NARRATOR: Major funding for "Dook Chase: A Chef's Journey" was provided by the Melvin S. Cohen Foundation Incorporated.

Additional support by Zatarain's, bringing the flavors of New Orleans home for over 125 years.

Zatarain's born and raised in New Orleans.

From the spice of jambalaya to the flavors of a classic crab boil, it's a taste of New Orleans made at home.

And by Camellia Beans, rooted in New Orleans since 1923.

A family business with a devotion to beans spanning four generations.

Camellia Beans, a taste of home.

DOOK: This time on "A Chef's Journey," we're in New Orleans' Gentilly neighborhood to visit an open-air market that's putting Louisiana seafood in the hands of home cooks.

For a few days each week, American Seafood, a family-run processing house, operates a walk-up market that connects neighborhood regulars with the catch of local fishermen.

So let's go meet Wayne Hess to talk about Louisiana seafood, the heart of our culinary traditions.

♪ (theme music playing) ♪ DOOK: So we're here with Wayne Hess of American Seafood, who has been supplying New Orleans restaurants for a long time with local seafood.

But Thursday through Saturday, you have an open-air market for locals.

WAYNE: Been doing it since COVID, and we just love it.

The locals come to get local shrimp, the domestic crab meat.

We got fresh soft crabs today, live crabs, boiled crabs, live lobsters, boiled lobsters, scallops, mussels.

You come in here, and you ask for it, you got it.

DOOK: So you name it.

Anything that the restaurant normally can order, the locals, the home cooks, now can access the freshest seafood, but more importantly, from local fishermen, right?

When you talk about the communities that you all have been supporting and supplying us, speak to me a little bit about that.

WAYNE: Our local drum fishermen, our local sheepshead, our local shrimpers, you know, they come here, they offload it.

We weigh the fish, we ice them down.

You can walk up here and say, "Hey, I want a drum on a half-shell.

I'm having a party.

I'd like to get 12 pieces of drum filets, eight to 10 ounces."

We cut it to whatever your spec is, whatever.

It's our heritage, what we do, and I love to pass it along to our locals.

You know, especially in the Saints playing home, LSU, Tulane football.

DOOK: So Wayne, what I love about this market is all the different varieties of fin fish that locals can now come access and learn about, right?

WAYNE: You know, you're introducing the public to that they can go home and self-cook what they eating at your restaurant and our local restaurants.

It's fun, too.

DOOK: I've seen people come up here and exchange recipes and go home and try to have fun with it.

So this is a seafood schooling of itself.

I remember when you were down the street on Orleans Avenue.

WAYNE: On Orleans Avenue.

DOOK: Uh-huh.

WAYNE: I used to take... I could almost cry.

DOOK: Hah, yeah.

WAYNE: I used to take a hand truck and roll your grandma's product to her.

And she'd call to order, and I'd walk two blocks up the street and deliver it to her.

So my father started the business 50 years ago, and he retired about six, seven years back, and I took the helm.

DOOK: In talking about that, the generational aspect, now I understand... WAYNE: Yep.

DOOK: ...there's the third generation in the picture.

WAYNE: Third generation.

This is my nephew, third generation, Gavin.

So we kind of slowly passing the baton to him.

DOOK: So Gavin, tell me a little bit about the fin fish that you have here that locals can come in, pick, have it fileted their way, or take it home.

GAVIN: Yeah.

So, pretty much, Chef, fresh every day.

I got some beautiful puppy drum.

Comes in local, you know, that's all local stuff.

Our red fish, you know.

This is a farm-raised product.

Beautiful stuff.

You know, you can filet it any way you want, you know, a lot of people get it on a half shell.

They do it on the grill.

They do it butterflied, you know, I see that's a popular one.

We got our, our trout here.

And that's a good product as well.

DOOK: Red snapper, I see there.

Then you have salmon, the whole salmon right here.

GAVIN: Oh, yeah.

DOOK: This is just exposing a community to so many different fin fish.

You get the salmon filet, and they may not know this is how that whole salmon looks.

GAVIN: Yeah.

DOOK: So it's educational.

