• 36 (16–20 count) Louisiana shrimp, head-on
• 3/4 cup black-eyed peas, cooked
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
• Creole seasoning, to taste
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• granulated garlic, to taste
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 1/4 cups beer
• Louisiana hot sauce, to taste
• 2 cups flour
• 1 quart vegetable oil

Peel shells from tail of shrimp, being careful not to remove head or tail. De-vein shrimp and set aside.

In a food processor, combine black-eyed peas, onion, minced garlic, ginger, Creole seasoning, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.

Blend on high speed 2 to 3 minutes or until peas are coarsely chopped.

Add eggs, olive oil, beer, and hot sauce. Blend 1 to 2 minutes or until puréed.

Add flour and blend 1 to 2 minutes.

Pour black-eyed pea batter into a ceramic bowl and set aside.
In a large cast iron pot or a home-style electric fryer, heat 3 inches of oil to 350°F.

Dip only all but the shrimp heads into batter (hold the shrimp heads with tongs and dip the body into the batter) and allow all excess to drain.

Gently place shrimp into deep-fryer and cook until golden brown and partially floating. Remove from oil and drain.

Serve hot with your favorite dipping sauce.

DAPHNE MEDINA

……….

Photo credit: Daphne Medina

I never realized that a pot of pinto beans bubbling away on my stove in Spain could bring me to my knees, barely able to breathe, sobbing on my kitchen floor. I never realized that a loaf of buttermilk cornbread baked by my mother could rip my heart into pieces as I cradled it in my arms on an international flight.  I never realized that two old mayonnaise jars filled with honey and smuggled into my luggage would worry me so; what if the jars broke? What if a TSA agent took them?  My father had given me that honey and told me the story of how he got it.  He told me a story about the “Bee Man” who collects it and sells it on the sly, far away from the prying eyes of ruinous government food regulators.  I never realized how long and how far my family’s food and stories would follow me, and I had never given much thought to just how all of these things together–-the cooking, recipes, the memories of eating together, and the roller-coaster of emotions attached to all of it–-was a sticky tangled web full of sounds and tastes and textures and smells that continue to pull me into the bitter-sweetness that is my family.

It has been six months since I have tasted my mother’s cast-iron skillet cornbread.  She has made it ever since I can remember and she uses the same heavy, round skillet that she has used for years.  I think it must be a family relic by now.  When my brother and I were kids, dinner often consisted of buttered slabs of hot cornbread alongside white beans doused with vinegar and sprinkled with chopped onions, and stewed potatoes that were so perfectly cooked and seasoned that even then I marveled at them.  They melted in our mouths and try and I might, I have never been able to replicate them.  During the summer, there was always a plate of thick-sliced, blood red tomatoes sprinkled with salt.  Usually, next to the tomatoes there would be a bowl of chunky cucumber slices soaking in a vinegar bath.  Sometimes white onion slices joined them.  On those long hot days, sitting at the kitchen table, I could smell the lingering scents of fresh-turned garden earth and late-afternoon sun on the vegetables.  I suppose, looking back, that one might think we were poor and that this was poor food. “Beans and Potatoes”, as my mother would sometimes say.  But as kids, Rich and I did not know this, nor did we care.  We cleaned our plates and went for second helpings. We usually ate thirds and fourths of that cornbread before we ran back outside to finish whatever kid-games occupied us that day.

Mom’s cornbread-making ritual is the same now as it was then; she places the heavy black pan in the oven with some oil in it until it begins to give off those wavy tinges of hot air, letting her know that it’s just this-side of too hot; “right before it starts to smoke”, she says.  She never measures the ingredients. Instead, she throws seemingly random amounts of flour, cornmeal, and salt into another family relic; a large red Tupperware bowl.  She adds a cup or so of buttermilk.  When the skillet is screaming hot, she removes it from the oven and pours a little of the hot oil from the skillet into the cornbread batter.  She has to stir it quickly because the mixture sizzles and pops in protest.  Then she pours the batter into the skillet.  This is the best part–because it is so hot, the batter along the edges of the pan cooks almost instantly–this gives an amazingly crunchy finish around the sides of the cooked loaf.  The finished bread is moist, slightly tart from the buttermilk, crunchy, a little salty, and leaves just enough oily cornmeal crumbs on your hands to make you forget good manners and lick your fingers after you eat a piece.  There is never any left over.

