-Funding for "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy" was provided by the... -At Dooky Chase's restaurant, chef Leah Chase created a leisurely multi-course Creole feast for special gatherings as an opportunity for her guests to spend time enjoying food and conversation.

The 7- to 8-course meal was served family style and took at least two hours.

There was no rushing this full-course dining experience.

Chefs Dook and Zoe Chase re-create four items from the elaborate feast.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Creole jambalaya was a mainstay of the Creole feast that stood on its own or could accompany the meat course.

-Now we're talking something that speaks to my grandmother's heart.

We're talking a Creole feast.

And what she would love was to welcome people into this restaurant and really feed them a 5- to 7-, even sometimes 8-course meal.

And she wanted you to stay and give her two hours, right?

She didn't want to rush you.

She wanted you really to take in this restaurant, the beautiful art and really just her creative meal.

And one of those dishes that was on a mainstay of that Creole feast was this beautiful jambalaya that Zoe's getting ready to show us how to make.

-Alright, so first, we'll add a little bit of oil to our pan.

And we don't have to add too much oil because we're gonna use the hot sausage.

And the hot sausage already creates its own oil.

So first we'll add our hot sausage and we want to let our hot sausage cook for maybe about five minutes so we can get that great sear on it and those oils will start to come out.

Alright.

Now that our hot sausage has seared a little bit, we'll add our smoked sausage.

♪ We'll let our smoked sausage cook for about five minutes as well.

You could smell all those great flavors and those seasonings in that hot sausage.

It's gonna give such an amazing taste to the jambalaya.

-But you know you're starting to add flavor from those oils to that meat because you're smelling it right here.

And that's looking good, Zoe.

We are ready for the vegetables.

-Now we're gonna add some red bell pepper.

We'll add some onion.

♪ And we'll add some garlic.

And we'll let our vegetables sauté with this meat for about three minutes.

♪ Now that our vegetables have cooked down, we'll add our diced tomatoes.

♪ ♪ Alright, now we can add our chicken stock.

♪ -And so when you're cooking jambalaya, right, how much liquid you're gonna put in -- it's a one for one, right?

So it's however much rice -- If you're cooking one cup of rice, it's gonna be one cup of liquid.

-Now we'll add our seasonings.

We have some dried thyme.

Of course, some salt.

Some black pepper.

Some cayenne.

And, of course, some paprika to give it that beautiful red color.

♪ And we'll let this come to a simmer.

Then we'll add our rice and we'll turn the heat low and we'll put our top on and we'll let it go for about 20 to 25 minutes.

Now that we're at a simmer, we'll add our rice.

♪ Yeah.

Now let's give it a taste to make sure our seasonings are where they need to be.

-And this is the key point where you want to taste it before you put that top on it, right?

Because there's no more seasoning after here.

Oh, that's spot on, Zoe.

That's spot on.

Last thing we'll add to that, as we do the layering, is to put in the shrimp.

That's peeled and deveined shrimp.

We're using a 40/50.

Whichever shrimp you love works perfectly in this jambalaya.

-Alright.

Now we'll lower our heat and we'll put our top on.

And we'll let this go for about 20-25 minutes.

-It smells ready.

So we're getting ready to plate it up for you all.

-Alright.

-That looks beautiful.

-Shrimp on top.

Mmm.

Put our parsley.

-We'll do a little fresh thyme leaves just for presentation.

And you're talking about a beautiful dish.

Jambalaya was always one of those mainstays on the Creole feast.

-The Creole feast embodied the hospitality the restaurant became known for, beginning with founder Emily Tennette Chase, Leah's mother-in-law.

-Creole Feast was the pride and joy of my grandmother because she knew if she fed you five courses, the food was gonna be fantastic, but more than that was gonna be that conversation and that dialog at the table, whether it was with your family, your friends or just a co-worker or what have you, you were gonna enjoy that time over a period of time, whether it's an hour or two hours, and the longer the better, right?

-She wanted to make sure everyone's experience at the restaurant was personalized, and she remembered every detail.

She remembered everyone's favorite drink, everyone's favorite dish and what their guests enjoyed or not.