Man, the one thing I have to talk about is these soft-shell crabs.

Just look how beautiful this is, man.

This is something we cook all the time.

You fry them, put them on a po'boy.

You name it.

I mean, just highlighting the beauty of this crab.

GAVIN: Beautiful stuff.

WAYNE: And so you develop relationships to be able to get what we say is from the farm to the table to that plate.

DOOK: Right.

WAYNE: And y'all can prepare it so that the diners are just blown away about the experience that they're having.

And that's what's so humbling on our side, what we do, to make you guys just look like the bomb.

DOOK: So Wayne, they tell me this is the morning ritual, huh?

What is it?

WAYNE: So when we started this business with my father, we used to just shuck oysters, sell gallons and half gallons, and pints.

My morning ritual every day, you know, I come, I pop me an oyster when they come in.

(slurping).

DOOK: And have a little coffee.

WAYNE: And have me a little black coffee, and they call that Natural New Orleans, baby.

DOOK: So when you talk about the breakfast of champions at the seafood plant, it's oysters and coffee.

That's the breakfast of champions in New Orleans.

WAYNE: It don't get no better than that.

DOOK: I got to get this, man.

Let's go for it.

WAYNE: You don't even need to put cocktail sauce on them.

DOOK: You just go straight to it.

Oysters are perfect.

That saltiness coming through.

Man, you just started my day.

WAYNE: Y'all have a blessed day.

DOOK: All right then.

WAYNE: Thank you for coming by.

DOOK: Thanks for having us.

WAYNE: All right, baby.

DOOK: I got to get back in this kitchen.

I got to figure out how to let this seafood shine, but I'm excited to do it.

I got my start of the day already.

Welcome to my kitchen, where inspiration and creation come together in a celebration of culture.

You know, when you think of New Orleans, the heart of our identity and cuisine is our beautiful bounty of seafood.

This first dish we're going to showcase is a whole trout cacciatore.

And what you have to do here, and I'm going to show you, is you want to score this fish.

And you're not going far in, you're just going lightly, right?

You see that scoring?

Beautiful.

That's also going to help it cook and let the flavors come in.

And then we'll just start to create little X's on it and just score right in here.

We're going to do it on both sides, because the other side I want to cook as well.

You're not getting to the bone, you're just creating where it opens up.

We'll start to season our fish.

I have a little bit of salt, garlic, and pepper.

So we'll do a little bit of salt, a little garlic, and a little black pepper.

Flip this fish over here, and we're going to come right back in.

A little salt, a little garlic, and a little black pepper.

Now, as this pan is getting hot, what we're going to add to it is just a little bit of vegetable oil.

And what we're looking to do is, if you prepare any filet of fish with the skin side down, that's what we're looking to do here.

We're looking to get a good sear on this skin, and we're just going to go skin side down, right on in there.

And then what you want to do is just have it pat just a little bit.

And this is only going to take two minutes.

You want to go two minutes on each side.

You're not looking to cook this fish all the way through.

And here we're going to flip him right on over, and look at that beautiful color.

You see why we made those slits?

That's what you're looking for.

And again, you just want to press it down ever so gently.

It's all right if you don't have a big enough pan, because we're going to finish this dish in the oven.

So that's going to allow this to cook through.

Here's right where we want it to be.

The other beautiful thing is we're flavoring this oil as we build this cacciatore, right?

We don't want to lose flavor, so I'll take this fish out, and I'll set it on the side.

We'll add some butter to it, and you can see that brownness is not just from that butter that's browning, but it's picking up that seasoning that we have from that fish.

Now look at that.

Those onions are already starting to work and glaze.

So we have our onions in.

We'll hit it with a little salt, a little pepper, and a little bit of dried thyme.

And then now we'll start to add in some of the magic.

Onions are in.

We'll add in some green bell pepper.

I'll add in a little celery.

You let those start to work.

We have some beautiful red bell pepper.

When you're building a cacciatore, you want to build flavor, but you want to build color as well.

Of course, we're going to add just a little more salt, a little more thyme.

As we add, we add... and a little more pepper.

And you want to just let that work.

