I have a friend, a New Orleans transplant, whose company I enjoy because like everybody from Louisiana, he doesn’t mind spending all day talking about food.
The last time I saw him, he told me about a meal he’d eaten at a new faux-Cajun joint. “You know, I tried that thing they called a po’boy. It was a’ight, but it just weren’t . . . (here he cocked his head as if to dislodge the right word from his brain) . . . messy enough!”
By “messy” he meant, of course, generously, lavishly sauced, the kind of sandwich that ruins a set of clothes and lays waste to a dispenserful of paper napkins.
Po’boys can be sauced with butter, with gravy, with Creole mustard, with mayonnaise — I even tried one in an Asian grocery on Magazine Street that was made with Sriracha. My favorite sauce, though, for a po’boy, or any number of dishes from beignets to oysters to corned beef sandwiches, is a good Louisiana-style remoulade.
Remoulade is originally a classic French sauce, one of the many varieties of mayonnaise in the French repertoire. Auguste Escoffier flavored his remoulade with mustard, cornichons, capers, fines herbes and anchovies. A Louisiana remoulade is very different from a French one; like Louisiana law or Cajun dialect, it can sometimes only bear a passing resemblance to its French prototype.
My version of remoulade contains ketchup, paprika and horseradish, as well as hot sauce; although this recipe can be made with cornichons, pickle relish works just as well.
Serve this remoulade on a po’boy or a Reuben or with any kind of fried seafood.
John Broening cooks at Duo and Olivea restaurants in Denver.
Remoulade
Makes about 4 cups.
Ingredients
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1/4 cup ketchup
Freshly ground pepper
3 cups canola oil
1/2 cup pickle relish
1/4 cup capers chopped
1/4 cup horseradish
Few shots hot sauce
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 shallots, minced
Directions
In the bowl of a food processor, blend the vinegar, salt, egg yolks, paprika, ketchup and pepper. In a steady stream with the motor running, emulsify in the canola oil. Fold in the pickle relish, capers, horseradish, hot sauce , parsley and shallots. Adjust seasoning and refrigerate until ready to use.
