Circa 1985-1986 

During my tenure at the Columns Hotel I collected many of the weekly dinner specials menus and ultimately made my way to the hot line and learned to prepare most of the dinner items. I have listed the items as they appeared on the original menus with the original prices. I have also added a short paragraph on how the menu item was prepared for a quick review.

 Appetizers 

Smoked Seafood Salad – Assortment of seafood smoked and marinated with avocadoes and vinaigrette dressing. $4.50

This was made with smoked oysters, smoked shrimp, and smoked scallops with some diced avocado and tossed with the house vinaigrette dressing and served on a bed of bib lettuce.

Escargot ET Arthichaux – Sautéed escargot in an herb butter served with fresh artichoke leaves. $5.25

This was made with the Café Butter and the snails were sautéed in it until heated through. Then these are draped over a whole steamed artichoke and served in a soup bowl.

Frog Legs Bordelaise – Fried frog legs, mushroom, green onions and garlic butter. $4.50 

This was lightly seasoned and floured frog legs deep fried and then served over a bed of angel hair pasta with mushrooms and green onions which were sautéed in Café butter.

 Entrees

Sautéed Rabbit with Tarragon Mustard Sauce – Boneless rabbit, tarragon, Dijon mustard, bordelaise and sour cream. $11.50

The farm raised rabbit was de-boned and marinated in a white wine and olive oil mixture with lots of fresh chopped herbs such as thyme, rosemary and basil with black peppercorns and salt and pepper. The rabbit was best when marinated for at least 2-3 days. Then lightly seasoned and floured then sautéed in clarified butter. The sauce was made with the house brown sauce flavored with tarragon, Dijon mustard and a small portion of sour cream to lighten the color up a bit.

Stuffed Veal Chop Madeira – Stuffed with prosciutto ham, gruyere cheese, herbs and served with a red wine sauce. $14.95

The 8 oz bone in veal chop was cut with a small pocket opposite the bone side and then a mixture of small diced prosciutto and shredded gruyere cheese was mixed with some fresh chopped thyme and rosemary and stuff into the chop. Upon order the chop was browned on both sides and finished in the oven. The sauce was a Madeira wine reduction with shallots and demi glace or Glace de Viande added then toped over the chop upon service.

Breast of Chicken Payone – Julienne ham, squash, bell peppers, cream and demi-glace sauce. $10.95

Boneless chicken breast lightly seasoned and floured then sautéed in clarified butter, flipped and then finished in the oven. The sauce was a sauté of julienne ham, sliced yellow squash, julienne red and green bell peppers and a bit of glace added for flavor. Then finished with heavy cream and reduced to sauce consistency. Plated the chicken breast and served with sauce over the top.

Sautéed Rainbow Trout Grenobloise – Served with capers in a light lemon butter sauce. $12.50

Fresh rainbow trout was shipped in twice a week and was the whole dressed fish with head, skin and tail attached. We would remove the interior bones and this created a nice whole piece of fish that fit nicely on a large dinner plate. Seasoned with salt and white pepper then dredged in seasoned flour and sautéed until golden brown and finished in the 450° F oven until done. The sauce was our Beurre Blanc with the addition of a ½ Tbsp of capers. This menu item was a very simple yet elegant preparation and presentation.

Sweetbreads Bourguignon – Bacon, onions, mushrooms, red wine and Bordelaise sauce. $12.50

The sweetbreads were poached and pressed in advance and held under refrigeration until service. Each order was about 6 ounces of sweetbreads which were lightly seasoned and floured then sautéed in clarified butter until golden on all sides. Per order the diced bacon was fried up and then onions and mushroom added and cooked then flamed with the red wine and our basic brown sauce was added and heated through. On this one the plate was sauced then sautéed sweetbreads placed over the sauce and garnished with a few pieces of the sautéed bacon.

One of the favorite past times of New Orleans natives and Louisiana folks is to throw a crawfish or seafood boil. And this typically means that you are inviting a few close friends and family over to share in the occasion, a seafood boil is more than just eating some crawfish, crabs, or shrimp, and it’s a happening or event in and of itself! Live crawfish can be bought at local Louisiana seafood purveyors in sacks that average about 40 lbs. each; gulf blue crabs are typically sold by the dozen and shrimp by the pound.

Seafood boils also include a variety of accompaniments such as new potatoes, corn on the cob and garlic in the more traditional boils. On occasion and for those who venture in their culinary tastes I have been known to throw in some whole artichokes, whole cabbage, sausages, or even boudin (pronounced BOO-dan), which is a pork sausage originated in France and the Cajun version is made with rice. The Cajun style boudin really soaks up the seafood boil spices and makes for a great spread on crackers, just like the whole garlic cloves on some crusty French bread.

Seafood or crawfish boil recipes vary by just about anyone who makes up a batch of the stuff, just like a gumbo it seems for every one there is a different recipe. This recipe for seafood boil was used at the Hyatt Regency Hotel New Orleans in the early 1980’s when I was the Saucier in the main kitchen we used to boil at least one batch of crawfish a week during the height of the season. Crawfish can be had year round, but the time when they are plentiful is the early spring to mid summer months, and typically the price usually drops just after Easter when lent is over and most Catholics are not eating as much seafood.

