-Funding for "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy" was provided by the... -At Dooky Chase, business and family were artfully balanced, with holiday gatherings revolving around the restaurant's schedule.

Each year, Chef Leah Chase prepared a Father's Day breakfast for her large extended family, served in the hours before she opened her doors.

The menu this time features dishes fit for a king prepared by chefs Dook Chase and Cleo Robinson.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ First up, breakfast shrimp, a flavor-packed dish worthy of fine dining, but easily prepared at home.

-Father's Day was a very special day for our family.

My grandmother would make sure she had that very special treat for each and every person.

She knew exactly what you enjoyed and she made sure you had it on your day.

Today we're showcasing one of those dishes.

We have our breakfast shrimp.

We'll start with melting some butter into our skillet here.

And as that gets warm, Cleo's gonna take us through -- through the process and show us this beautiful dish that we have.

But, you know, when you gather family, that was her specialty, right, to make everybody feel special.

So she knew who was coming, what they wanted, what was their favorite part of just nibbling on her dish.

So I can remember those days that you'd walk in and you'd just see a whole table full of food and you're like, "Why did you cook so much food?"

She's like, "Well, 'cause you like this, and this one like this and this one wanted this."

So you can imagine, as big as my family was, how many distinct dishes that we had on that table.

-Let's start with a little onions.

Let those sweat down for a minute.

-She has celery going in.

Cleo's sweating in some onions.

And we just added some celery to sweat that in.

-I've added the green bell peppers and we're gonna let those wilt just for a little minute.

And this is a relatively easy dish, but everybody loves it.

And then we're gonna add some garlic right at the end.

Father's Day, y'all came in before we got started with the regular lunch crowd.

But any day was a great day here for Ms. Chase -- Any time she got to cook for her -- her son and her son-in-laws was a really, really good day.

So Father's Day was always a good day for her.

All right.

And then we'll put our tomatoes.

-You know, you talk about how she would find time just for the family to make you feel unique, right?

You're in a business that operates almost 365 days a year, and she was a main part of that operation.

Right?

But you talk about times that we would come in.

So we would open Dooky, so I'd say at about 11:00, 12:00, we would have our Father's Day breakfast before the restaurant opened.

Everybody would gather in and we would sit down and family would gather and we would eat, clean up.

And then the next 30 minutes, show's on, and we're here to celebrate every other father that's walking through that door.

But that's who she was.

You know, you talk about in any business, balancing time between business and family.

And she knew that magic of, "How do I fit my family in?"

or, quite frankly, the other way around -- "How do I fit my business in?"

Right?

"My family's gonna be first, and now I know I got to maintain this business to make it work."

-All right.

We're gonna add some thyme to this and let that simmer down.

-Okay.

Okay.

And you can see here you're just starting to sweat those vegetables, right?

You have your bell peppers, your onions, your garlic, your diced tomatoes, your thyme that went in as the herb.

We talk about that breakfast shrimp -- not quite the same as we would do the shrimp and grits sauce-wise.

This is one that has more of a rustic feel.

I want you to see those vegetables, those diced tomatoes, that basil and that thyme and get all that great flavor coming through.

-And we're gonna season with a little bit of salt.

Not much because I'm gonna use some seafood stock if I have to.

And then we're gonna use a little Creole seasoning.

And a little pinch of cayenne.

Give it a little kick.

This is one of those dishes that sponge off of the shrimp Creole for breakfast time when we had all of our gatherings, and people really liked it.

It was one of those that was not as heavy as the shrimp Creole, but we got a good taste of what was going on and a good feel of the shrimp.

I think we're just about there.

We've sweated down.

And then we'll add some nice shrimp.

We have 21/25 that we locally sourced, 21 to the count, and we put them in there.

And you could use the smaller ones if you like.

I like the smaller ones because they're younger and fresher and more tender and you get to pick up all of the flavor of that.

You get a few more on your plate.

So there we go.

Oh, it's looking good.

-Yeah, this dish is -- is something that's really quick at home.

You know, we're talking about Father's Day here, but this is an every Sunday dish that you can do.

Wake up, put it together real fast.

And it doesn't take long.

As you all know, shrimp cooks like this.

[ Snaps fingers ] So this is just one of those dishes that you do that is real quick, but it has so much flavor in there.

You're talking your fresh thyme, your garlic, your bell pepper, your onion.

