Besh Big Easy

I cannot wait to try these!

Beautiful cookbook! So full of scrumptious recipes and fantastic pictures. And all the recipes seemed doable and not to extravagant. Looking forward to trying some of these recipes and just maybe adding this cookbook to my home collection.

Besh is a household name in New Orleans and for good reason. His cookbooks and restaurant present the best of NOLA cooking. Here, readers will find 1010 delicious easy to prepare recipes that ring with N’awlins authenticity. Beautiful photos and reminiscences combine with yummy food to make this book the next best thing to a trip to the Big Easy

This cookbook truly represents the heart of New Orleans cuisine. It is filled with uncomplicated recipes for Cajun and Creole fair such as jambalayas, gumbos, stews, grits, and lots of seafood dishes. Also included are recipes for the "fixins" like cornbread, red beans and rice, and salads, as well as many rustic desserts. There is a convenient list of recommended ingredients in the front of the book and interesting reading to go along with each recipe. There is also a small section in the back where the author credits many New Orleans eateries and establishments. But my favorite part of the book is the awesome photography. Wow, I am starving and my mouth is watering after finishing this book! I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in Big Easy food. I now want to go on vacation to New Orleans or at the very least, dive in to these dishes in my own kitchen.

Amazing photography and recipes.

What a glorious book! Packed full of recipes, mouthwatering photos, well laid out...it's a delight from start to finish. I was lucky enough to visit New Orleans and have a few abiding and treasured memories of the place. The smell of cooking that hung in the air ( unusual but distinctive and mouthwatering), eating beignets at the cafe du monde and the warm welcome extended at every place I visited. This book recreated that feel good factor. It's big, bright and so Big Easy.

I came back to UK with various Louisiana sauces and spices but struggled to find recipes that in anyway recreated the essence of New Orleans cuisine. The Cajun influences are distinct and what I love most about this book is that it's simple, but creative. Every recipe is laid out clearly, with a brief intro to one side. The instructions are concise but work well. It's just so easy and this volume will be a treasured addition to my cookbook shelf. Besh has captured the vibrant flavours, colours and excitement that goes with food from this region. Fresh and easy to source ingredients, this has everything you could wish for in one handy volume. It's stunning, exciting and I love it.

I'd like to thank Andrews McMeel Publishing and Netgalley for a review copy.

well written recipes with delicious looking dishes. Definitely recommending.

I received this ebook through Netgalley for review. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will say that I LOVE New Orleans and have always wanted to visit there. So, naturally, I loved this book and thought all of the recipes looked so good. This book included lots of pictures of the recipes and of the local restaurants to visit. It's like having a recipe book and tour guide in all one. At the back of the book, there is a listing of where to find these local eateries, complete with contact information.

Just a superb cook-book. Everything you want in a cookbook for your kitchen. Amazing recipes, information that goes behind the specific dishes to up-skill you on how things fit together with Cajun and Creole cooking (eg so you can learn to think about the dishes and flavours more broadly, rather than just knowing how to follow a particular recipe), vivid photography, an easy-to-read style. Sometimes people from outside the USA look down on American cuisine as just hot dogs, burgers, and pizza etc. But Besh's book is a terrific example of the richness and depth of American cuisine, of how regional cuisines from various states can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with world famous food cultures (eg France, Italy, Thailand etc). Just a superb cookbook that I'd call a must-have for any home cook or aspiring chef who's interested in Louisiana flavours. The best cookbook I've read in a long time.

John Besh’s Besh Big Easy Cookbook is filled with luscious recipes and photographs. The recipes are what I would consider old-fashioned, home-style cooking you would feed family and friends. One of my favorite photographs in Besh’s cookbook is the photo of the Creole Stuffed Peppers. The photo turns the humble bell pepper into a jewel-toned feast for the eyes. In fact, the photos used to illustrate the recipes are absolutely beautiful and help kick this cookbook up a notch when it comes to readability. Note: I like to read cookbooks like novels so perhaps that’s why I enjoy how cookbooks are illustrated.

