Duck Diner adds to the Robertson Family’s Dynasty

Posted by Kay Marley-Dilworth on October 28, 2013

West Monroe, Louisiana’s most famous faces since…well, since ever (apologies to Jerry Stovall), have recently added restauranteur status to their collective resumes. On Friday the family opened Willie’s Duck Diner on a street that I’m fairly certain didn’t yet exist when I hightailed it outta town, looking for a bigger city. I had no idea the dimpled, sweet boy I knew as Jason in high school would someday be as bearded as any respectful East Austin hipster, and staring at me from tee shirts, posters, coffee travel mugs and dvd covers in just about every store known to man.

The Duck Diner menu reads like you’d expect from a Louisiana home cookin’ restaurant: frog legs, gumbo, fried duck strips in place of the usual chicken, fried crawfish, oysters, dirty rice, ettoufee and boudin, greens, meatloaf, smothered pork chops, biscuits, Miss Kay’s banana puddig and more Southern favorites. Makes me hungry! I might have to make a pot of jambalaya soon, or at least some good, spicy dirty rice.

While I’m not a huge fan of the show, I enjoy watching it occasionally to get a glimpse of the town I called home for years. My friends that still live there will post excitedly on Facebook when they’ve been out and run into one of the Duck Dynasty family members. In a sleepy North Louisiana town, these folks are big time celebrities. I think the success of their series has been bolstered by their no drama reality, and wholesome family values. Although I may not tune in to the show often, I applaud the family for bringing tourist dollars into West Monroe.

I’m including in this post a recipe for good Southern style biscuits, from Alton Brown, who was born in California but had the good fortune to grow up in Georgia and learn regional cooking from his mother and grandmother. Like most boys, he learn to cook so he could impress the girls, and his recipe produces feathery light, delicate biscuits that are a showpiece of breakfast in the South.

Southern Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup buttermilk, chilled

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don’t want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that’s life.)Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

Per biscuit: Calories: 121 ;Total Fat: 4.5 grams; Saturated Fat: 2 grams; Protein: 3 grams; Total carbohydrates: 17 grams; Sugar: 1 gram; Fiber: 0.5 gram; Cholesterol: 6 milligrams; Sodium: 331 milligrams