Bayou Bites

You know, if you're a fan of good-looking men, who can cook, and who has got the lock on Louisiana cooking, you don't want to change that dial

John Bash is here, y'all, to share some of his best-value bites, like busters and grits

I love, love, love a soft-shell crab. And I'm pitching in with a sweet potato bread pudding with a fabulous pecan crumble

And you're gonna be a happy man. And what better way to finish it all off than with a cafe au lait with chocolate-dipped shortbread spoons when you see the husband run

Today is about Bayou Bites. And I might give this Bayou a bite before the show's over

So what are we doing, John? You know, first of all, kind of embarrassed. Come here to Savannah in your backyard and say, here, we're going to make grits

But I thought we'd do something really great showing the correlation between our two cuisines

One below country and then one from way down there on the bayou. And so when I think of grits, I think of busters and grits

What is busters? Busters are what we call soft-shell crabs that are just busting out of the shell

So we have a quart of water. And what I want to do is just add these grits to it. And we're adding a cup of grits

These look like the grits that I cook. Yeah, same thing. Okay, have you salted your water

Thank you. Those are mine. The water has been lightly salted. We're going to add more salt before too long

Okay. I just want to put those in, and then we'll start to stir

All right. Well, I'm going to turn those down. The most important thing, and I've told you all a thousand times, is make sure you stir

those grits up good when they hit the water, because they'll come out in golf ball sizes

Right. If you don't. And so we just want to make sure we stir that in, bring it to a boil, and then we'll just

lower it down to a simmer. Let's let this simmer for about 15, 20 minutes

That's fine. Okay. While that's working, I like to work on what I call my crab pan sauce

Now, for this pan sauce, if you could go ahead, cut, chop, smash, whatever, two cloves of garlic

Okay. What I'm going to do is I'm going to add an onion to it

John, now once you get that onion diced, we're going to add the garlic to the pan

along with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. We're going to sweat that down over high heat, medium-high heat

That's fine. And we'll add these onions. I'm so interested in this busters thing you're talking about

Isn't that crazy that I've lived to be this age and never heard of busters

Well, I think it's strictly a New Orleans thing. As a lot of people say, New Orleans

Quarter cup of your fennel. And it's going to add this anise flavor to this. Uh-huh

This is great to cook with. You know, when this simmers down, it's really, really sweet

And so here... Love fennel. All I want to do... All right, do you ever cook with the green parts

I do, and like potato soup. Mm-hmm. And some oysters. I love potato soup

Uh-oh. Okay. We're going to have to... Let me show you. Okay, we're going to have to put the he-man stir on that one

What we're going to do to this... Uh-huh. In a couple of minutes, we'll stir this a couple of times

Uh-huh. Just want to make sure it's on low, low heat. And then at the end, we'll add a little bit of cheese

The type of cheese I like to use is the mascarpone cheese. The Italian cream cheese

Now, John, I hear your wife Jennifer is quite a cook as well. She's a great cook, but she doesn't have time with the four kids and running around

Y'all have four children. Oh, yeah. Great time of day. What are their ages

Four, six, eight, and 13. Oh, my goodness. How do you get everything done that you have to do

I don't know. Four restaurants and four children. She's got the hard part. I would say, yes, she does have the hard part

I knew you would agree with that. Now what I want you to do is measure out a cup of that heavy cream

Okey-doke. Now what is that? That's dry vermouth. Okay. This is some of the fresh-made crab stock

Uh-huh. So I've added half a cup of dry vermouth, a cup of crab stock, a cup of heavy cream

and we'll let that just reduce down together. We'll just let it cook down

Fabulous ingredients. Once it comes up to a boil, we'll turn that down. If you could grab a sprig of thyme and a sprig of the tarragon

we'll just drop that in. How about that? And you can throw a bay leaf in there, too

Okay. And one teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes. So this is going to have a little bite to it

A little bite. It needs a little bite. We're talking about bayou bites today

Uh-huh, yeah. You know that you're going to get spicy food when you go to New Orleans

We've got the sauce reducing. We'll let that pan sauce just reduce down for a couple more minutes

