A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (10 page)

ROQUEFORT PECANS

MAKES
5½
TO
6
DOZEN

A southern favorite for as long as I can remember, this recipe couldn’t be easier. Use new-crop pecans only—the plumpest halves you can find. Note:
When toasting the nuts, spread them in a single layer in an ungreased large, rimmed baking sheet; stir well at half-time, and again spread in a single layer. Watch the nuts carefully as they toast: They burn easily.

One-half 4-ounce package light cream cheese (Neufchâtel), at room temperature

4 ounces Roquefort, Gorgonzola, or other sharp blue cheese, crumbled

1 teaspoon finely grated yellow onion

¼ teaspoon hot red pepper sauce

4 cups (about 1 pound) perfect pecan halves, lightly toasted (10 to 12 minutes in a 350° F. oven and cooled to room temperature; see Note above)

• 1.
  Whisk the cream cheese, Roquefort, onion, and hot pepper sauce together until creamy. Cover and refrigerate for several hours.
  
• 2.
  When ready to proceed, “butter” the flat side of each pecan half with the cheese mixture, then sandwich the halves together two by two.
  Note:
  These pecans should be served as soon as possible, so draft several helpers to help you sandwich them together.
  
• 3.
  Pass with cocktails or put out on a tea table.
  

BOILED PEANUTS

MAKES
1
POUND

Strangely, I never tasted boiled peanuts when I was growing up in North Carolina although goodness knows, I’d seen plenty of
BOILED P
-
NUT
signs at backcountry roadside stands. The truth is, I ate my first boiled peanut in New York while I was a food editor at
The Ladies’ Home Journal
.
Two doors down from my office sat Jean Todd Freeman, the fiction editor, whose mother down in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, kept her well supplied with boiled peanuts. A can of them always sat on Jean’s desk. Knowing I was a “Tar Heel born and bred,” Jean offered me a handful one day. When I admitted that I’d never eaten a boiled peanut, she was stunned, and then set about making a convert of me. Now that I’ve learned to boil peanuts, I must say that these are definitely better than the canned variety, which tend to be mushy. Properly cooked, boiled peanuts should be al dente. Although old-timers use only salt to season, some modern southern cooks also add four-or five-star anise or green cardamom pods to the pot. Note:
For sources of green (raw) peanuts and boiled peanuts (see Sources, backmatter).

1 pound green (raw) peanuts in the shell, washed well (see Note)

4 quarts (1 gallon) cold water

¹
/
₃
to ½ cup salt (depending upon how salty you like things)

• 1.
  Place all ingredients in a large, heavy pot and bring to a boil over high heat.
  
• 2.
  Adjust the heat so the water bubbles gently, cover, and simmer for 40 minutes. Set off the heat and let the peanuts steep in the hot water for 40 minutes.
  
• 3.
  Drain the peanuts well, shell, discard the skins, then pat dry on paper toweling.
  
• 4.
  Serve as a snack.
  

SLOW-ROASTED PEANUTS

MAKES
1
POUND

I’ve always wondered if we call these “peanuts” because they’re legumes—like peas. So
peanut
or
peanut
,
as we now spell it, makes sense. This is one of the easiest ways I know to prepare them and also one of the most delicious. But you must be picky about the pan in which you roast peanuts. I use a standard 13
×
9
×
2-inch aluminum pan (no nonstick coating) and find it just right. I once made the mistake of using a dark pan and the nuts browned too fast and unevenly, at that. Note:
Though peanuts run to calories (166 per ounce), they are a significant source of protein, niacin, phosphorus, and potassium. Moreover, their fat is mostly monounsaturated.
Tip:
For best results, use plump, sweet Virginia Runner peanuts for this recipe (see Sources, backmatter).

1 pound shelled and blanched raw peanuts (see Tip above)

1 tablespoon peanut oil or olive oil

¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste

• 1.
  Preheat the oven to 300° F.
  
• 2.
  Spread the peanuts in an ungreased 13 × 9 × 2-inch baking pan (uncoated, bright aluminum is best) and drizzle with the oil. Toss well, then spread the peanuts once again so that they are one layer deep and reach to the corners of the pan.
  
• 3.
  Slide the pan onto the middle oven shelf—crosswise—and roast the peanuts uncovered for 50 to 60 minutes, stirring several times, or until the color of pale caramel.
  
• 4.
  Take from the oven, sprinkle with the salt, and toss well; taste and adjust the salt as needed.
  
• 5.
  Drain the peanuts on several thicknesses of paper toweling, then cool to room temperature before serving. Good as a snack, good with cocktails.
  

I remember the political rallies in the woods of Yazoo County…where Senator Bilbo and the others were of secondary importance to the barbecue and buttered yams and the biscuits dipped in molasses and the corn-on-the-cob, steamier and richer even than the perfervid rhetoric.

—
WILLIE MORRIS
,
TERRAINS OF THE HEART

F
rom the fifteenth century on, Europeans exploring the New World—first the Spaniards, then the English and French—all remarked upon its bounty—and on the abundance of fish and shellfish in particular. With the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico pounding much of the South, turning the Lowcountry into a vast marine gumbo and making a peninsula out of Florida, it’s hardly surprising that seafood soups figure prominently among the regional classics.

