Search:
Le Creuset Valentine
Look how pretty!
More Le Creuset
Cookbooks: Seductions of Rice. Home Baking. Street Food. Cocktail Food. Modern Cocktails & Appetizers. How to Cook Everything. The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. Maida Heatter's Cakes. Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook. Hors d'Oeuvres. Fields of Greens. Honey. The Man Who Ate Everything.Kitchen Confidential.

Out of the Frying Pan

 
Cookbook Guide Index
  profile by Nikol Lohr

Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking
Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch
472 pages; cooking.com: $17.50

Whether or not you go in for the hype, there's no denying that Emeril Lagasse has developed some damn fine dishes. And New New Orleans Cooking is filled with his trademark twist on hallowed New Orleans cuisine. If you're even vaguely familiar with Emeril, you know the foundation of his recipes is his trademark seasoning blend. I was a little dubious that a seasoning mix of fairly garden-variety spices (pedestrian paprika, salt, garlic powder, pepper, onion powder, cayenne, oregano and thyme make up the Creole Seasoning) would be necessary or even desirable in virtually every dish. But the seasoning is way more impressive than the sum of its parts, and it'll usually do the trick whenever I've cooked up anything that's not quite zippy enough.

I'm not crazy about the layout of this book. The fonts are distractingly frou-frou, and I find the arty, earthy black and white photography rather depressing, but the recipes--man oh man, do they make up for the design! (The back cover features beautifully styled color photographs of select recipes, but there's no such photographs within.)

Each recipe is prefaced with an explanation, story, or tips. Everything I've tried has been completely doable (although often heavy on the required steps) and just delicious. Like Emeril's seasoning, New New Orleans Cooking is definitely better than the sum of its parts. Although I have problems with a good deal of the book--and even the recipes themselves (too complicated)--the glory of the food just makes it all worthwhile. And unlike the recipes of Paul Prudhomme, another New Orleans favorite, Emeril's recipes (though certainly rich), don't leave me feeling like I need an angioplasty.


Nikol's Profile
| Submit your addendum to this profile

More cookbook reviews from Nikol:

Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, 1956.
Celebración
by Regina Cordova with Emma Carrasco
Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking
by Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch
The Frugal Gourmet
by Jeff Smith
Lee Bailey's Country Desserts
by Lee Bailey
Maida Heatter's Cakes by Maida Heatter
Street Food by Clare Ferguson

Report Card
Overall: A

Photos: C
plenty of local flavor, but nothing to do with the actual recipes
Ease of Use: A-
no visual destinction between chapters, but logically arranged
Practicality: B+
some ingredients difficult to locate outside of the South; many recipes are labor-intensive
Style: C
really enjoy the writing; lukewarm on the presentation

Favorite Recipes:
Crawfish Cakes with Crawfish Cream (p. 24)

Andre's Barbecued Shrimp and Homemade Biscuits (p. 180)



 

 

© 2000 - 2005 Out of the Frying Pan/outofthefryingpan.com. All rights reserved.