For our busted. That's right. And then we have our grits working. In a couple of minutes, we'll finish those grits

But we'll let those just simmer. I want to talk to you about your crab stock. Right

I want you to tell us how to make the very best crab stock

Now, when you're making your stock, do you use any kind of crab boil in it

I don because I like to use the crabs that we have left over from the crab boil to make that stock with You know anytime we have a crab oil crawfish boil shrimp boil I save all the shrimp I save the crabs I save the crawfish

I'll take those shells and make a stock out of them. And those stocks, that's what we use for the good stuff

So y'all don't go anywhere. I'm in here with John Besh, and he's the best

Keep talking. Coming up, here comes the busters, y'all. This is pretty darn good

I'll help you reach back there if you can't get it. And later, a little something sweet

This is to die for. Sweet potato bread pudding with a pecan crumble

Well, welcome back, everybody. I'm in the kitchen with John Besh from New Orleans, one of New Orleans' finest

He's making us busters. Busters and grits today. And busters, y'all, are what John calls soft-shell crabs that are busting through their shell

And come on over here. Sounds great. We're going to make ourselves really quick and dirty batter here. Okay

This is simple. Quick and dirty. Quick and dirty. Okie doke. I can see why you have four chillings

Oh my gosh. Let's just run through this real quick. If you could go ahead and crack those four eggs

I see you've got eggs here. What I'm doing here is just making a real simple dredge for my crabs

This is going to be a batter. And this is a wet batter. This won't be a dry batter, but you could essentially do it the same way that you would fry fish or anything else

So, John, I see that you're adding a cup of cornmeal to the half a cup of flour

We need a little creole spice. And so I'll take a teaspoon, actually, but a little bit to grow on won't hurt

Okay, that was like two teaspoons. You're measuring that like I measure my butter, John

You got to do it. Mix that up, and then we'll add some milk to it

About a half cup milk for the eggs. Okay. And then we'll blend

You can pour that into this one. Okay. I like to mix the wet ingredients with the wet, the dry with the dry, and then combine them just like that

And look, it's just that simple. This is good cooking. Everything that you have over here in the way of dry is plain, correct

Right. We're talking about all-purpose flour. We're talking about yellow cornmeal, white cornmeal

It doesn't really make a difference. I just want to show you these soft-shell crabs

If you can look, these really, sometimes you'll have the slight paper shell on there

Yes. I like just to take that off. You know, I kind of do too. You don't need to

Soft-shell crabs only happen, what, twice a year? You know, it depends

In your neck of the woods, I think it's twice a year because of the water temperatures and whatnot

In my neck of the woods, you're talking about nine months out of the year

Really? We'll have soft-shell crabs. All right, now you're just breaking those in two

What I'm doing is I'm just breaking these off, and I'm just dropping them in. And they're so easy

Like these things, and they're already nice and salty because of the..

Look at that, how easy they break apart. Yeah, they're coming straight from the salt water, so you have a lot of flavor there

Oh, John, I'm so happy. So that you don't have to mess up your pretty fingers

Well, thank you. I'm going to drop a couple of these in here. Now, we're frying them in peanut oil, y'all, at 350 degrees

And I'm going to come down here, and I'm just going to give our stock a stir

When that reduces about halfway, you can just go ahead and turn it off

So add about a half a stick of butter to our stock. And if we need to, we can add more later

Okay. John, these crabs have a rich golden brown color. And it looks like to me that they're ready to come out

These crabs are looking good. And if you could do me a quick favor. Yeah, absolutely

Anything for you, John. I'll pull these out. If you can take, let's add that mascarpone to the grits

Okay. And then also the rest of this butter. Oh, okay. Four or five tablespoons of butter into the..

And stir that in. I'm going to take these out. These are... All I'm looking for is something golden brown, just like that

Those are beautiful. And our mascarpone is just, it's just melted right on up

Now that's not four or five tablespoons. You and I measure alike

Just make them taste good, mama. That wasn't quite that, but I've got some more back here

You know, we never run out of butter at this house, so. That's right

So let me do this. There we go. Just add a little bit of salt to that. Sean

I'll set this here. Gonna make a little bit of room for us. Okay

If you haven't noticed, I love to make a mess in the kitchen. Well, you know, there's just..

