New Orleans Cookbook: Great Cajun and Creole Recipes

by Richard H. Collin and Rima Collin

Book Overview

Two hundred eighty-eight delicious recipes carefully worked out so that you can reproduce, in your own kitchen, the true flavors of Cajun and Creole dishes. The New Orleans cookbook whose authenticity... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394752759
• ISBN13: 9780394752754
• Release Date: March 1987
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

This is IT!

If you are looking to cook up the REAL thing, this is cookbook for you. I ate my way through New Orleans in the '70s and '80s using Richard Collin's restaurant guides and never went wrong. A scholar and gourmet, Mr. Collin and his late wife spent years researching and testing recipes. No, many of New Orleans' great dining halls don't give out recipes (oh, for the recipe for some of the departed Le Ruth's dishes, or Mosca's Chicken Cacciatore or Chicken a la Grande!!) but the versions here are in a similar style and thoroughly authentic. The emphasis is more to the Creole rather than the Cajun side, with more subtle flavors and less hotness. But don't worry - there's always plenty of garlic! The preparations aren't always easy and do take time, but you'll be handsome rewarded! I never cook Louisiana style without this book nearby!

Best of the Best

This is the best of the best New Orleans cookbooks. I bought my first copy in 1975. It is stained and falling apart and I will not part with it. The recipes are authentic,well written, easily understood and they all come out delicious. I have given copies of the book to each of my children and now my friends want copies, too. I can't recommend this book highly enough. the navy bean soup and the shrimp creole recipes are family favorites, along with the chicken gumbo, soaked salad...I could go on and on. if you like Creole food you can't go wrong with this book.

"The" New Orleans Cookbook

This is my favorite New Orleans cookbook. It contains all of the definitive creole and cajun recipes. I have been cooking from this book for over twenty years. My dishes made from these recipes are good enough to allow me (and anyone else) to pass as a native New Orleanian. This book is an original. It was first compiled in 1975 -- before the Cajun cuisine became a national fad. In our family recipes are generally referred to as "THE", implying that no mere imitation or substitute will do. What! this in not "THE" potato salad! Are you bringing "THE" gumbo? Rima & Richard Collin have created "THE" New Orleans Cookbook.

I agree with the other reviewers,

this is the best! I am not from Louisiana, but I love Cajun and Creole food and have a number of cookbooks on the subjects, including Paul Prudhomme's first. But this is one I use over and over. The pages are stained and spattered, and the book automatically falls open to the recipe for shrimp creole. All of the instructions in the book are very clear, and the food is delicious. I have never had a single failure with any recipe I have tried from this book, and I have at least eight hundred cookbooks and cannot make that claim about many of them. Shrimp creole, however, is on the top ten list of my favorite recipes, especially for company dinners. One night I put the plates down in front of my guests, a lively, convivial, gregarious and loquacious group of people. Every head bent down to eat, and not another word was spoken until each plate was clean - I am not exaggerating. This recipe alone is worth the price of the book. Do not be put off by the long list of ingredients or the time it takes to make the roux. Do not be tempted to cook the shrimp for less time than the recipe calls for. The effort of this dish reaps huge benefits, and all the time you put in up front allows you to get the meal on the table with a minimum amount of fuss at dinnertime. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. (Crabmeat Mandeville - a crab salad - is equally divine.) I hope you will buy this book. I know you will enjoy it.

My favorite Louisiana cookbook

As a native of Louisiana no longer living in the Bayou State, I often have an "envie" (that's cajun dialect for "yearning") for the food I grew up with. I got my first copy of this book in 1975 and have cooked with it ever since. It is particularly strong on the classic New Orleans recipes--oysters rockefeller, trout veronique, Bananas Foster--but also covers some basic stuff like how to make a good Bechamel sauce, hollandaise. It is also quite good at Cajun cooking. Most people outside of Louisiana think you can make anything "Cajun" by dousing it with Tabasco--not so. It's a far subtler cuisine than that, generally no spicier than Szechuan and certainly less spicy than Thai. The recipes for Chicken & Sausage Gumbo, Chicken Macquechoux, and similar stuff have been used so often the pages are sticky with spatterings of oil and roux. I prefer this GREATLY to Paul Prudhomme's book. (I have both and rarely use Paul's.) If you are interested in a strictly Cajun cookbook and not in something which has New Orleans cuisine, I might recommend Justin Wilson's Homegrown Louisiana Cooking. Still, The New Orleans Cookbook is by far my most-used Louisiana cookbook, and one of the most used cookbooks in my kitchen