At the beginning of his cookbook Besh lists some of his favorite recipe ingredients used to prepare his recipes. You will find a description with each ingredient listing and clear explanation of how the ingredient is used. Besh also includes a recipe called My Creole Spice Jar which you can use in your daily cooking, if desired.

Besh has included a wide variety of recipes that range from appetizers to dessert. Some of the recipes you’ll find in his cookbook include:

*Creole Stuffed Peppers
*Quick & Dirty BBQ Shrimp
*Crabmeat-Stuffed Flounder
*Andrew’s Pan-Fried Pork Cutlets
*Grandmother Grace’s Fried Chicken
*Beef Brisket Daube
*Grilled Okra
*Field Peas in Pot Liquor (Just right for a New Year’s Day dinner as eating peas brings you good luck, according to my grandma.)
*Jenny’s Potato Salad
*Divorce Soup (read the book and you’ll find out about the soup’s name)
*Suzanne’s Peach Pie
*Bananas Foster

Recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley book from NetGalley.

Beautifully photographed and chock full of do=able recipes, this book certainly lives up to its name. New Orleans Cooking at its best, this book does not disappoint.. Highly recommend for anyone that enjoys New Orleans cooking!

"Besh Big Easy" is a comprehensive book of down home recipes that have made New Orleans Cajun/Creole cooking famous. The recipes are not complicated, and the ingredients are relatively simple. But, for instance, if you have trouble finding some of the spices or meats used in the recipes, simple substitutions are available.

I love the short quips throughout the book that accompany each recipe - anything from tips, historical anecdotes, or alternate suggestions. The "Big Easy Ingredients" list gives you a short list of items it would be handy to have in stock at all times. The pictures are almost as good as the recipes themselves - mouthwatering pictures of the food, plus vibrant photos of New Orleans life.

Each chapter contains a handful of recipes and are presented in traditional cookbook fashion.
Chapter 1: Easy Apps - pretty easy dishes to prepare, lots of crab, oyster, and shrimp

Chapter 2: Soups and Bisques - Everything from simple stocks (made with any animal carcass), seafood bisques, and vegetable soups

Chapter 3: Stew Pot - Creole style pot roast, brisket, chicken, duck, vegetable stew, and more seafood

Chapter 4: Gumbo - This is a cultural stew, inspired by ingredients from different ethnic groups: Africans, Native Americans, French, Spanish, and Germans. Each recipe presents different variations on ingredients, and there is a short section outlining the secrets to a good roux

Chapter 5: Veggies - Coleslaw, lots of tomato dishes and sauces, eggplant, turnips, sweet potatoes, beets, okra, brussels sprouts, and potato salad

Chapter 6: Shrimp, Crab, and Crawfish - The recipes in this section come from a list similar to Bubba's list in Forrest Gump

Chapter 7: Rice, Beans, and Corn - Lots of various dishes with rice and beans, such as red beans and rice, dirty rice, an easy recipe for cooking basic rice, and interesting dishes with corn and grits

Chapter 8: Jambalaya - Pretty self-explanatory! Full of Jambalaya goodness!

Chapter 9: Big Fish - Tips on how to cook different varieties of fish, anything from stuffed, grilled, pan-roasted, fried, etc.

Chapter 10: Butcher Shop - Pork, venison, stuffed bell peppers, fried chicken

Chapter 11: Sweetness - Luscious recipes include blueberry pie, peach pie, wild berry pie, blueberry crumble, fig tarts, and bread pudding

The end of the book gives the reader a guide to different vendors and restaurants mentioned throughout the book so that you can visit them yourself if you're ever in the Big Easy.

Overall this is a pretty solid cookbook on New Olrean's style home cooking. I would definitely reserve a copy to have on hand. I received this as a free ARC from Andrews McMeel Publishing on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My mom has a few John Besh cookbooks, so I'm familiar with him and his style. This book seems true to his New Orleans roots. It has quite a few seafood recipes (particularly for oysters) so it's ideal for the seafood lover. I don't eat seafood, but I look forward to trying some of the other dishes, such as red beans and rice and jambalaya, once in cools off! The dessert dishes also look delicious and I will definitely try those. If you don't eat seafood, this might not be the book for you, but I trust with John Besh that the recipes will be delicious.