As far as I'm concerned, if you're not making a mess and you're not cooking. You're not cooking

And then right here... Uh-huh. You know we love our green onions

Yes, we do. So I'm just going to take a handful of these

All right, now I'm going to... Do you want bowls or plates for this, John

Let's serve these in bowls. Okay. This is bowl kind of food

Yes, it is. For the green onions I think it not very important to measure all this stuff out No it not Let add a few chopped green onions to it Looking good there And a little bit of hot sauce

Let's see. Oh, gosh. Look at that. Creamy as the day is long

Look at that, y'all. I'm going to just... Mascarpone cheese. You know what

We can add more. We can take some out. That's fine. And then what I like to do is I'll take this..

If you want to get fancy, you can strain the sauce. You can do this or that

You can puree it. Oh, but no. Why? But this is country cooking. No, I don't want mine strained

We're just going to add a little bit of that sauce to it. Yes. And I want to add my sauce first so that you don't pour the hot sauce right over a crunchy soft-shelled crab

This is fine eating, y'all. And look, I'll take this and we'll just serve that in there

and that's for you. Oh, gosh. And this is for me. Try that one

Oh, my gosh. But this is it. This is what... I'd come home with soft shells

or I'd come home with busters and Mama would cook this up. You and your buddies would..

Is it? It really is. I hate to brag and all, but this is pretty darn good

I'll help you reach back there if you can't get it. Thank you, thank you

Because this is ever more fine stuff. What was the way that you stirred that mascarpone in

There you go. And you added a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Oh, I love, love, love a soft-shell crab

John Besh, you're the best. Coming up. All of it? Yes, all of it

I'm going to be sharing my sweet potato bread pudding with a pecan crumble, y'all

And then you're going to be a happy man. And later, cafe au lait with chocolate-dipped shortbread spoons

I'm in the kitchen today with John Bash. He's so cute. I'm actually fixing to make him a sweet potato bread pudding

with a pecan crumbled topping. And I have asked John to separate six eggs for me

and I'm going to be making the custard. Now, the custard is going to be two cups of milk

Do you like bread pudding? Is it pecan or pecan? You know, that discussion goes on all the time here

You say tomato, I say tomato. You say potato, I say patata

I'm going to add a half a cup of white sugar. In goes a half a cup of brown sugar

So all total, we've got one cup. So we're just going to mix that up

Now I've got a cup and a half, John, of pureed sweet potato

And if you would, you can add that one and a half cups of pureed sweet potato

Now all I did, y'all, was bake off some sweet potatoes, and I just put that through a food processor to get them real smooth for me

Could you use a canned sweet potato? Yes, but, you know, I have to..

Too easy just to do the real thing. It's too easy to do a real sweet potato

All right, here's a whisk, and I'll whisk it, John. If you would, I'm going to need a half a teaspoon of cinnamon

Is this like one of my teaspoons or one of yours? So something more exact than mine

It's one of mine. Either way, we've got the same thing. So that's a half teaspoon of cinnamon

Yes. And a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg. You know, nutmeg is..

That's powerful. Oh, it's powerful. Now we're gonna have our own stuff

Well, if you just kinda beat up those yokes for me. We're gonna let this heat up

and then we'll come back and we'll temper our eggs into our custard

So come on down here, John. Just come right around here, you little sweet thing

I love bossing you around. I like being bossed by you. Do ya

All right, we're gonna add one cup of flour, a half a cup of oats

and then we're going to need another cup of brown sugar. And I toasted off some pecans

so we're going to need anywhere from a half to a cup. You know, you can't get too much

There's that pecan thing again. You can't put too many nuts in it to suit me

All right, and what I need for you to do is slice this bread here

Let me get that then. Okay, if you'll do that, I'm going to watch over our custard pot

And about how thick do you want them? Well, kind of a little bit thicker

A little thicker. Now I'm going to check on our custard. It's coming up to heat, John