Photo by Daphne Medina

Six months ago, I left Spain and flew across the Atlantic Ocean to attend my brother’s funeral.  My family was lost in the void that Rich unknowingly left behind.  We were lost in disbelief, shock, anger, regret, and the sheer uselessness of it all. Friends’ well-meaning words of comfort fell on deaf ears. It seemed to me that prayer was futile and God was a no-show as I watched my mother’s body shake because her choking sobs were too great for it to do anything else.  My father stayed unusually busy and was unsure of what he was supposed to do or say or feel around my mother and I.  Instead, he took on the role of being the bearer of terrible news to those who did not yet know about my brother’s sudden passing, and he did this many times in only a few days.  He took all of the phone calls and dealt with insurance company questions about death certificates and life insurance policies.  His voice always teetered on the edge of a stifled wail, purposely clipped and flat.  He was distant from us and did not shed many tears that we could see.  But then I remembered that Dad was the last one, the only one, to see my brother at the hospital.  The last one to hold his hand and say a final goodbye.  I know the memory of that must be a heavy one to bear.

During those first dark days we were grasping for anything that seemed solid and familiar.  Like many Southern families, much of what was solid and familiar was traditional Southern-fare that we grew up with; buttermilk cornbread, a pot of beans, vanilla pound cake, Chess pie, fried chicken, mounds of pulled-pork, and sweet iced tea. A neighbor brought over a coffee cake.  It was not good and did not get eaten but no one was willing to throw it out because she meant well.  Besides, it would have been disrespectful to do so. My mother made a giant sour-cream cheesecake that was wonderfully tart and surprisingly light.  She made the graham-cracker crust herself, and added just enough cinnamon and salted butter to dance on your tongue.  For some reason, on one of those days, she decided to cook us breakfast.  She said that she had woke up early, but I knew it was because she hadn’t slept at all.  I worried about her and thought that she shouldn’t be cooking for us, but I then I remembered that like most women in my family, cooking has always been a way to occupy the mind, to soothe a troubled soul, and to find the tiniest sliver of relief from a broken heart.  That morning my husband and I awoke to a table laden with plates of fluffy buttermilk biscuits, jars of golden-orange colored honey, thick blackberry jam so dark that it was more “black” than “berry”, country sausages, crispy, fatty bacon, and giant sunny-side up eggs with Van Gogh-yellow centers.  Mom sat at the breakfast table with us and held a cup of coffee in both hands.  She barely touched the single buttered biscuit that lay on her plate.  She made attempts at normal conversation.  In that moment, sitting there in her bleached-white pajamas, looking more than a little lost, she seemed to disappear.  She did not eat.  Her biscuit turned cold and the butter hardened.  She gave it to one of the dogs.

A week after the funeral, and the day before I had to leave my parents’ home to go back to Spain, I stood in my mother’s kitchen and watched her make cornbread.  She measured the ingredients as she went so that I could write them down. She chided me and told me that she would expect me to make my own cornbread from now on, without having to call her for the recipe as I have done every year for the last dozen or so years.  That day, however, as I watched and scrawled my notes onto a paper napkin, I understood that that moment was about more than simply the exchange of a recipe.  It was a gift from a mother to a daughter.  It was my mother passing something on to me that will live on in our family as long as there is someone to place cornmeal and flour and salt into a bowl.  It was about keeping something alive and not losing it.  We had already lost so much.

We made three batches that day and when they were finished baking we wrapped two of them in many layers of Saran wrap.  I would carry those two back to Spain with me, cradled gently in my carry-on bag, checking every couple of hours to make sure they hadn’t been crushed.  The third batch was devoured for dinner that night as we talked about my brother.  We smiled as we remembered how much he had always loved my mom’s food, especially her cornbread, but soon enough we grew quiet at the sobering reminder of an empty chair at the table, and the thoughts of what difficulties were ahead for all of us.  After dinner my dad gave me two old jars full of newly harvested honey from someone he called the “Bee Man”.  Before I tasted that honey it wasn’t always clear to me what people meant when they said they could “taste the land” in something. Now I know what they mean.  It was as if flowers and sunsets had been captured and put into those jars.  It is the best honey I have ever tasted.  I wrapped the jars in newspapers and clothes and placed them in my luggage.  I prayed they would not break or be stolen during the journey.  Those honey jars, the cornbread, and the napkin with the recipe written on it became precious cargo to me.  They were part of a life that I was desperate to hang on to. A life that I had never fully cherished until a piece of it had been ripped away.

For me, some days Rich’s death feels just like a paper cut; it lies there, quiet until you slice into a fat lemon and its juices find their way into your severed flesh. Suddenly, from where there was no pain, every nerve is alive and you are screaming in agony. A cruel reminder that you are not whole. There is a piece of you that is cut in two.  Sometimes it’s that pot of beans on the stove that is my “lemon”, and at other times it’s an old photo, or even a smell.  Every holiday, every birthday, every visit home will be forever marked by my brother’s absence.  It is my hope, however feeble, that over time those stories and those meals will help us to heal, if only a little. It is my hope that they will help us to smile when we think of my brother, instead of cry.  And while it may seem to others like an odd thing, this carrying on about some old family recipe like cornbread, I like to think that it helps us to remember each other, to remember where we come from, and above all, to remember my brother.

