prudhomme, America's most innovative chef, invites you to take a Fork in the Road, a journey toward a different way of cooking. If your goal is to produce great-tasting, flavorful dishes that everyone will enjoy, yet are still good for you, then this is the cookbook for you!Chef Paul's new book offers not only recipes but a model for anyone who wants to modify his or her cooking to minimize the use of less healthful ingredients, yet retain the rich taste and texture that make them so delicious. For instance, he uses puréed dried beans and reduced fruit juices to create viscosity and enhance flavors. Both add an enormous amount of richness with virtually no fat. Chef Paul provides you with specific recipes to show you how these ingredients work, and encourages you to try them with all your favorite dishes. To make rich, flavorful sauces and gravies for great-tasting meat, poultry, or fish—without a drop of oil, butter, shortening, or other fat—he has developed recipes in which dry flour is browned before adding it to the dish. And he always tells you to start with a hot pan, so you can "bronze," or "caramelize," an ingredient without any added fat. These techniques will make all your food taste better—new recipes as well as your favorite standbys. Perhaps the most exciting portion of this book is the chapter on Magic Brightening Broths. These delicious broths are based upon defatted stocks, and get extra goodness from carefully balanced seasonings that enhance but don't overwhelm the flavors of foods cooked in them. Chef Paul envisions that once you've discovered howeasy and enjoyable Magic Brightening is, you and your friends and family will want to cook this way several times a month. From breads and breakfasts, through main and side dishes, to desserts and snacks, Chef Paul has streamlined his favorite recipes. He's taken out as much fat as possible, leaving the texture, the richness, and the taste for which he's famous. This is not a diet book, but one dedicated to healthful ways to cook. Some text and images that appeared in the print edition of this book are unavailable in the electronic edition due to rights reasons.

Super-bestselling Chef Paul Prudhomme and his 11 brothers and sisters remember—and cook—the greatest native cooking in the history of America, garnered from their early years in the deep south of Louisiana. The Prudhomme Family Cookbook brings the old days of Cajun cooking right into your home.

An untamed region teeming with snakes, alligators, and snapping turtles, with sausage and cracklins sold at every gas station, Cajun Country is a world unto itself. The heart of this area—the Acadiana region of Louisiana—is a tough land that funnels its spirit into the local cuisine. You can’t find more delicious, rustic, and satisfying country cooking than the dirty rice, spicy sausage, and fresh crawfish that this area is known for. It takes a homegrown guide to show us around the back roads of this particularly unique region, and in Real Cajun, James Beard Award–winning chef Donald Link shares his own rough-and-tumble stories of living, cooking, and eating in Cajun Country. Link takes us on an expedition to the swamps and smokehouses and the music festivals, funerals, and holiday celebrations, but, more important, reveals the fish fries, étouffées, and pots of Granny’s seafood gumbo that always accompany them. The food now famous at Link’s New Orleans–based restaurants, Cochon and Herbsaint, has roots in the family dishes and traditions that he shares in this book. You’ll find recipes for Seafood Gumbo, Smothered Pork Roast over Rice, Baked Oysters with Herbsaint Hollandaise, Louisiana Crawfish Boudin, quick and easy Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits with Fig-Ginger Preserves, Bourbon-Soaked Bread Pudding with White and Dark Chocolate, and Blueberry Ice Cream made with fresh summer berries. Link throws in a few lagniappes to give you an idea of life in the bayou, such as strategies for a great trip to Jazz Fest, a what-not-to-do instructional on catching turtles, and all you ever (or never) wanted to know about boudin sausage. Colorful personal essays enrich every recipe and introduce his grandfather and friends as they fish, shrimp, hunt, and dance. From the backyards where crawfish boils reign as the greatest of outdoor events to the white tablecloths of Link’s famed restaurants, Real Cajun takes you on a rollicking and inspiring tour of this wild part of America and shares the soulful recipes that capture its irrepressible spirit.

If you love the spice that Cajun food adds to your life, but not what it adds to your waistline, then Enola Prudhomme's Low-Calorie Cajun Cooking is for you. Now you can eat authentic Southern-Style Oven-Fried Chicken, Blackened Catfish, Shrimp and Crabmeat Jambalaya, Crawfish Etouffée, Turkey Sausage Gumbo, or Sweet-Potato Muffins without worrying about calories.