Now that I have these sliced, what... If you would, John, just line the bottom of our pan with our bread. Yes

Yeah, it's going to take about five. So you can just take one

What I'll do is I'll slice one of these in half. There you go. Well, actually, just cut it in half this away

There you go All right All right so if you would You want to temper this in Yeah All right so by tempering we mean that we slowly bringing those yolks up to heat

so that they won't become scrambled eggs when we put them in our hot custard

because we don't want scrambled egg, sweet potato bread pudding. But the smell's good

Doesn't it smell delicious? Just like Thanksgiving should smell. Yes. Well, John, now that we've added the eggs, I need you to cut a stick of softened butter into our pecan mix

And once the custard thickens, I'm just going to add the two teaspoons of vanilla

Then we're covering the first layer of our bread, y'all, with half of the custard

Just like that. That's about half of it. Spread it out. Okay

And just do the same for the second layer, y'all. Cover this with a plastic wrap, and we're going to let it sit for at least eight hours

It's not going to hurt it to sit. So we're just going to put that crumbled up topping

Look how thick that is. Doesn't that look good? And so apply the topping now

All of it? Yes, all of it. Mmm. This is going to be delicious

This is looking good. And it's had a chance to soak up all those eggs and the milk

How does that look? That's beautiful. Okay, John, just slip that in there

And remember, our oven has been preheated to 350 degrees. We're going to bake it off for 45 minutes

And then you're going to be a happy man. Coming up. Look at this

All right, look at here. That's beautiful. The sweet potato bread pudding comes out of the oven

and I've got the perfect thing to go along with it. When your utensils become edible, life is good

We're gonna be finishing up the fabulous meal that you've cooked. The busters and grits were truly out of this world

And I can't think of a better way to top them off than with a cafe au lait with chocolate-dipped shortbread spoons

Y'all, we have made the cutest little shortbread cookie using a spoon mold

And now we're just going to take these and we're going to dip our spoons down in our chocolate

All right, so dip a spoon. Oh, my gosh. Yes. That is so good

Listen, you know what? When your utensils become edible, life is good

So this could be any sort of cookie, huh? Yes. But I love shortbread

I especially love shortbread with cafe au lait, which is steamed milk and coffee

I'm liking the sound of this. I know. Holland does New Orleans now

Yes. Instead of steamed milk, though, we are going to use heated heavy cream

I've got us a nice chicory pot of coffee. So now you tell me how much coffee

Oh, that's perfect. Okay. You mind if I steal some sugar? No, you use any kind of..

That sounds kind of racy, too. This has been a pretty racy show. Steal some sugar

Yeah. Now, I'm using a sugar substitute. That's plenty for me, I think

All right. And you pour... And you know in New Orleans, it's all about equal parts milk to coffee

Yes. So this is cream. Tell me when. Okay. You do how you think

Mm-mm-mm. Oh, that's going to be good. You normally drink your coffee black, don't you

I like coffee black, but if it's coffee and chicory, I think chicory, you need a little bit of a..

You know, I love cowboy coffee or cowgirl coffee, which means I just like it with cream and sugar

Look at this. All right, look at here. This is beautiful. Our bread pudding

And so how do we go about... We're just going to dip it. Do you cut into it or just dip

Just stick it in and it's gorgeous. Now, all that's left to do is to top it with some whipped cream and just a few extra pecans

And look at these beautiful pansies that are... What we could do

Growing in my garden. I'm going to put you a pansy. I'm going to take one of those right there

Yes. I'm going to put us a pansy. This is a great idea. You don't mind if I steal them

No. Get you a fork. And I'm going to just kind of run my..

I might just make myself at home, sit here, stay here. You can stay as long as you like, honey, or at least don't want to

Do you mind if I bring them along too? Hmm? What do you think about the bread pudding

I don't want to leave, I'm telling you. Coffee and chicory. Like I said, you don't have to

Just when you see the husband, run. Coffee, chicory, bread pudding, feel like I'm at home

Thank you so much. This has been Quagos. Oh, John, what a delight. You know what

This is to die for. John, it has been such a pleasure

Bye, y'all