Photo by Daphne Medina

Mom’s Cornbread

• 1 1/4 cup Self-Rising Cornmeal Mix (she uses Martha White brand)
• 1/4 cup self-rising flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• Buttermilk (about a 3/4 to 1 cup–but enough to get the batter to a pancake-like consistency).
• 4 Tbs. neutral oil such as canola

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the oil into your skillet (should be cast-iron or another type that is oven safe!).  Let the skillet heat in the oven until right before it starts to get smoky. You must watch for this stage carefully–you don’t want it to actually smoke-you will see heat waves coming off the pan.

While the pan is heating up, mix all remaining ingredients in a bowl.  Add more buttermilk if necessary and stir until just combined.  Don’t over stir it, or your cornbread will be tough.

When the pan is hot, remove it from the oven.  Pour a little of the hot oil into your batter.  It will sizzle a bit.  STIR.

Pour batter into the hot pan. Do not be alarmed by the sizzling and popping. Place the pan back into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until the top of the cornbread is golden brown.

Let it sit for about 5 minutes before you cut it.

Serve with butter!

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Being Dead is No Excuse

http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=1631

The cover of Fred Thompson's Southern Sides.

Sweet Potato Guacamole

From Fred Thompson’s Southern Sides: 250 Dishes That Really Make the Plate.  Copyright © 2012 by Fred Thompson.  Used by permission of the University of North Carolina Press. www.uncpress.unc.edu

Photo by Llez, via Wikimedia Commons.

This very southern twist on guacamole came from my son- in- law, Kyle Wilkerson, a chef at Four Square Restaurant in Durham, North Carolina, and my biggest playmate with food. Daughter, you really did right with Kyle. You will be totally surprised how well this guacamole fits with standard Mexican fare. Nibbling on corn chips with some Sweet Potato Guacamole, some regular guacamole, and some salsa is a great way to spend an afternoon with friends, a football game, and a couple of beers. Put this guacamole alongside some fish tacos, and it’s oooh so good.

• 1 large cooked sweet potato
• 1 tomato, peeled and chopped
• 1⁄2 cup chopped onions
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 poblano chilis, roasted, peeled, and chopped
• Kosher salt
• Fresh lime juice

Using a spoon, scrape the cooked sweet potato from the peel into a medium mixing bowl. Add all the remaining ingredients except salt and lime juice. Mash with the back of a fork and stir together. Season with salt and lime juice. Serve the same day, with blue corn tortilla chips.

Serves 4–6

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Grilled Onion Guacamole from the Mansion at Turtle Creek

http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=1834

Photo credit: Ed Anderson © 2012

Oyster–Swiss Chard Gratin with Country Bacon

Serves 8

3 thick slices smoky bacon, cut into small dice

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 small onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 bunches Swiss chard, stemmed, leaves chopped 
into ¹/₂-inch dice

2 cups heavy cream

¹/₈ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

18 oysters, freshly shucked, patted dry, and coarsely chopped

¹/₂ teaspoon salt

¹/₂ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup fresh bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Brown the bacon in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the butter, onion, garlic, and Swiss chard and sauté until the chard is completely wilted. Remove from the heat. Pour the mixture into a colander set in the sink and squeeze out all excess liquid. Reserve.

Return the pan to the stove and add the cream and nutmeg. Bring to a boil over high heat, then decrease the heat to medium-low so the cream does not boil over. Cook the cream until it reduces to 1 cup. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl, combine the chard mixture, cooled cream, and oysters. Mix well and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into a 3-quart gratin dish. Using the back of a spoon, spread the mixture evenly. In a small bowl, mix together the Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs and sprinkle the topping evenly over the gratin.

Bake until the mixture is bubbling around the sides and the crust is lightly golden brown, about 12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before serving.

……….

Reprinted with permission from Southern Comfort: A New Take on the Recipes We Grew Up With by Allison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing, copyright © 2012. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.

Photo credit: Ed Anderson © 2012

……….

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Southern Comfort: A New Take on the Recipes We Grew Up With

Recipe: Pimiento Cheese

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Photo courtesy of Flavor of Italy (flavorofitaly.com)

Stop by the Southern Food and Beverage Museum to see the corn collection.

What would July 4 be without the two emblematic symbols of summer, corn and the grill?  While this corn preparation is common to the streets of Mexico, this recipe is adapted from Chef Rene Ortiz’s preparation at La Condesa in Austin, Texas.  If possible, use the freshest, local corn you can find.  Once corn is picked, its sugars begin to be converted to starch, reducing its sweetness.  Skewering the corn with 2 wooden skewers will make the hot corn easier to handle as you coat it with mayonnaise, cheese, and chile.

