How New Orleans' Best Po-Boy is Made

[lively music]

I'm Marvin Matherne.

I'm here at Guy's Po-Boys, New Orleans, Louisiana.

I'm gonna make the perfect shrimp po-boy.

Listen up.

[lively music]

[bell dings]

I've been doing this for 34 years.

I've made over a million po-boys in this one spot,

on this one corner at this one counter,

and I make every sandwich.

A po-boy, it's not a sub, it's not a hoagie,

it's a sandwich.

Everybody in the city's making shrimp po-boys.

If I want them to come to me,

I gotta make sure this sandwich is gonna be perfect.

[lively music]

There's a lot of different fillings out there for po-boys.

I do shrimp.

This is a white shrimp, even though it looks gray.

This is a brown shrimp, even though it looks pink.

This is more of a bolder flavor, this is my favorite.

Our shrimp come in frozen like everybody else's shrimp,

but we know which shrimp to buy, the Gulf shrimp.

These shrimps swim their entire life.

If something is sedentary in the pond,

they don't have the flavor these shrimp have.

Shrimp are sold by size.

This is a 40-50.

So 40 or 50 of these makes a pound.

It's perfect size for your mouth.

Now all I'm gonna do is rinse off.

I'm checking for shells, tails, pieces of head.

Anything that's not shrimp,

this is the spot to find it right now.

We good to go.

[lively music]

Eggs are so important to the batter.

These eggs are for our egg wash.

I'm not gonna add anything to them.

The eggs are to keep the breading on the shrimp.

I want them to be homogenous at this point.

When I put them over the shrimp,

I'm gonna make it look like a pudding,

that's what I'm looking for.

All right, now I'm gonna mix the flour.

Yellow corn flour.

Preferably this Indian Girl.

If I don't have this Indian Girl, I am upset.

It's the finest.

It's so silky smooth.

This is our blend,

salt, pepper, and a little secret.

Put any other little spice you want to taste in there.

People think, oh, it's Southern cooking,

you wanna kill it with spice.

No, you don't really want to kill it with spice.

This spice is killing me.

All right, so now that that's all mixed,

remember I was telling you

we're gonna make a pudding out of it?

Look at this.

See how the egg is all filled in?

Looks like a lot of egg.

It is a lot of egg.

And it looks like it's gonna make the breading stick

a little too much.

But tomorrow's gonna take care of that, you'll see.

This is by hand, you gotta do this by hand.

It looks like I'm just mixing them up, but I'm not,

I'm rolling them.

And the reason being why I'm working it so much is

I call it a yellow belly.

You see the curve of the shrimp, the belly?

When they pack it full of flour

and they don't shake it enough, it fries into a ball

and then all the outside's gonna be cooked.

And when you open it up,

the belly's gonna still be yellow raw.

That's not acceptable.

Now as I'm putting them in here,

it looks like I'm just gently tossing them,

but no, I'm kind of squeezing them,

it's got a little grip to it.

And then I fluff them out.

You don't want to overfill a basket, another bad move.

Fill this thing up to here,

the ones in the middle are never gonna get cooked.

You see how I packed them with batter

and the batter came off?

That's what I'm looking for.

Now I'm gonna drop these in, fryer set at 350,

and here we go.

I'm gonna drop them.

I'm gonna let them fry for 30, 40 seconds.

I don't really have anything timed, I'm just listening.

See all the moisture's cooking out right now?

I'm waiting for them to firm up just enough

to where when I shake them in the fryer,

I'm not washing the batter off of them.

They all fry individually and we don't get those clumps.

That's not good 'cause the middle's not gonna be cooked.

I'm gonna give it a second shaking for every one separated.

All right, got our shrimp fried, let's talk about the bread.

[upbeat music]

If you can make it better yourself, make it yourself.

I can't make this bread better.

This is Leidenheimer, they deliver it to me.

These people are a little startup company.

Look, since 1896.

No, they've been doing this a long time.

They got it scientifically figured out.

It's perfect.

This truly is a specific piece of bread.

This piece of bread is only gonna last one day.

This is a four-day old piece of bread.

Dust, done.

Obviously, this is not gonna make a po-boy.

This is three hours old.

Look how soft and sweet, man.

I get all excited.

These ovens are infused with humidity.

The humidity that makes it have this crunch on the outside

while obtaining the soft middle.

I cut every piece of bread to order.

Look at that, after a million times,

that's pretty freaking exact, huh?

I cut them the order for one reason,

and that's 'cause if you cut this piece of bread

in the morning time and you come back in about four hours

or five hours,

it's gonna start curling like this.

Now your tomato's gonna fall over the side.

I can't have that, unacceptable.

[upbeat music]

Tomatoes, we gonna start with the tomatoes.

If you don't have a tomato plucker, plucker with a P,

you just slide it in, roll your tomato, pulls out the core.

If you have to use a paring knife,

I cut my paring knife down with my thumb

to just the depth of I want to get into the tomato.

Slide it in, turn my tomato, pull it out.

I can't stand when somebody goes all the way into tomato,

cuts a big old hole in it,

then every tomato slice has a hole in it.

Drives me nuts.

This is the slicer that I've had for 30 years.

We go round for round.

It's getting a little old, it's getting a little stubborn,

kind of like me.

[slicer whirring]

I'm gonna open it up about a quarter of an inch.

I'm gonna knock these out real quick for you.

No seasoning, no pickling, no nothing, this is it.

The tomato's gonna taste like a tomato.

Now the lettuce.

Shi-boom.

You give it a pop and the core comes right out.

Trim off the little extra stuff.

You're in the grocery store and you're looking at lettuce,

you want the heaviest one.

The place I buy my lettuce,

I pick every case up that's on the top

because the heavy is where you at.

I go with the shredded lettuce

because when you put it in your mouth,

it touches more taste buds so you get more flavor.

So I'm gonna shred this up real good.

That's like fresh powder to a skier right there.

Kind of crazy when lettuce gets you excited like that.

But you know what?

I love it when it's right.

Let's put this all into action,

and let's get us a po-boy made.

And I'll tell you what, I can't wait to bite in it myself.

[lively music]

Showtime, baby, let's do this.

The mayo's first, Blue Plate mayo,

that's what we grew up on.

Then I'm gonna go with the lettuce.

Now we're gonna put out tomatoes, three tomatoes every time.

This way you're gonna get a bite of tomato,

a bite of lettuce in every bite.

Each tomato gets a pickle.

One eighth-inch slice, this is where you want to go.

But that's your traditional dress.

Then we're gonna guise it up a little bit,

and I'm gonna put a little hot sauce.

If you're real special, I'll write your name for you.

And now our shrimp.

You might think I'm putting this much shrimp on here

just for the camera.

No.

So now the fold.

This could be a catastrophe.

You gotta lift and separate a little bit.

You give room for these shrimp to fall in there.

So when you roll it over, there you have it.

Look at that.

Isn't that beautiful?

I'm not very delicate with this sandwich.

If I just folded it over like this

and cut it and wrapped it,

when you get it to the table and you open it up,

it's gonna fall out all over the place.

So actually what I do is I press it down,

then I make my cut.

Then the wrap.

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I'm not just like folding it over,

I'm squeezing this right here.

This is tight.

One piece of tape, there we go.

This one's for me.

Mm-hmm, that's incredible.

I have to tell you, proud of myself every time I do it.

Every one tastes like the very first time I did this.

I love it.

You wondering who this one's for?

This is yours.

Come to Guy's Po-Boys, 5259 Magazine Street,

pick up your sandwich, it's ready.

[lively music]