-Redfish court bouillon is a New Orleans staple and appeared as a fish course in the meal.

-So I'll get you started.

I have my fire on about a low to medium heat.

We're gonna melt some butter.

And while that's going, I'm gonna add a little bit of my onions.

I'm gonna add some of my bell peppers here.

We want to let these sauté and melt.

We don't want to add the garlic too early.

You don't want that to burn or turn bitter.

To that, I'm gonna add a little bit of flour.

Not too much, right?

What you're creating is a fish stock, right?

Court bouillon is a liquid that you poach in that protein, and that's what we're creating here.

So we don't want it to be as thick as a gravy, but we do want it to have some type of body.

♪ But we're making sure that flour is cooked.

And now we'll add in some of our fresh tomatoes.

And what this does at this point is it slows that cooking down, that browning down of that flour, right?

We then want to take it past where it was.

We'll let those go a little bit.

That's gonna release some of its liquids.

Now we can add our garlic.

And now we're gonna add our tomato sauce.

What I want you to do when you add the tomato sauce is turn your fire on to a low heat.

And this is where we'll start to add our seasoning.

Little salt.

I have a little cayenne pepper.

Just use a little bit.

If you want yours to have a little more heat, you certainly can add more.

And a little black pepper.

♪ I'm gonna mix that in.

I have a little seafood stock here.

I'm gonna do half a seafood stock and half a water.

If you have just water, that works perfectly fine.

Another thing that works great is if you have a whole fish at home, right, and you want to fillet and start to use those bones, sauté those bones in early with those vegetables, and that creates a great flavor.

When you put in the water, let it render for about five minutes and then pull those bones right out and you would have your seafood stock.

And this is right where I want it to be.

I don't want that liquid too high.

I want it to be right at the top of that fish when I put it in.

I'm gonna stir this around, mix it in good.

♪ Last thing we'll add is some fresh thyme.

Create little beds for my redfish.

And some bay leaves.

And what I want to do is bring this liquid up to a simmer before I add my fish in.

So I know right when I put that fish in, it's starting to poach.

While that's coming to a simmer, I'll show you how to slice these redfish on a bias about, you know, I would say 2.5 inches for each piece.

I have some cut right here.

Before I put any protein in this liquid, you want to season it slightly, right?

I'm adding something to it.

So I don't want to bring down the great flavor that I have going on in here.

So a little salt.

And a little pepper.

You can see I'm coming up to a simmer and I'm gonna taste it, but I want you to see the consistency of where we are right here.

Right?

We're not too thick.

It's not gravy.

But as you poach this fish, that sauce is gonna start to reduce as well.

So it's gonna get that body that we're looking for.

And that's right where I want it to be.

♪ You can taste that -- a little bit of cayenne pepper.

You can taste the garlic.

I certainly taste that fresh thyme, that bay leaf.

You know that we've created a good stock.

If you want redfish, salmon, you can even do it with a little poached shrimp.

This is amazing right here.

I'm gonna turn it down.

See, I want it to be at a nice simmer.

I'm gonna add this redfish in and you can see -- you can still see the top of that fish.

That's where I want it to be.

♪ And again, you don't want to overcrowd your pan.

Right?

So what you do here, if you have enough space to do a little bit, I have one more space right here.

I'll fit this guy in.

And you want to have just the right amount of fish in that pan because you want that fish to soak up all that great flavor and you don't want to dilute that flavor that you have going in this court bouillon.

This is gonna cook on a simmer for 15 minutes, and when this come up, that fish is just gonna be perfectly cooked, flaky.

That sauce is cooked all the way through.

It's gonna be great.

And now we're ready to plate it up.

Oh, my goodness.

This is amazing.

And now it's time for the good stuff.

You've got to make sure they get a little bit of everything that you put in here.

Right?

So certainly some of our fresh tomatoes that you want.

Smells great.

It looks beautiful.

This liquid is amazing.

Hit it with just a little parsley for some color.

I'm gonna throw in a little fresh thyme sprig right here.

This is a wonderful dish that adds to your Creole feast.

When you're talking your third or fourth course, that's your fifth course.

This is just gonna elevate that experience.