Now is the time where we'll start to add a little bit of tomato paste, right?

And when you're thinking about that body of that reduction, that tomato paste is going to give you that body, right?

It's certainly going to add a little bit of flavor.

To that, we're going to bring in our garlic, just a little bit here.

To this, we're going to add a little bit of our seafood stock here, and we're looking just to cover the vegetables.

Again, we don't want to add too, too much, because we want this dish to reduce.

Before we add that fish back, but what I held out was our beautiful grape tomatoes and these beautiful baby bella mushrooms.

Now, you can use any mushrooms you like.

Give it all to them.

Mix that in.

So this is right where you want it to be.

The last thing we'll add, I have a little oregano, and I have a little basil.

We have to give this a beautiful taste.

This is one beautiful dish.

So this is where we want to be here.

So here we're going to bring our fish right on back.

Put it right in there.

And right in that cavity, we're going to add some lemons, and this is going to give you that flavor of that lemon just cooking through that fish, going down into that tomato gravy.

I have an oven that's heated at 350.

We're going to slide this fish in and let it go for 25 minutes.

And you can see what we have here.

This is what I'm talking about when you let that reduce.

Now, this is the point where you have to be really, really careful, because we have a beautiful platter here, but we got to take our time removing this fish.

And I have a big fish spatula here, and I'm going to come right underneath.

I have a smaller one here.

And what I'm looking for is really you want to get to the bottom of the heaviest part of that fish, right, with the big spatula, and then come right over with the smaller one, and you're going to move right on top.

Oh, that just looks amazing.

This is where we just start to spoon right on the side, right?

Building that in.

This is one of those dishes you serve family-style.

Certainly, when you're speaking of New Orleans cuisine and the heart of it, you're talking about our beautiful bounty of seafood, and this just showcases that.

You bring this to the table for the family, and they're going to dive in and love it.

The next dish was these beautiful blue crabs that we want to stew.

And really, when you talk about getting that crab flavor out, it's all in the shell.

It's not in the meat, it's in the shell.

So we have a little vegetable oil that I'll start getting hot.

But this is where we're going to get the flavor for this dish from.

So as my oil is getting hot, I'm on a medium heat.

Let's just start to add in those beautiful crabs.

What I did was I had these crabs cleaned.

You know, you take the top shell off, you remove the gills, and you split them in half.

(sizzling).

And you want them to brown.

Just like anything with a deglaze, you want that coloration to start to hit to the bottom.

To help that out a little bit, we'll add a little salt to them and just a little bit of pepper.

Not too much.

You know what I love about this dish?

You think about these blue crabs, or some of you refer to them as our gumbo crabs, right?

These are the same crabs that you find in all of our local gumbos, or our crab boil.

But they're so versatile.

You see, you can see the coloration that we have here.

And as you know, we call them blue crabs because they start off blue.

But when you cook them, their color changes.

Let me show you.

See, when you move this, that bottom part, that brown that you're looking for, that's that crab flavor that you're looking to get.

So we're right where we want it to be.

We'll start to set these on the side.

Now, at this stage, the meat and the shells, they're not cooked all the way through yet.

But that's fine, because we have to add these back to this beautiful stew.

And when you're talking about flavoring oil, just look at that.

That oil is full of flavor.

To that, we're going to add in just a little bit of our onions.

(sizzling).

And we'll start to pick it up.

Now, while those onions are picking up some of that great flavor here, I am going to add some butter to it, because we have to make a roux.

So we have to have a good bit of fat in here as we make a roux, as we add the rest of these vegetables.

Now we start to build in on our trinity, right?

I have some celery here.

I'll add in some of our bell pepper.

While that's working, I'll hit it with a little salt, hit it with a little dried thyme, and then add just a little more black pepper.

Let that go a little bit here.

Now we're at the stage where we'll add in just a little garlic.

And then this is where we'll bring in a toast of our flour, right?

Let that go a little bit.

Keep moving it around.

I'm looking for a nice peanut butter roux.

And this is right where we want it to be, that toast.

Now we're going to add in a little bit of our seafood stock here and just deglaze.

(sizzling).

And our seafood stock is just a combination of shells.

