Best of Brunch: What Chefs Cook at Home - New Orleans

[upbeat music]

[Amiel] I'm Amiel Stanek,

contributing editor at Bon Appetit.

I'm visiting chefs across America

to see what they cook at home on a relaxed Sunday off,

when they're not cooking professionally,

and just wanna connect with friends and family.

What's for brunch?

[gentle ambient music]

Today, I'm visiting Chef Tom Branighan

in New Orleans, Louisiana.

When people come into MaMou,

I want them to feel transported.

I wanna create a situation

where they feel like they are bigger than themselves.

I was looking for a name,

and I wanted something that was very close to the family.

My dad's grandmother was MaMou,

this little 5-foot-tall Italian lady from Sicily.

Food and family is what it's all about,

to make these memories

that we can hold onto for the rest of our lives,

and so many times, those memories are made over food.

It helps you reconnect to what's most important.

Hey. Hey, Amiel, how are you?

[Amiel] Tom, so good to see you.

Good, good. Thanks for coming to brunch.

[Amiel] Yeah, what are we making today?

Doing a Creole cream sauce

with a shirred egg tasso and a golden colada.

Do you need any help?

Please. All right.

Nice house.

Tom, it smells so good in here.

Thank you.

First, let's make these golden coladas.

Okay. I like the sound of colada.

Is there anything I can do to help out?

[Tom] Yeah, you wanna rim these glasses with the Tajin?

Sure. Little lime juice

to start might help.

[Amiel] So what's going in here? We've got-

So we have some cream of coconut,

some mango nectar.

Sounding tropical. Yeah.

Lime juice, and then this Gold Peak ice tea.

[Amiel] Yum. I love tea in a drink.

Then the ice.

This definitely feels like a weekend brunch

sort of thing to make.

It's a lazy Sunday morning drink.

All right, let her rip.

[blender whirring] Do we get to try it now?

[Tom] Oh, yeah.

[Amiel] Mm, my mouth is watering, that looks so good.

[Both] Cheers.

[gentle ambient music]

That spicy rim is really nice,

and the tea is really coming through.

This feels like the beginning of a fabulous brunch.

Oh, yeah. All right,

what do we got going on on the stove?

Yeah, so we have the cream sauce that had been cooking

with this really nice smoked tasso with green bell peppers.

This really nice chicken broth that I made, a lot of cream-

So this is like- A little bit of butter.

A pretty butter-involved sauce.

This is like, weekend cooking, for sure.

Yeah, I mean, when you have that free time,

yeah, it's valuable.

And this is one of my favorite things to cook at home

for my friends.

Those are golden moments.

[Amiel] Alright, so we got the sauce. What comes next?

What we gotta do to get these eggs together?

We're gonna get this tasso in the pan with this butter.

Okay, cool. Classic Louisiana.

Yeah, some kind of cooked ham

was always a part of my dad's weekend breakfast routine.

He's polish, so we do a lot of kielbasa.

It's amazing how these like,

smells and things like that are so evocative,

and it was always like, eggs are coming.

That was like the first step.

So we're gonna let this steep for a second.

I'm gonna combine this cream, some nice Worcestershire,

and then this powdered mustard here.

I'm gonna have you crack these eggs.

Okay.

[Tom] Just straight in there, right on in.

Alright, how'd I do, chef? That looks great.

Great. A little salt.

This cracked black pepper.

And then we're gonna go back over to the stove.

So key to this recipe,

obviously, is this beautiful pork.

[Amiel] Do you get some of the fat in there, too?

Yeah. You beat me to it.

[Tom] Yeah, fat is a great conduit of flavor.

Keep it around 400.

There's this like beautiful mix

between a sunny side up egg and a poached egg.

[Amiel] Now we just wait?

Yeah.

You're gonna have these golden coladas?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds great.

Cheers, thanks for having me over.

Thanks for coming.

[Amiel] Wow, those look perfect.

Oh, they are. Those jiggly yolks.

Oh, yeah, you nailed it. It's beautiful.

So now this gets the Creole sauce?

It does.

[Amiel] Ooh.

Yeah, so much texture in that sauce.

[Tom] Yeah.

[Amiel] Are you gonna serve this

with any kind of like, bread?

Yeah, I made some biscuits earlier.

Oh, great.

I feel like you really want something

to just kind of like, get in there

and sop up all the juices. Oh, yeah.

[Tom] And a little parsley to finish.

Huh, perfect.

Who's gonna be joining us

for this fabulous brunch you prepared?

My buddy Drew's one of the owners of St-Germaine,

my sommelier, Lilly,

and then my partner, Antonio.

Great. Can't wait to meet them.

Yeah, super excited.

[Guest] Le Mone, there's really only so much

that you can drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tom] Alright y'all, are y'all ready to eat?

[Guest] Hi.

Yeah. Yes.

[Amiel] This looks so good, thank you so much for cooking.

Thank you, it's my pleasure.

Please, help yourself.

Wow, these look amazing.

[gentle music]

How are those eggs, Amiel?

They're delicious.

The yolks are perfect.

Tom, I just gotta say,

it's just impressive to me that, on your day off,

you're putting this much love and care and attention

into a brunch that you're making for your friends

and people you love.

It's really inspiring.

Thank you, thank you.

I mean, that's the stuff of it though, right?

Is connecting over food with friends.

Those are the golden moments in life.

And that's how he got everybody on board at MaMou.

We brought them over to our house first, Tom cooked,

and every single one of them ended up working with us.

Actually, I was trying to leave the restaurant industry.

[all laughing]

Tom loves to put on the show of a meal.

[Guest] Yeah.

And then the chemistry that happens after

is just part of the magic.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it's about creating experiences, right?

Memories, and you know, the camaraderie,

the getting to know someone much better.

We're never not gonna know each other now, you know?

And it's because of this brunch

and because of your hospitality.

[Tom] Welcome back anytime.

[All] Cheers!

[Tom] Thank you, thank you, cheers.