Recipes

Shrimp Remoulade

Shrimp Remoulade is in every New Orleanian’s arsenal of favored dishes for relaxed entertaining. This is our most popular dish and most frequently requested recipe. Tip for the home cook: The sauce is definitely best made a day in advance and refrigerated. Then all that’s left to do is toss in the shrimp, plate and serve. It’s a snap to make, yet it’s always impressive.

• ¾ cup chopped celery
• ¾ cup chopped scallions (white and green parts)
• ½ cup chopped curly parsley
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion
• ½ cup ketchup
• ½ cup tomato purée
• ½ cup Creole mustard or any coarse, grainy brown mustard
• 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish, or to taste
• ¼ cup red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Spanish hot paprika
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• ½ cup salad oil
• 4 dozen jumbo (15 count) shrimp, peeled, boiled, and chilled
• 1 small head of iceberg lettuce, washed, dried and cut into thin ribbons

Mince the celery, scallions, parsley and onions in a food processor. Add the ketchup, tomato puree, Creole mustard, horseradish, red wine vinegar, paprika and Worcestershire. Begin processing again and add the oil in a slow drizzle to emulsify. Stop when the dressing is smooth. Chill for 6 to 8 hours or overnight. Correct the seasoning with additional horseradish, if desired, after the ingredients have had the opportunity to marry.

In a large mixing bowl, add the sauce to the shrimp and toss gently to coat. Divide the lettuce among 6 chilled salad plates. Divide the shrimp evenly atop the lettuce and serve.

Serves 6

Grilled Lemon Fish

Absolute simplicity is common in Galatoire’s kitchen. This simplicity means the dishes are easy for the home cook to prepare. The tricky part is that there is simply nowhere to hide a flaw in dishes as transparent as this one. Purchase only the very freshest fish available from a reputable fishmonger or catch it and cook it yourself.

• 3 tablespoons salted butter
• 1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• six 8-ounce lemon fish (Cobia) fillets, about ½ inch thick, or another firm, flaky white fish, such as red or black drum
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 recipe meunière butter
• 3 lemons, cut into wedges

Preheat an outdoor gas or charcoal grill.

In a medium sauté pan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the crabmeat and season with salt and pepper. Stir very gently and sauté for 4 minutes, or until heated through. Set aside while grilling the fish.

Brush the fish fillets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the fish for 3 minutes on each side, taking care not to overcook. Remove from the grill.

Immediately place the lemon fish fillets in the centers of 6 dinner plates. If the crabmeat has become cold, flash-heat it over high heat and equally divide it atop the 6 fish fillets.

Drizzle meunière butter sauce atop each dish and garnish with lemon wedges.

Serves 6 – Serve at once

Note: If you are using an alternate type of fish you may have to adjust the cooking time.

Bread Pudding

There was a time when this dessert was often overlooked at Galatoire’s. Our patrons were prone to eat and drink heartily throughout the savory portions of their meals and seemed to regard our desserts as little more than adequate supports for celebratory candles.

This simple, elegant dish changed all that. Unlike most bread puddings, this one is light and airy, and its texture resembling that of pain perdu, or “French toast.”

If you do not have an oversized muffin pan, one-cup ramekins or baking dishes that have been well-buttered may be used to cook the puddings.

• 11 large eggs
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 quart whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Twenty four 4-inch slices of French bread (baguette)
• 1 pound salted butter
• 1 pound light brown sugar
• 4 bananas
• ½ cup praline liqueur

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, granulated sugar, milk, vanilla and cinnamon and whisk until well blended. In a nonstick oversized muffin pan (for 2), place 2 slices of the bread into the bottom of each muffin cup. Pour the egg and milk mixture into each muffin cup. Allow the bread to absorb the mixture and repeat the process until the bread is saturated and the muffin cup is full (it might take 3 or 4 fillings to totally saturate the bread and fill the cup). Bake the pudding mixture for 35 minutes, or until the pudding has turned golden and set in the pan.

While the pudding is in the oven, melt the butter in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the light brown sugar and whisk over the heat until smooth. Slice the bananas, stir them into the sauce and add the praline liqueur. Reduce the heat to low to keep the sauce warm.

When the pudding is baked, remove from the oven and allow to sit for 15 minutes to cool. Invert the muffin pan to remove the puddings and expose the custard. Place each on the center of a plate and ladle the sauce onto the pudding. Serve immediately.

Serves 12