-Chef Leah insisted that everything for the Creole feast had to be just so.

Attention to details was critical, down to the sorbet spoons, which were put in the freezer.

-Detail was everything for grandmother.

Certainly there was care and love and attention that went to everything she prepared in the kitchen.

And so she wanted that replicated in the dining room.

-She wanted everything to be just right.

The number of forks you had on the table, the wine glasses set in a certain way, the chilled cups if she was serving you a palate cleanser, right?

Everything.

Even chilling the spoon.

She just wanted it to be exact how she wanted, napkins folded a certain way.

She wanted that to just be spot-on perfect.

-Golden-brown veal panee was a meat course that was a must for Sunday dinners in Leah's childhood home in Madisonville.

-Now we're making paneed veal, my favorite dish.

So here we have some veal cutlets that's already pounded out.

So now I have my skillet here on a low heat.

I'm gonna add a little oil and a little butter.

While our oil and butter is heating up, we'll start breading, so we'll add a little salt... ...some pepper.

And we'll flip and salt... and pepper on the other side.

Now we'll go in our egg wash. And then we'll do a lightly coat of flour.

And then we'll go right into our breadcrumbs.

And what you want to do is you want to cover the whole cutlet with breadcrumbs and you want to knead it to make sure that it's covered well with our breadcrumbs.

Alright.

Now that our cutlet is breaded, we'll add it to our pan and we want to make sure our oil is evenly distributed and we don't want it too hot because our breadcrumbs could burn really easily.

Now let's bread another one.

Some salt...and pepper.

This was my favorite dish.

Any time I came to the restaurant...

Egg wash. ...it was always some paneed veal, a side of jambalaya and a side of string beans.

The best meal you could eat.

And if you're at home cooking for a lot of people, you know, after we cook our two cutlets, you want to wipe out your pan and clean out your pan because that oil and that butter will get real brown and it'll make our breading really dark.

And we don't want that.

We want that light-brown color.

And we don't want to crowd our pan either.

And we'll cook them maybe 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

Alright.

Now we could flip our first one.

And you see that beautiful color that we got on there?

That's what we're looking for.

Alright.

Now that we have that beautiful color, that crispy brown, we're almost ready.

And remember to keep your heat on low because it goes really quick, and next thing you know, you'll have a burnt paneed veal.

And we don't want that.

Alright.

Now we're ready to plate and we're gonna put our paneed cutlets on a paper towel so we can drain the excess oil from the pan.

We'll let that sit for a minute.

Now we can plate.

We'll add a little parsley.

Little pinch of salt.

And voilà.

And this is another great dish for our Creole feast.

Easy.

Delicious.

So yummy.

-For over 70 years, Chef Leah adapted and redefined the Creole cuisine of her heritage, a blending of Louisiana cultures that combined African, French, Spanish and Native American cooking techniques into a rich food tradition.

The James Beard Foundation noted that Chef Leah Chase's dishes helped pioneer the Creole food movement, adding that her recipes for dishes like gumbo, jambalaya and fried chicken have gone on to become staples.

-The Creoles of color had a lot of things going for them.

I just don't think they realized it at the time.

They were good cooks and they used always the best product.

-This delicious side dish features charred corn, crawfish and andouille maque chou.

-As we continue to navigate down our Creole feast, this is another dish that works perfect as a side, as a tapa.

And I'm talking about the crawfish and andouille maque chou.

So what we love to here to just add an extra twist to it or an extra flavor is to char our corn on open fire.

And I'll let Zoe demonstrate how you can do that at home.

-So what we want to do is we want to turn our heat up and we just want to hover our corn over so it could get that charred flavor.

That's what we're looking for.

If you can see those charred bits on the corn.

And that's what's gonna taste amazing.

-So when you talk about just simple things that you can do at home to elevate a dish, right?

So to elevate this corn and andouille maque chou, you add this char on it and somebody's gonna, "Oh, what is that charred taste?"

That's elevation that we love to have here, the difference of layering flavors.

And we're not trying to go too far with the char, just enough where it hits you right when you're tasting that corn.

And that's coming along beautiful.

This is something great that if you're barbecuing, you can do this on a barbecue grill and you can cook this whole dish on your barbecue grill.