You're gonna finish it with that basil.

People are gonna be amazed at how much flavor you got in that short time span that you did it in.

-You want your vegetables to stay kind of a little bit so you can notice them and... get them to stand up, and that way, we can have all of the good stuff.

Finish it with a little bit of green onions.

Just a little bit.

And basil.

We want that to come out.

I don't like to put the basil in too early because it's gonna turn dark.

So there we have it, right at the end.

-And that's the key.

When you're cooking with fresh herbs and you want to showcase that in any dish, you want to hold that to the very end because as you put it to heat and it starts to cook, that discoloration will happen.

So you want that green just to shine through.

Put it right at the end before you plate it.

Maybe give it two minutes just to kind of help season up before you plate it.

We're looking like we're there.

We're gonna give it a taste, and then we'll be ready to plate it up.

-Nope.

-That's spot-on.

You can taste the garlic, you can taste the basil, you can taste that shrimp.

And I want to talk about, as you use that shrimp, right, we didn't have to use that seafood stock, but we were prepared, too.

And the reason because is, you want it to have enough liquid in there.

Right?

So if you're cooking down and it's not as liquid as this, you can add a little water, you can add a little seafood stock as you have.

But you're gonna build so much flavor in this dish where it's gonna create its own stock and own flavor.

I mean, this is spot-on.

This is perfect.

This is that breakfast shrimp that I always grew up eating and enjoyed and looked forward to every Father's Day.

So we'll get ready to plate that up.

Again, we serve it here over grits, and we have some grits warming.

And you talk about family style at Father's Day, right?

This would be a whole platter like this of grits.

Then you would get a whole platter of breakfast shrimp and a whole platter of this and a whole platter of this.

But if you're serving it at home on your Sunday for your family, this is your single portion.

You put those grits around, you top that.

I mean, look how beautiful this looks.

This is a dish that's worthy of your home.

Also, any restaurant, fine dining, anybody would be happy to come and get this dish.

And finish it off with a little fresh basil, if you want here.

And you're talking about breakfast shrimp and grits on a Father's Day breakfast.

Oh, wow.

-On Father's Day, Chef Leah Chase tailored her menu to include a favorite dish for each of the men in her life.

Making people feel special was one of her superpowers.

-We're talking about Father's Day breakfast.

And any holiday and any celebration, my grandmother's cooking for everybody.

Right?

And her main thing was, "I want you to eat your favorite dish."

And that's how important each and every person was to her.

So you would come to this Father's Day breakfast and she would have your favorite dish and your favorite dish.

"And I got to cook this for Uncle Jay.

I got to cook this for my son.

I got to cook this for Uncle Wayne."

So everybody has their favorite dish, and we would all just pig out, and I would eat it all.

But, you know, that's who she was.

It was, each and every person was important, and each and every person, she wanted you to have your favorite dish.

-That was her day to serve her princes and her kings or whatnot.

And so what she did was, she prepared everything that each one of the fathers enjoyed.

So she made sure that there were stuffed bell peppers for my dad, that there were beef tips for my Uncle Wayne.

There was always something -- more than something, I should say -- for each father, because that was her day to -- to spoil them.

-Next, a New Orleans brunch classic, grillades -- veal simmered in a rich gravy served Chef Leah-style with jambalaya instead of grits.

-So we're gonna do our grillades today and we're gonna have our veal meat that we pounded.

This is a veal steak.

We're just trimming off.

We get the veal meat for the paneed meat.

And this is the top of the bone here.

All right.

Now... And we're gonna add just a little bit of oil.

We just want this to... brown up, and we're gonna add it in.

[ Sizzling ] ♪♪ ♪♪ And, again, we're not gonna overcrowd it.

♪♪ I seasoned it with salt and pepper, and we're just gonna let it sit here and brown up.

And then we're gonna add all of our other... onions to that.

Nice and tender.

And this was one of those dishes that we had growing up, and we liked it for Father's Day.

And we're gonna put it all in there.

There we go.

♪♪ Okay.

I just want it to get a little bit brown.

I don't want it opaque, like it was when we came in off of the seasoning, and I want to get some of the brownness into the pan so we can pick up all of the flavors of that.

That's looking great.

♪♪ We will go on with our onions.

♪♪ And our bell pepper.

♪♪ And our celery.

♪♪ And then we're gonna add some garlic right at the end.