John Besh is one of the best at creating NOLA cuisine and southern comfort food. This book is beautifully done, the pictures are beautiful and the recipes are some of the best. As a fan of John Besh and NOLA, I will be adding this book to my personal collection as well as my library one.

I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review This book is designed for home rather than restaurant cooking, so the recipes are easy to follow, though some do involve a lot of steps (all with timings and clear explanations). As the recipes are intended for an American audience, all quantities are given in American imperial measures, but there is a table of metric equivalents given at the back. The book starts with a list of common New Orleans ingredients, but John Besh encourages cooks to use “whatever you can get your hands on” rather than not cooking a particular recipe. That philosophy has always appealed to me, and I took it to heart when deciding which recipes to try.
Each recipe is accompanied by a brief note on serving suggestions or background to the recipe and related New Orleans cooks. There are lots of lovely photos - of the food and of New Orleans. Because New Orleans boasts a lot of seafood, in particular crabs, shrimps, crawfish and oysters, there are a lot of amazing recipes using these. Unfortunately, for British cooks, the cost of many of these recipes would be quite prohibitive for an everyday meal, so I am saving them for a special occasion. I did however cook the Snapper with cherry tomatoes and the Trout Almondine, both of which had an excellent flavour, although the snapper took much longer to cook than advised in the recipe.
I was a bit more adventurous with the meat recipes. For the Chicken and sausage gumbo and the Chicken and Andouille Jambalaya I used some Polish smoked sausage instead of the andouille, and that worked very well. Then I used the left over ordinary sausage meat to make the Creole stuffed bell peppers, which were fantastic. To cook Mr Pauls Pintail en Daube , instead of pintail or mallard ducks I used a whole guinea fowl, and that was a real success. The Mardi Gras Morning Pork Shoulder grillades were very nice and simple. However my favourite recipe of the ones I tried was the Fried Eggplant salad. We cooked that twice. It is outstanding when eaten hot, but does lose its allure rather when the eggplant is cold. Basically, we had a week and a half of Besh cooking, and ate exceedingly well. There was not a dud recipe to be had, and most of the recipes I tried will be cooked again - repeatedly. There is no overkill on the seasoning, and everything was delicious. There are many more recipes in the book that I still want to try. I can definitely recommend this book. There are many everyday recipes to enjoy, even if you don’t have the Louisiana wealth of seafood. Happy eating!

Just what I was looking for -- encouragement to cook more than just red beans and rice on a Monday or Mardi Gras snacks. This colorfully illustrated home cooking volume brings back happy memories of meals enjoyed in The Big Easy, especially at John Besh's restaurant. Great addition to my culinary travel shelf.

First of all this is a beautiful cookbook, the pictures make me feel that I am in the Big Easy. And WOW, I didn't know there were so many food choices, from duck, banana fosters, bread pudding and everything in between. I will be trying some of those recipes soon!

Great pictures. John Besh made the recipes sound easy to make. He really simplified the dishes, and they sound delicious. There are a bunch of dishes I intend to make and the ingredients are items I usually have on hand.

I have always been intrigued by creole cooking and this book really fill that need. A lovely book which has lots of photographs, tidbits of information, as well as been wonderfully written, with easy to follow cooking recipes. The book is divided into chapters covering starters, soups/bisques, stews, gumbo, veggies, shrimp/crawfish, rice/bean/corn, jamabalaya, fish, meat and sweets.
But this is more than a cookbook, it is a story of life and love of cooking and the people, places and events that make it a special book

I lived a good portion of my early life in New Orleans, and I have always loved the Cajun culture and the wonderful food. I grew up on red beans and rice, gumbo, and jambalaya. Family celebrations centered around huge pots of crawfish boiled with onions, potatoes and corn. I am so glad that I chose to review Besh Big Easy. Not only does it have authentic, home style cajun recipes, the recipes are feasible even for beginning cooks.