Right?

Because it's that fast and that simple.

You know, you remove the corn and you put your skillet right on top of that grill and we'll finish that corn maque chou.

That's looking good.

And as Zoe comes and cuts this corn, I'm gonna start working the maque chou.

-So we want to hold our corn up like this and we'll take our knife and we'll just start to go down.

And it's so easy to cut off the cob.

-And frozen corn works just as well.

But if you have a chance to get that fresh corn, you can't beat it.

We're gonna start with a little butter in our skillet.

♪ To that, I'm gonna add some onions.

♪ I'll add some bell peppers.

And then I'm gonna add our andouille sausage.

♪ And I want to start to brown that sausage.

I want to release those oils in that sausage, right?

Any time you get a chance to release protein juices and maintain it in a pot, that's what you want to do, right?

You want to just keep building upon that natural flavor that those proteins have.

♪ Again, I held the garlic back.

We almost said, "Well, we'll add that garlic."

And I don't want to sweat my vegetables down too much.

I still want them to have some texture when you're biting into this dish.

So I'll add in my garlic here.

♪ I'll get my cherry tomatoes.

And these, I just want to sweat just a little.

Not too much.

I want them to keep their flavor and their taste.

I want them to keep their texture, right?

I don't want these to soften up too much.

I'm gonna hit it with a little salt.

A little cayenne pepper.

A little dried thyme, whole thyme.

♪ We're gonna get our corn back to the party.

I'm gonna take some of that fresh corn that Zoe charred for me.

We already had some charred corn that we did as well that I'll add to this dish.

And just look at those beautiful colors on this dish.

I mean, this -- It just looks appealing that you want to dive in and taste.

And the reason why I didn't add in those crawfish tails yet, as you know, when you buy them from the store, they have been precooked already.

So they don't take long.

You just got to hit them for a few minutes.

But if you start to smell this, you can see that andouille coming through.

-Alright, let's give it a taste to make sure we have the right amount of seasoning.

Get a little bit of everything.

-This is spot on.

So what do you think?

-So good.

Mm-hmm.

-You can taste that charness of the corn.

You can taste those little grape tomatoes coming through, the thyme, the garlic.

I mean, that andouille sausage is just speaking to me.

But there's another showcase that I want to add to it, and that's that crawfish.

So let's add those tails right in to here.

♪ ♪ -And we don't want to overcook our crawfish.

That's very important.

-Really two minutes is all you need to warm those crawfish tails up.

We're getting ready to plate this up.

It's all cleaned up.

I see our green onions that we have on the side and we want to use that at the end for color.

It also adds a little flavor.

I want to keep that texture, right?

I want you to have a little bite to it.

So that's why we'll top this with our beautiful green onions that we have here.

This is a mainstay on a Creole feast.

And we are ready to plate.

♪ And if you're right here, just in this cloud of smoke flavor, you know this dish is just full of greatness.

Look how beautiful that is.

I definitely got to showcase a few crawfish right on top of there.

Zoe will finish that off with some green onions.

-It's such pretty colors.

It's vibrant, such a delicious dish.

-So when you're talking Creole feast and as my grandmother would want to bring everybody to the table and sit down and just converse and have a great time, fellowship and create memories, please bring this dish to the table.

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

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

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

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

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

-You talk about my grandmother at a young age and her father telling her three things to remember as she was going off to high school away from her family.

And that was work, pray and do for others.

And you could imagine what those three things took in my grandmother listening and did what she did and accomplished throughout her life.

-They both loved to fish.

So we would -- We city children not used to getting up 5:00 in the morning, would get up 5:00 in the morning to go fishing with my grandmother Hortensia.

-I'm no outdoors person, right?

So we throw in this -- just a cane pole.

We're not talking rod and reel, cane pole.

And I remember feeling something on my toe.

I'm like, "What is that?"

You had to stand a little bit in the water, right?

And I lifted my toe and hanging on the end of -- I still had, like, a flip flop on -- was a crab.

You know?

And I'm like screaming, "There's a crab holding..." And all my grandmother said was, "Oh, when you're looking for one of those, you never can find any."

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