Dakota restaurant in Covington

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Brie and Crab soup is their specialty. It’s really good.

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And if you want to recreate it:

Dakota's Crabmeat and Brie Soup

This recipe was given to the newspaper in 1998 by executive chef and co-owner Kim Kringlie.

1/4 cup butter
1-1/2 pounds fresh Louisiana blue crabs
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
1 clove garlic
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup brandy
1 cup white wine
2 quarts water
1 quart heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup flour
8 ounces Brie cheese
Pinch salt
Pinch white pepper
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 pound picked jumbo lump crabmeat

Heat 1/4 cup butter in pot; crack open blue crab shells with a heavy meat mallet or hammer. Add blue crabs to butter and saute for five minutes. Add vegetables and bay leaves; continue to saute for three to four minutes.

Add brandy, white wine and water; bring to simmer over medium heat and cook for 30 minutes. Remove crabs and vegetables; add heavy cream.

Meanwhile, in separate small skillet, melt 1/2 cup unsalted butter and blend in flour until smooth and creamy; simmer over low heat for one minute. Once stock with cream has come to low simmer, add flour and butter mixture to stock mixture while constantly stirring; cook for four to five minutes.

Remove outside rind from Brie and discard. Cut cheese into one-inch cubes and add to soup, stirring constantly until cheese dissolves completely. Season soup with salt, white pepper and cayenne to taste. Strain soup through a fine strainer; add jumbo lump crabmeat and serve.

Yield: 3 quarts

Tips
Note from 4WHLN:

HOLE-E S**T!!!!! I used to make this Soup several times a week when I was working at Creola’, Dakota and Dakota Wine n Feed back in the day. Kim always had me make a couple extra 5 gallons worth for the holidays as people would order this by the gallon.

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I used to have this recipe (and others) memorized but as time has passed the only thing I could remember was the brandy, crab meat and Brie.

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Ok here’s your Pro Tip as you all try and cook this delicious bowl of soup….

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1. Make sure you stir, and stir often as it simmers. This will burn very quickly and once it does, you are finished and will have to throw it out. So watch your heat.

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2. Make sure you remove all the rind from the cheese. Sometimes it can be hard to see as they are similar in color. Cooking the rind will give it a kinda sour spoiling flavor if you leave too much. This soup is not complex on the pallet so it’s easy to throw it off.

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3. We used a type of cheese cloth to line a fine strainer when filtering the stock. Make sure you spoon thru the stock and get any chunks of veggies or crab shells after straining.

Crab and Brie Soup fans, guess where chef Kim Kringlie worked back in the day as a young chef?

Poets(Mansur's precursor) and Del Lago.