And then we're gonna add our flour.

Just a little bit.

Not too, too much.

We don't want a big dark roux.

We're just gonna give it just a little bit of body.

A Révillion is something that was held during the Christmas holidays.

It was always -- For us, it was Christmas Eve, and we would always have all of the big dinners going by different people's houses, and we would have -- Oh, we would have grillades, we would have breakfast shrimp, all kinds of things, gumbo and all of that.

And so really, we ate all during the night on -- on Christmas Eve.

So we liked to eat it all up.

And then I'm gonna put in a little bit of tomato paste just to give it a little texture.

So this is one that we... we like to have all the time.

And to that, we're gonna add some beef stock.

It's gonna all start to come together.

This is one of those dishes that really pairs well with all kinds of different things.

My aunt loved her grillades.

This is one dish that she really, really truly enjoyed fixing and she loved eating it.

And she would love to eat it with her grits for breakfast.

And then when it was dinnertime, she ate it with her jambalaya.

So it's a universal dish, and it goes really, really well.

And she loved to do it.

And then we're gonna slide the meat in and we'll let it cook down.

We put it in there and we're gonna let it cook down and it's gonna soak up all of these juices, all of these herbs.

And we're gonna let it cook a little while so we can get it nice and tender and it's gonna be good and ready, and then we're gonna serve it up.

So we have cooked it down for a while and we got it nice and tender.

We're going to put a little piece of meat there.

So the more we cook it, the more it's gonna thicken up a little bit, but it will get pretty thick.

And we're gonna put it on there.

We're gonna put it on there.

And there we have it.

So we're gonna put some parsley on there.

And there's our grillades and jambalaya for our Father's Day breakfast.

-Even when it's not Father's Day, the family honor and recall the men who established the historic restaurant.

-My daddy, you know, he was so thankful and always let our employees -- employees know that, how thankful he was for them.

Most of them coming from the community.

Some of them being our family members.

He taught us that all the time coming up.

Whenever he thought we were being a little above what we should be, which I don't think we really were, but in his case, he would call us in and tell us who we were, where we came from, and how blessed we were, and how we should always remember the community and do whatever we could to make things better for everyone.

And that was how we grew up.

-Sugar steak, a phenomenal combination that tenderizes and produces a lacquered crust.

-This dish comes to us from a Cane River Father's Day special.

My cousin Dave, his father-in-law's from Cane River, and he said he had the best steak ever that day.

And he told me it was a sugar steak.

So I asked him for the recipe and I'm getting ready to show you what it is.

So we have here a great T-bone steak.

And you see all this wonderful sugar.

You're thinking dessert.

Not today.

We're putting it on the steak.

You want to create a bed for that steak right at the bottom.

Right?

So you're looking about maybe 1/2 inch of sugar that you're gonna put at the bottom of here.

And then you do the same right on top.

And this recipe is really, really simple, but it creates a fantastic flavor and crisp texture on this steak.

After you got it at this point, what you want to do is let this rest and sit on the side for 25 minutes, room temperature in your kitchen.

So you'll just sit this on the side.

I have one here.

And this is a bone-in rib eye.

And the reason I have two different cuts -- 'cause it's Father's Day and I want to make sure you get your perfect cut of steak that you want.

You're gonna look like this after 25 minutes.

That steak has started to soak in that sugar and it got to work.

Not only will it tenderize that meat, but that caramelization that happens when you put this on a stove is gonna be fantastic.

Of course, you know, we're not gonna cook it with all that sugar because it would be way too sweet.

So you brush that off, right?

You leave a little bit on, but you want to brush off all that excess sugar.

And you can see the bottom here.

This is what you're looking for, right?

You still see a little sugar on it.

But for the most part, all of that sugar that you had it going to work is gone.

I'll move this guy over here.

And this part should be real familiar to you, right?

This is your normal seasoning for your steak.

We're going with a little salt.

We're going with a little pepper.

And, remember, the thickness of your steak, it can use a little more pepper, right?

If you've got a thin steak, you don't have to put as much.

But if you have a thick piece of beef, it can use a good bit of pepper on there.

A little more pepper here.

A little salt.

A little garlic.

A little garlic on this side.

This is the other most important thing as we go to cook, right -- If you're outside on the grill, make sure you have a hot side and a cool side 'cause that sugar is gonna caramelize throughout this whole cooking process.