We have bone, shrimp shells that we cook, and we blend up, and we strain.

So this is the consistency you're looking for, right?

If you have to add a little more stock, if you have to add a little more water, because you want to give those crabs time to soak in.

And while they're soaking in, it's going to reduce.

Notice I did not add the lump crab meat yet.

That, we're going to do that at the very end.

This recipe is really a recipe when you think of just celebrating the crab.

We have a beautiful she crab soup, but I love rice and gravy.

So when you're thinking of a stewed crab that you can eat with that lump crab meat, and then at the end of it, get those crab claws and break them, it's really start the work of it.

It marries everything about a she crab soup and a crab boil, because you're doing everything that you would in between.

So here's where we are.

We have a beautiful simmer here, and we'll start to add those crabs right back in.

And then you're just placing them right back into there.

Look how pretty that looks, that color.

We'll drop in two bay leaves.

You want to let this stew for 15 minutes.

You want to give it enough time for that crab meat to cook inside its shell, and also for that gravy to start to find its way through them and infuse all the way in.

And as this cooks, what you want to do is you just want to skim off any of the impurities that will come out.

Won't be much, because you already browned the crabs.

But we always have to give it a taste, and just look at that texture.

That's what I'm talking about, that velvety texture.

Soon as you taste it, it should coat the mouth.

Oh, man.

That crab forward, that's coming through.

That little bit of bay leaf.

The only thing this is missing is that beautiful lump crab meat.

So we're at the very end of this stage.

We're just going to fold in some of this beautiful crab.

Look at that.

That's some big old lump crab meat, though.

We'll add a little bit of parsley, and look how beautiful this looks.

The lump crab meat is folded in.

The crabs look amazing.

The taste is there.

Let's get this bowl and plate it up.

Oh, man, look at that.

This smells so great.

This is highlighting New Orleans' bounty.

When you have blue crabs and you want to showcase that, you don't do much to them.

You put them in a gravy that's flavored by their own shells.

You just top that off with a little parsley, add a little lump crab meat to it.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.

Eat a little rice and gravy, but don't get afraid to get your hands dirty.

Our next dish of oyster and lump crab meat sauce is a beautiful dish as we celebrate the bounties of New Orleans seafood.

We're going to start with a little butter.

Now, you want to bring that just as a melting point, not to brown just yet.

And we're going to add some flour to this, so just make sure you have enough fat for that flour to coat.

What we're looking to do here is make a blonde roux, right?

You don't want to toast it, you don't want to color it, but you just want to have enough in there so as you move around this flour, it can work.

You want to keep stirring it, because you want to be careful not to put any color on this dish.

We want to keep it light.

So, here we're right where we want it to be.

I'll add in some of our garlic, and we'll let that go.

You've got to watch the garlic, too as well, right?

You don't want that burned, you don't want that to become bitter.

So, this, you don't stop stirring.

You'll constantly give this a little stir.

And automatically, you can start to smell that garlic go to work.

And right when you're in there, we have a little bit of chopped oysters, right?

I gave them a little rough chop.

And I'm adding that to it, just bringing it around a little bit here and moving that in.

And while that's in, you'll start to season this dish up a little bit.

So, to that, we'll add in a little salt, a little white pepper, and you're having a little, little dry thyme, and then we're going to hit it with just a little seafood stock to deglaze.

Nothing too much, just enough to pick up that little flavor that's at the bottom as we go here.

And I'll add just a little bit more.

This is where we want it to be in this texture here, because we're going to add a little heavy cream at the end of it to make it a little bit thicker.

This sauce here, this oyster and lump crab meat, is going to top some golden brown fried eggplant medallions.

Of course, when you start working eggplant, you're going to want to peel it.

And when you peel it, you have to have some salt water, because it'll start to turn brown.

The oxygen'll hit it.

So, that's what we have here.

We have our peeled eggplant cut into medallions.

It's about a fourth of an inch, and we have it soaking in some salt water here.

I have egg wash here, a little flour, and a little breadcrumbs.

So, I'm going right here in this egg wash, a little salt, a little pepper, and we're going to flip it right over.