A lot of New Orleans cookbooks have complicated recipes filled with difficult to find ingredients. John Besh uses the ingredients commonly found in pantries throughout Louisiana. Most are readily found at any grocery. True New Orleans cooking is about bold flavors and elegant simplicity. Of course there are recipes for special occasions that require a few more expensive or harder to find ingredients.

Personally I love the Divorce Soup and the Chicken and Sausage Gumbo recipes. The Country Coleslaw is a great side dish for any meal, as is the Crawfish Boil Potato Salad.

As a Louisiana native and lover of all things Cajun, I highly recommend Besh Big Easy. It is a terrific addition to anyone's cookbook collection

5/5

Besh Big Easy is available for preorder and will be released September 29, 2015.

I received a copy of Besh Big Easy from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

--Crittermom

Learn to cook New Orleans style with Besh Big Easy

http://muttcafe.com/2015/09/besh-big-easy/

9/7/2015

My husband and I (and now our three kids) love to travel. One of our favorite places to visit is new Orleans. We love the music scene and how the city itself feels like worlds away from other cities in the United States. There is just nowhere else in the world that I have been that is like New Orleans. It dances to to the beat of it's own drum. One of the many components of that individuality is the food. Cajun and Creole food is delicious and once again very specific to that region. We love the kick from the spices used and my husband enjoys the wide array of seafood available. since NOLA is quite a drive from our house, I love the idea of having a cookbook devoted to just the types of food that come from there. Besh Big Easy offers recipes for all of the types of foods you would expect to find in New Orleans- jambalaya, gumbo, rice and beans, great sides, a vast array of seafood, fantastic sides and delectable southern desserts. This cookbook will keep you busy because there are so many recipes you will want to try. Besh is a trusted authority on Big Easy cooking so you know these recipes are legit. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves to be adventurous in the kitchen or who just loves the food that can only be found in Louisiana. Why not recreate it and serve it up in your own kitchen, wherever that may be.

The city of New Orleans is famous for its Jazz, but perhaps even more for the incredible food served, not only in restaurants, but also in private homes. Restaurateur John Besh, author of three previous New Orleans cookbooks, focuses on cooking New Orleans style at home in his new cookbook, Besh Big Easy. There are several reasons why this is a fabulous cookbook:

1. In the Introduction, Besh explains why this book is different from other New Orleans cookbooks. His personality shows through, and he comes off as someone who is a real person (he is, of course), who is friendly and approachable, and not someone who is writing the book as an expert who deems himself better and more accomplished than every other cook on the planet.
2. Besh doesn't take credit for every recipe; rather, he includes vignettes on each recipe telling who the recipe is from and giving information helpful to those of us who plan to cook the dishes.
3. The pictures are phenomenal; not only of the mouthwatering dishes, but also of local sites, giving the reader a real feel for the area.
4. Of course there is an excellent index, so cooks can quickly find what they are looking for.
5. Besh lays out his recipes so that they are understandable and doable for everyone, from the most inexperienced cook to those who are professionals. Unlike some famous chefs, he doesn't try to make the recipes more complicated than necessary to intimidate.
6. There are not only recipes for famous New Orleans dishes, but also homey, comforting recipes that may be less well-known, but are good nonetheless. One example is the Silver Queen Corn Pudding, which I was able to put together in about 15 minutes, and when baked was absolutely delicious – it looked exactly like the picture in the book and was truly the best corn pudding my family has ever eaten.

I'm looking forward to preparing the Pork Shoulder & Country Sausage Brown Jambalaya, the skillet cornbread, and Besh's Mustard-Fried Catfish with Jalapeño Tartar Sauce in the next week or two. I suspect that I will try at least 50% of the recipes by year's end - they are that tempting.

All told, if you like real Cajun food, without difficult preparation, this is the cookbook for you.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying an advance review copy of this book.