Serves: 6

6 ears of yellow corn, cleaned from the husk and any silk

1 cup mayonnaise

2 cups queso cotija

1 tablespoon of ground chile de arbol

2 limes

After preparing your grill, char the corn on it. (about 8 minutes or until corn is cooked).

With a 2-inch paint brush, evenly coat the charred corn with the mayonnaise.

Sprinkle cheese on a flat, clean surface and roll the corn in it so that it covers the entire ear.

Sprinkle the corn with the chile de arbol.

Add a squeeze of lime.

]]> http://southernfood.org/okra/?feed=rss2&p=819 0 http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=1866&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=smothered-okra-and-creole-tomatoes http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=1866#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 19:08:35 +0000 admin http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=1866 We saw the first Creole tomatoes of the season when we were shopping at Rouse’s this week. If Creoles aren’t available in your area, substitute any ripe tomato or canned. This recipe for Smothered Okra and Creole Tomatoes comes from Louisiana Cookin’ Magazine. If you enjoy this recipe, be sure to check out Louisiana Cookin’ for yourself. Subscribe with the code SFB12 and they’ll donate $5 to SoFAB! You’ll be giving and receiving and cooking all at the same time.

Yield: 6-8 servings

• 4 tablespoons cooking oil
• 2 pounds fresh okra, sliced into 1/8th-inch rings
• 4 tablespoons bacon grease
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 2 cups Creole tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced or 1 1-pound can diced tomatoes, including liquid
• 2 teaspoons thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon Louisiana-style hot sauce
• salt and pepper to taste
• hot cooked Louisiana rice for serving (optional)

Heat oil in a skillet. Sauté okra until lightly browned and no longer slimy. Set aside. Melt bacon grease over medium heat and add flour to make a roux. Cook, stirring constantly, to a chocolate brown color, about 20 minutes. Add onions, stir together and cook until roux darkens to a bittersweet chocolate brown, about 3 minutes.
Add celery and bell pepper and sauté until vegetables wilt, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add tomatoes and reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Add okra, thyme, and bay leaves. Add water and garlic. Remove cover and cook until slightly thickened, about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt, pepper, and hot sauce.
Serve with rice if desired.

The book was reviewed by Adrienne Lauer. Read her review here.

Lemon Rice. Photo by Adrienne Lauer

Lemon Rice

2 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 cup rice

1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon dried dill or 2 tablespoons fresh dill

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Bring the chicken stock, garlic, salt, and pepper to a boil. Add the rice and cook for about 20 minutes, or until all the liquid is absorbed. Gently incorporate the lemon zest. Allow the rice to stand, covered, for a few minutes.

Stir in the dill and butter. Check the seasoning. This can be served immediately or frozen for later use.

Serves eight.

GREENS IN POT LIKKER

Serves 6

1/2 pound salt pork (fat back or bacon)

1 onion, chopped

3 pounds greens (collard, mustard or turnip, or a mixture)

salt and pepper to taste

Simmer the pork in water to cover for an hour or until tender.

Wash greens throughly, removing stems. Add to pork with additional water if necessary, and simmer until tender, 30 to 45 minutes. Season with red pepper, hot pepper sauce and/or sugar. Serve with sliced pork and some of the cooking likker, plus cornbread for dipping.

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Photo by Jennifer Abbott

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I often spent my childhood summers on my grandparents’ farm in South Carolina, where I learned that you could not take creatures from the nearby stream and “grow” them in a cup filled with faucet water, that the cows on the farm had a future that would turn me into a vegetarian for some of my life, that peanuts from the ground taste completely differently than dry roasted peanuts from a jar.  I also learned to drive a pick-up truck (I was 9), how to shuck corn and feed it to the cows from the bed of the pick-up truck, how to make castles from bails of hay, and how to have patience as my mother checked for ticks afterwords.

My grandfather called me a “city girl” to tease me and said that a city girl or boy would never know how to cook.  I learned that too, though at culinary school and in professional kitchens in 4 different countries.  But that was always fussy food.  Through that journey, I learned that there will always be a place at my table for a casserole.

This recipe is for the summer squash casserole that was always on that South Carolina farm’s table, along with turkey, ham, frog legs, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, and baked macaroni and fresh corn (or whatever vegetable was good on the farm that week).  It was also published in the First Lady Cookbook 1976.

Squash Casserole

1 pkg. cornbread stuffing
1 stick butter
1.5 lbs yellow squash, cooked, drained, mashed
1 can cream of celery soup
1-8oz. carton sour cream
1 small jar pimiento, chopped
1 can water chestnuts, chopped fine
2 small onions, chopped

Melt butter and pour into stuffing.  Line the bottom of a casserole dish with half the stuffing.  Mix all other ingredients with the mashed squash.  Pour over stuffing.  Top with other half of the stuffing.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.