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ROUSES.COM
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“C
ooking is all about timing,” explains
chef Cody Carroll. So is life.
Cody and his wife Sam met in the same
way that many chef couples do: in culinary
school. “I noticed her right away,” says
Cody, “but we were both pretty focused
on our studies, so it took a while for us to
actually go out on our first date.” Focused-
shmocused, says Sam. “I played hard to get.”
Most young culinary students dream of
a restaurant to call their own. They set
their sights on an old convenience store
in New Roads near Cody’s parents’ farm
in Batchelor, about 20 minutes west of H.
J. Bergeron Pecan Shelling Plant. They
opened Hot Tails in 2010 just three months
after graduating from the Louisiana
Culinary Institute. Their restaurant serves
“hardcore South Louisiana cuisine” like
crispy duck drumettes with pepper jelly
and remoulade sauce, an oysters Rockefeller
burger, and a seafood muffaletta with
shrimp and crawfish. The crawfish come
from the ponds on the Carroll family farm.
So do the pecans they use in their cobbler.
The chefs alsodreamedof having a restaurant
in New Orleans. “It’s an extraordinary food
community. There’s so much talent there,”
says Cody. “Working around other great
chefs makes you a better chef and we want
to be the best chefs we can be.” Two years
after opening Hot Tails, Cody and Sam got
married. Two years after that they opened
Sac-A-Lait on Annunciation Street in New
Orleans’ burgeoning Warehouse District.
The husband-and-wife chef team creates all
of the recipes for both restaurants. “We feed
off of each other,” says Sam. Sac-A-Lait’s
menu is very fish-and-game-oriented with
a slate-blackened redfish, and gulf tuna with
venison sweet breads, alligator and milirton.
“Sac-A-Lait lets us showcase what we hunt
and grow on the farm,” says Cody. “And
what we hunt for at Rouses,” adds Sam.
“There’s a Rouses just a few blocks from the
restaurant.”
The couple both grew up on gumbo, so
naturally it’s on the menu at their restaurants
— a seafood version at Hot Tails, a seasonal
selection at Sac-A-Lait. (In October, that
meant frog legs and alligator.) “My mom
made the gumbo,” says Sam, who was
raised in Gonzales. “It was mostly chicken
and sausage. For me the smell of gumbo
brings back memories of her kitchen. I wish
someone would come up with a roux candle.
That smell, it just smells like home.”
Cody usually makes the gumbo, Sam the
potato salad. “In New Orleans, they like a
thicker base, but in Pointe Coupee Parish,
where I’m from, the gumbo is usually
thinner. Not watery, but thinner. The flavor
is still there. It’s just that the meat and the
stock talk more,” says Cody. What goes in
the gumbo depends on the time of year, and
where the chefs — both avid fishermen and
hunters — are. “When I’m in Grande Isle,
I want seafood gumbo,” says Cody. “After
a hunt, I want duck or smoked rabbit. My
dad cooks a great squirrel gumbo. It’s one of
the first things I ever learned how to cook.
Cleaning squirrel is similar to cleaning
rabbit — it just takes longer.”
Whether it’s shrimp and oyster, crabmeat
and fish, duck or rabbit, no bowl of the
Carrolls’ gumbo is served without Sam’s
tangy potato salad, which is made with
relish and wet and dry mustard. “Some
people think you should only eat potato
salad with a sausage gumbo. But you boil
and eat potatoes with crawfish. Seafood and
potatoes just make sense.”
And so do Cody and Sam.
New Roads
Old Recipes
by
Marcy, Rouses Creative Director
PROFILES