And then we're going to take this right back, egg wash, we're going to go right in these breadcrumbs, a little salt, a little pepper, and then we're just going to coat him up.

And that's what you're looking for, just a nice coat.

Now, what the flour does is it protects it, right?

If you miss a little bit with those breadcrumbs, that flour is going to protect that, that eggplant.

One way to test that oil, if it's hot, as soon as it goes in, you start to see those bubbles, we know this oil is hot.

We can start to drop in our eggplant.

You go right on in, and go right on in.

And right on in.

That's going to take five minutes to fry.

Every now and then, you can check; you might have to turn it.

We're coming back to this dish.

If you can smell that beautiful flavor that's coming up.

We'll add in our lump crab meat now.

As I add in, I want to make sure I have the right consistency between crab and oyster.

I don't want either one to overpower it, so I'll add in just a little more lump crab meat here.

Looking at our eggplants, I'm going to come right here and just give it a turn using the side of the pan.

And see that beautiful color.

That's what we're looking for.

What we want to do now is to fold in just work in a little bit of this heavy cream.

And you don't want to do this at a boil, because you don't want that sauce to break on you.

And just bring it in, just bringing it in, folding it in, working it.

Oh, and this looks so good.

As this comes to a simmer, our eggplants are ready.

Just kind of let them rest.

Here we came to a simmer.

We don't want to bring it to a boil.

We don't want that sauce to separate.

Now we'll start to add in these beautiful green onions.

And just look at that color.

This is a beautiful sauce.

The last thing I want to do is give it a taste.

Oh, that beautiful oyster coming through, that lump crab meat.

But one thing is missing.

I want to brighten it up a little bit.

So, I have just a little bit of lemon juice that I'm going to fold right on in.

Nothing too much.

And that's just going to add some acidity.

That's going to brighten it up a little bit.

And this sauce is just ready for you.

Oh, man, this looks beautiful.

So, now we're here, we're ready to plate, and we're just going to take our eggplant, and we're going to fan them out right on this plate here.

And then you're coming just right on top.

Make sure you have all the oysters and the crab.

A little bit more on there.

Add a little bit of our fresh parsley that we have.

Seafood is at the heart of our cuisine, and we sure celebrated it today.

So thanks for joining us as we explore the traditions of New Orleans and why we cook what we cook.

I'll see you next time on "A Chef's Journey."

NARRATOR: In his new cookbook, Chef Dook Chase explores the legendary dishes and unique food traditions of New Orleans.

This companion to "A Chef's Journey," with all the recipes from the series and more than 125 color photos, is available for $32.99 plus shipping.

To order, call 1-800-815-3153 or purchase online at wyes.org.

DOOK: Today on "A Chef's Journey," we're on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in the historic Central City neighborhood, New Orleans.

All right, let's go.

While that's in the oven for seven to 10 minutes, we'll clean this up, and we'll show... While that's in the oven for 17... While that's in the oven for seven... While that's... ZOE: You want me to say it?

(laughing).

DOOK: I'm excited, ooh.

Be careful as you add the peach liqueur.

Oh, my.

CHEF: Mm-hmm.

DOOK: Now y'all got me battling for favorites.

I mean, that, that is just spot on.

What's your favorite?

(sizzling).

We'll get it there, let's let it go.

Patience is a virtue.

How am I doing?

Am I doing all right?

Can I pass this course here or... CHEF: I can't tell the difference.

DOOK: Uh-oh.

CLEO: Perfect.

NARRATOR: For more information about "Dook Chase: A Chef's Journey," visit wyes.org.

Major funding for "Dook Chase: A Chef's Journey" was provided by the Melvin S. Cohen Foundation Incorporated.

Additional support by Zatarain's, bringing the flavors of New Orleans home.

Rooted in the city's rich culinary traditions, Zatarain's is born and raised in New Orleans.

From rice mixes to frozen meals, it's an authentic taste of New Orleans.

And by Camellia Beans.

You shouldn't rush a red bean.

Let it cook, then you can gather around with family and share in its distinct culture.

Camellia Beans, a taste of home.

♪ ♪