I thought this book was great. I'm a huge John Besh fan and a lot of these recipes were very heartfelt. I loved the photographs throughout - it made me feel like I was right back in New Orleans walking around and eating my way through the city.

The only thing I wished about this one was that he incorporated recipes from Domenica or one of his other famed restaurants. I had the best food there and would love to try to make some myself. Maybe a Besh & Friends cookbook? With some of his NoLa chef friends sharing their best recipes as well?

Solid A.

I admit it, I have an addiction to cookbooks. I also have a tremendous love for New Orleans and the fabulous cuisine of the city and region. Bring those two things together and there was no way I was going to pass up this book. Sometimes when you really love something your setting yourself up for disappointment, as things often can’t live up to the grand expectations you have of them. Happily, there was no disappointment here.

This book is filled with a great variety of recipes and is nicely organized into sections covering all of the basics and then some. I really liked the opening ingredients and spice jar pages, giving you a one stop shop for the items you’ll need to prepare the recipes, as well as options if you don’t have the specific ingredient needed.

I haven’t had a chance to try out any of the recipes yet, but I have my short list, or rather long list, of the ones I want to make. The entirety of my list would be too much, so here is my top ten must try recipes from the book.

Crabmeat Ravigote Garlicky Baked Crab Claws Crawfish Beignets with Tabasco Cream Sauce Shrimp Remoulade Stuffed Artichokes Cajun Crawfish Bisque Day-After-Thanksgiving Turkey Gumbo Crawfish-Boil Potato Salad New Orleans Shrimp Etouffee (though I’d probably do crawfish instead)
Jenny’s Crawfish Stuffed Chicken As the list indicates, I really like crawfish and crab. And, though I’m usually very drawn to the dessert sections of cookbooks, I found the savory items here to be much more enticing.

In addition to the well written and easy to follow recipes, the best part about this book is the pictures. The photos of the finished recipes are mouthwateringly fantastic. Even more fabulous, however, is the additional photographs that are included throughout the book. They provide an additional depth and travelogue feel that makes you want to trek to New Orleans immediately. Well, I wanted to anyway. If you’re interested in a cajun/creole cookbook that covers traditional recipes as well as modern takes on classics, this is the book for you.

I was lucky enough to spend a few weeks in New Orleans in 2005, and absolutely fell in love with the food. Besh's book is packed with photos so fabulous you can almost smell the food wafting off the pages, and fun quips sprinkled throughout the recipes. One of the biggest draws for Besh Big Easy is the fact that Besh incorporates quite a few simple substitutions for those of us who don't live in the South and have ready access to some of the more 'unique' ingredients. Further, I loved that the recipes, while sometimes complicated in appearance, are really easy to follow.

So far, I've only made the red beans and rice; but that was a huge success on my night to cook the family meal. I definitely look forward to trying out some more of Besh's recipes, with a similar success rate.

These New Orleans recipes are beautifully presented with easy to follow instructions. Mr. Besh's love of cooking with locally sourced ingredients is obvious throughout the book. His explanations at the side of each dish definitely add authenticity and flavor. I had never realized that there was such a diversity in gumbos and jambalayas. Definitely recommended for any adventurous cook.

If you love seafood, this is the cookbook for you. Packed with recipes featuring crab, shrimp, oysters, and their ilk, Besh Big Easy is packed to the gills with recipes from John Besh's hometown, New Orleans. 101 recipes is a lot. The good news is, each of these seem very easy to follow, and you will never get bored making the same thing over and over again.

Chef John Besh presents a big, easy approach to at-home New Orleans staples as if he were taking you on a personal culinary tour. With eye-catching photos and flavors that seem to leap off the page, Besh will have you cooking Creole and Cajun dishes in no time flat. No recipe is too complex for beginners and advanced cooks will be delighted with his selections. A must for everyone!