The original recipe at the Hyatt was prepared in a large 60 gallon steam jacketed kettle and was big enough to boil up to 2 sacks, or 80 pounds of crawfish in one batch. I have cut the recipe in half; most seafood boiling pots for home use are large enough hold up to one sack of crawfish at a time and are usually a 20 gallon (80 quart) capacity and use an outdoor propane burner for heat.

The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival typically is held the first weekend in May and features a full weekend of crawfish cuisine either fried, boiled, in an étouffée, bisque, boudin, pie or jambalaya, and crawdogs, along with other Cajun favorites. They also have a crawfish cook-off contest, a crawfish eating contest, dance contests, arts and crafts, and Cajun and Zydeco music too!

Ingredients

1          sack     Live crawfish, 40 lb. approximate

15        gal        Water

15        each     Lemons, sliced in half

10        bulbs    Garlic, sliced in half

6          bags     Zatarain’s Brand Crab boil seasoning, 3 oz each

10        ounces  Zatarain’s Brand Crab boil liquid

6          ounces  Crystal hot sauce

6          ounces  Cayenne pepper

1 ½      lb         Salt

2          large     Onions, quartered

1          stalk     Celery, coarse chopped

1          bunch   Parsley, whole

5          ounces  Worcestershire sauce

6          ounces  Lemon juice

5           lb         New red Potatoes

10        ears      Corn on the cob, cut in half

2          lb          Boudin sausage, links wrapped in foil

Procedure

1.                  Make sure you have plenty of beer chilled on ice before you start.

2.                  Fill boil pot with the water and turn on the propane burner to a medium flame. Place the insert basket into the pot.

3.                  While the water is starting to get warm and add the lemons, garlic, crab boil bags and crab boil liquid, hot sauce, cayenne pepper, salt, onions, celery, parsley, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice.

4.                  Once the seafood boil liquid starts to simmer add the potatoes and corn.

5.                  Bring to a boil and allow to simmer until the potatoes are almost done.

6.                  Add the foil wrapped boudin and then bring the propane burner to a full high flame and bring the boil liquid to a full rolling boil.

7.                  Add the live crawfish and stir well to ensure all of them are covered in the liquid.

8.                  Cover and allow the liquid to return to a full boil, then turn off the propane flame and keep covered for 30 minutes, or about 2 beers later. This allows the crawfish to absorb the flavors.

9.                  Carefully remove the insert basket from the liquid and drain excess liquid into the pot. Transfer the crawfish and boil contents onto newspaper lined tables where folks can start to eat immediately.

10.              Have plenty of ice cold beer, crusty French bread, and paper towels available.

11.              Repeat if you have more than one bag of crawfish, but you might have to add more salt and spice to the liquid for each successive crawfish batch.

This has become one of our favorite dishes lately and is actually a modified version of a Weight  Watcher recipe we found in one of their annual publication recipe books. Our version follows a more traditional New Orleans BBQ style shrimp, and we have taken some of the sauce ingredients and increased the amounts because we cannot get enough of that yummy liquid to soak up with the French bread! This is an easy preparation and only takes about 30 minutes from prep time to sitting at the dinner table. Be sure to have plenty of napkins or even wet towels available to wipe up the sauce from your lips and hands as you peel the delectable shrimps.

Yield: 4 – half pound servings

Ingredients

3 Tbsp Butter

¼ Cup Garlic, minced

¾ Tsp Black pepper, freshly ground

3 Tbsp Crystal hot sauce

¼ Cup Rosemary, fresh chopped

¾ Cup Caesar dressing

4 ½ Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

3 Tbsp Lemon juice, fresh

2 lbs. Shrimp, shell on, headless, 21-30 count

¾ Cup Beer

1 each Lemon, sliced, seeds removed

1 Loaf French bread

Procedure

1. Pre heat oven to 350° F. This will be used to heat the bread later on.
2. Melt the butter in a large non-stick sauté pan over medium-low heat.
3. Add the garlic and slowly sauté for 3-5 minutes.
4. Add the black pepper, hot sauce, rosemary, Caesar dressing, fresh lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce and stir well and bring to a slow simmer.
5. Add the shrimp and stir well and then add the beer and stir again.
6. Fold in the lemon slices.
7. Place French bread in pre heated oven to warm.
8. Turn up the heat under the shrimp to high and stir occasionally until shrimp are pink and cooked through.

File’ (pronounced fee-lay) spice powder is a unique ingredient used primarily for making a good gumbo, and it is a necessity for cooking authentic Cajun cuisine. Quite simply, file’ is the powdered leaves of the sassafras tree. When ground, it has a faint smell like eucalyptus. Long before the use of file’ powder for Creole and Cajun cooking, Choctaw Indians of the Gulf coast pounded sassafras leaves into a powder and added them to soups and stews. In addition to contributing an unusual flavor, the powder also acts as a thickener when added to liquid.

Typically I will add the file’ powder toward the end of making a gumbo, but before I put it into the hot gumbo I will mix the fine file’ powder with a small amount of cool water until it is dissolved creating a thick slurry. I then fold in the file’ slurry into the hot gumbo. This prevents the file’ powder from clumping and keeps it smooth in the gumbo. File’ does really help thicken up a gumbo and it adds a unique flavor profile too.

Here is a link to an interesting article on General Horticulture.com about how to make your own file’ powder. It has some good background on the sassafras plant.