Don's Secrets

You aren't going to find this cookbook on Amazon.com. Copyright is 1958. I've had my copy since about 1962. This cookbook is from Don's Seafood and Steak House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is small, just 52 pages long. Don's was a family business that started in 1934 when Don Landry opened his doors to the public as Don's Barbecue Stand. It was a one-table affair in a screen and frame building. Later, it became Don's Beer Parlor, then Don's Seafood Inn. The business grew as family members kept joining the business and the food just kept getting better and better and the business expanded into other locations. In the 1980's some parts of it were sold and are now know as Landry's Seafood House and it is part of a large corporation, Landry's Restaurants. But the original cajun seafood business still exists in a number of locations in Louisiana and Texas.

It is a pretty tattered cookbook these days but I love it enough that I brought it with me to San Miguel. I don't follow it exactly either because some of the techniques and the fat levels in the book are outdated but for the essence of cajun cooking, yes, I do follow it. Also some of the amounts that it makes are restaurant size. For example the Remoulade Sauce starts off with 1 pint of tomato catsup and 1/2 pint of mayonnaise and 1/2 pint of olive oil. With all the other things that are added in, you are going to end up with almost a 1/2 gallon of remoulade sauce. A bit more than I can use. And everything says serve with steamed rice.

The reason I'm telling you about the cookbook is because we have feasted on the Chicken Sauce Piquante recipe for the last two nights. Tonight it was even better than the night I made it. Over the years I've adjusted the recipe and while it is basically the same, I like it with less liquid so that it is more of a thick stew rich with the holy trinity or onion, celery and green pepper. How could you possibly cook any cajun food without the holy trinity? As you can tell from the splattered looks of this page from the cookbook, my very favorite recipe of all in the cookbook is Baked Red Fish. At least it use to be my favorite when you could buy "real" red fish. Let me tell you, farm raised red fish isn't Gulf of Mexico Red Fish....no way. The recipe is red fish cooked in a cajun sauce similar to the one used on the chicken. You need a thick, flaky fish and I've used Chilean Sea Bass and that works well but the cost of Chilean Sea Bass in Houston has gone over the top. It was definitely out of my everyday budget. I haven't even seen it here in San Miguel although I'm sure there must be markets in Queretaro where I could buy it...probably for a price similar to the price in Houston.

Yes, we do love Mexican food but aren't we lucky that I can still tap into Don's Secrets.