I was expecting this book to be as big a tome as John Besh's previous books. The number of pages aside, this book is also different from his other books mostly because of the more relaxed approach it takes, both in terms of the content presentation (the chosen fonts, pics of an unshaven John Besh lounging in his kitchen in a casual T-shirt, etc.) and the recipes themselves. I made about six dishes from this cookbook and they all turned out great, even "Mr Paul's Duck, Andouille & Oyster Gumbo' which seemed initially intimidating. Big Easy, indeed! His other books might look better on my kitchen bookshelf (and coffee table) but I suspect that this is the Besh cookbook I'll end up using most often.

An insightful and moving tribute to New Orleans cuisine. The recipes are very centered around authentic cuisine and full flavored classics. His enthusiasm for these meals is quite obvious and entertaining

As a northerner and an avid cook, I really enjoyed this book! The stories enable one to experience the culture, the recipes sound delicious, and the photography is food porn at its best! Thanks NetGalley for the ebook!

There are a lot of things I like about living in Colorado but there are also quite a lot of days I find myself seriously homesick for Louisiana. Days like today, for example. As I write this (very late in the day thanks to things beyond my control) it's dark as night out (and has been for at least the past hour) and we're settling in for what the weather forecast is predicting will be an overnight blizzard.

Um, yeah.

Don't worry, though, we've got firewood AND gumbo ready for a cozy evening.

Yep, the only real way to get through nights like this - in my opinion - is to fix up a taste of home. Nothing cures a case of the blues or the Mondays like a good home cooked meal and I crave the ones I grew up eating. I do try to share the love and invite company over, but just as often I'm asked to recommend a good recipe or cookbook.

I've always had a very special place in my heart for John Besh. I've tuned in to his show (when it's been available here) and rooted for him in Top Chef Masters. I haven't made it to one of his restaurants yet but I do love being able to cook his recipes at home! So when his latest, Besh Big Easy, hit shelves I was pretty stoked. And it's joined the ranks of cookbooks I can honestly recommend to anyone looking to recreate southern Louisiana dishes in their own homes.

Dishes like Besh's Monday's Red Beans and Rice, Cajun Stuffed Pork Chops, and Andrew's Pan-Fried Pork Cutlets are literally the stuff of my childhood. And his Perfect Roast Pork Shoulder with Country Gravy is oh, so reminiscent of my dad's pork roasts! Trout Almondine, shrimp and grits, and stuffed peppers are newer favorites of mine, dishes I didn't try until I was almost in college but became fast favorites. Besh puts his own spin on each, creating versions that are definite winners for this Louisiana girl!

These are, of course, just a small taste of what's inside the book. Other classics like Bananas Foster, Cajun Crawfish Bisque, jamabalaya, and catfish courtboullion are also featured as are the not-to-be-missed New Orleans Shrimp Étouffée and the Quick & Dirty BBQ Shrimp (this is another new favorite and if you haven't had it, you're in for a treat!).

I should note that Besh's cookbook is, as the title says, a book of "New Orleans Recipes." Why the specification? Well I'm from Cajun country and things like gumbo (as Besh notes) differ a bit between the two areas. Mostly thanks to tomatoes: New Orleans gumbos include tomatoes and Cajun ones do not. Tomatoes aside, I can attest to the fact that even Besh's Chicken and Sausage Gumbo is not too far off from my family's recipe (I don't use Worcestershire).

Besh's Big Easy is a love letter to New Orleans culture and cuisine. Most of the recipes feature full color photographs of the finished product as well as tips and notes on the recipes that range from childhood reminiscences and info on the dish or specific ingredients to substitutions (Greek yogurt for Creole cream cheese, any white flaky fish in place of Puppy Drum, etc).

I might be a bit of a fangirl for Besh. But it's because he represents my home state so very well! His advocates for Louisiana products, his food is amazing, and his recipes are definitely accessible for the home cook. If you love Cajun and Creole food but haven't tried cooking it yourself, or even if you're just curious about why we Louisianians can't shut up about our food, Besh's Big Easy is a pretty darn perfect choice.

Yum. Yum. Yum! Selected this book because of the cover and it was even better inside. So many wonderful NOLA recipes without a lot of complicated ingredients. The photography is wonderful, which is essential for a cookbook! Can't decide what to make first.