And as you know, caramelization, it turns that color brown.

So you don't want to come off with a charcoal-colored steak that's only at a rare temperature, right?

So I'm only gonna put this at a low heat right now, maybe low to medium heat.

I'll add in a little oil.

We'll add in a little butter.

[ Sizzling ] I recommend cast iron for anything that I'm trying to put a good sear on.

I will caution you as you go with this sugar steak, though -- Cast iron holds that heat, and it holds that heat very well.

So when you want to fluctuate those temperatures, you have to be mindful to start that early enough to give that cast iron time to come down to the temperature you need it.

And we'll put in this good old steak.

You can already smell that -- that caramelization of that sugar just going to work.

Not only talking about Father's Day, but we do a beach trip that we go on annually.

And every time, I have a little nephew, Nathan, that, "Uncle Dook, you got to make the sugar steak.

You have to make the sugar steak."

This is a mainstay anytime I'm cooking for the family.

But you can see how that caramelization's starting.

And it's only been on there for about less than a minute.

Right?

As we talk about steak and cooking, you see you want to watch it start to rise up.

And you can see on the side of this pan, right?

That's that caramelization of that sugar.

As this caramelization starts, right, you got to be careful -- not a high heat.

You can see that.

And I want you to notice.

I'll move this.

I want you to see the heat that I'm on.

That's a really, really low heat 'cause I do not want that to brown.

It's gonna brown and you're gonna have this around it 'cause it doesn't have any meat to protect it against.

But you can see that beautiful color, that caramelization that's happening on this steak.

I mean, this is something that's just... well, when you taste it, you are automatically gonna say, "Wait, wait, I think my favorite steak now is this sugar steak."

I would recommend, you know, for those who like the big, big, thick, juicy steak, you know, try something that's not as thick for your sugar steak 'cause that caramelization does happen fast.

And depending on your temperature, if you're a rare guy, a thick steak will work fine for you 'cause you can cook it that fast.

But if you're a well-done person, go with a thinner steak.

This is about right where I want to take it.

I'm gonna take it off the heat a little bit.

I'm gonna clean this up and I'll show you that beautiful steak.

So my steak is perfectly caramelized.

It's cooked to the temperature that I want.

I'm gonna turn that fire off, move it up here, and let it rest.

And while that's resting, I'm just gonna melt some butter.

That's all you need for this one.

And the reason why I'm melting butter and not using this jus -- because some of that sugar that didn't have the meat to protect it did brown and caramelize too much on the sides.

And that's perfectly fine.

That's what we wanted to do 'cause we know that the steak got the right caramelization that we wanted it to.

So, here, we'll just melt a little butter, and this is all you need for this beautiful steak.

And while that's melting, I'm gonna take this guy off here.

Put that right there.

I have a little butter.

And I'm just gonna pour it just a tad right out.

Create a little sauce pan on the side if you want more butter.

But I do not want to mess up that beautiful caramelization that we have there.

I'll hit it with just a little parsley.

This is the perfect treat to celebrate all the fathers as we gather here -- the Cane River sugar steak.

-Chef Leah Chase spent a lifetime uplifting the community and building bridges through food.

For more meals that bring people together, join the Chase family next time on "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy."

-Leah Chase's iconic book, "The Dooky Chase Cookbook," has been updated and includes all-new recipes from the series you're watching.

The cookbook is available for $27.95, plus shipping and handling.

To order, please call 1-866-388-0834 or order online at wyes.org.

-I think she's smiling, and I laugh all the time.

I was like, "This is all you.

It has to be all your doing 'cause I have nothing to do with this."

I just kind of showed up, like you taught me to show up.

Yeah.

So I think both of them.

I think my grandfather has that little -- that little laugh-smirk right now.

-It would be great for her to be able to walk in that door right now and see all of her grandchildren around and her -- her children, hopefully, keeping this legacy going.

-Every time I walk in this restaurant, I say a little prayer to her.

I say a little prayer to my grandparents and all of them and say, "Look, we need your help today.

Guide us through.

What should we be doing?"

-What they are smiling at now is the fact that we have everyone buying into the restaurant, everyone helping us out because of them, because they want the legacy to continue, because they saw the hard work that my mother and father put into the business and the blessings that we're now getting because of their hard work.

-For more information about "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy," visit... Funding for "The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah's Legacy" was provided by the...