In
Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking
(1930) I find recipes for Crab Soup, Shrimp Soup, Fish Chowder, Gumbo with Crabs or Shrimp, Oyster Soup, and Oyster Stew with Mace. Mary Randolph’s
Virginia House-wife
(1824) also gives us Catfish Soup, and early New Orleans cookbooks offer plenty of court bouillons and gumbos.

Two vegetable soups are quintessentially southern, too: groundnut (peanut), said to be George Washington’s favorite, and okra. Both show up in Sarah Rutledge’s
Carolina Housewife
(1847), and Mrs. Samuel G. Stoney’s
Carolina Rice Cook Book
(1901) offers five different okra soups plus a crawfish (or shrimp) bisque. A facsimile of Stoney’s book appears in Karen Hess’s
The Carolina Rice Kitchen
(1992).

The muddles—the fish and shellfish stews of the Outer Banks and Lowcountry—were so commonplace that I believe they were passed down by word of mouth from father to son and mother to daughter. At least I’ve found no recipes for them printed before the twentieth century and even the ones I did find appear mainly in local cookbooks.

Approximately half of the recipes in this chapter call for fish or shellfish, among
them what I call the Big Four: She-Crab Soup, Frogmore Stew, Pinebark Stew, and Rock Muddle. For me, the recipe origins are as colorful as their names; the head-notes tell their stories.

BLUE CRAB SOUP

MAKES
4
TO
6
SERVINGS

Anyone living along the Chesapeake Bay or its tidal reaches knows that blue crabs are a singular delicacy. Just such a person is Meri Major, of Belle Air Plantation, whom I interviewed some time ago while on assignment for
Bon Appétit
magazine. I was researching a piece on the James River plantations of Virginia, the families who live there, and the regional recipes they serve. Wherever I went, I kept hearing about a wonderful cook named Meri Major, so I looked her up, then drove over for lunch one day. I wasn’t disappointed. Meri served this delicate crab soup which, unlike so many other blue crab recipes, tastes mostly of crab. “I don’t like it when excellent food is ruined by masking it with some other flavor,” Meri explained. “This is especially true of seafood and most especially true of crab. That’s why I’ve never made a crab cake.” Meri told me that the Virginia way to eat this soup is to mash the lemon and egg garnish with the soup spoon at the outset so their flavors are released. I find this a perfect main dish for a small party luncheon. It needs only a fresh green vegetable or tossed salad to accompany, though I sometimes substitute thickly sliced heirloom tomatoes lightly drizzled with fruity olive oil. Note:
If blue crab is unavailable, substitute Dungeness or even frozen snow crab. But don’t expect the flavor to be the same.

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

1 cup finely minced celery (include a few leaves)

¼ teaspoon freshly ground white pepper, or to taste

¹
/
₈
teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

6 cups (1½ quarts) milk (about)

2 cups (1 pint) heavy cream (about)

¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, or to taste

¹
/
₈
teaspoon hot red pepper sauce, or to taste

1 pound lump crabmeat, picked over for bits of shell and cartilage

4 tablespoons cream sherry

½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

2 medium lemons,
very
thinly sliced and seeded (Meri uses only the center portion of thin-skinned lemons)

3 large hard-cooked eggs, shelled and thinly sliced (Meri slices only the center portion of each egg and chops the ends; these also go into the soup)

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley or chervil (garnish)

• 1.
  Melt the butter in a large, heavy saucepan over moderately low heat. Add the celery, pepper, and nutmeg and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes or until the celery is soft.
  
• 2.
  Blend in the flour and cook and stir for 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in the milk, then cook and stir for about 5 minutes or until the soup thickens slightly. Do not let the soup boil or it may curdle.
  
• 3.
  Add the cream and cook, stirring now and then, for 10 minutes or until the flavors mellow. Mix in the Worcestershire and hot pepper sauce.
  Note:
  You can prepare the recipe up to this point a day or two in advance. Simply cover and refrigerate until ready to proceed.
  Tip:
  If you cool the soup, then smooth a sheet of plastic food wrap flat over the surface so no “skin” will form on top.
  
• 4.
  When ready to proceed, gently fold the crabmeat into the soup using a large spoon; do not stir. Bring just to a simmer over moderately low heat; this will take about 10 minutes. Fold in the sherry and salt, taste for seasoning, and adjust the salt, pepper, Worcestershire, and hot pepper sauce as needed. Also thin with a little additional milk or cream, if you like.
  
• 5.
  To serve, place 2 slices each of lemon and hard-cooked egg in each of four to six heated large, broad-rimmed soup bowls; add the chopped hard-cooked egg, dividing the total amount evenly; then ladle in the soup. Garnish each portion with a light scattering of the chopped parsley.
  Note:
  This soup is equally delicious cold. Simply transfer to a nonreactive bowl, cover, and refrigerate for several hours. Serve as directed in Step 5. Make sure the soup bowls are good and cold.
  

SHE-CRAB SOUP

MAKES
4
SERVINGS

Apparently this Charleston classic was created between 1908 and 1912. I find no mention of it in early South Carolina cookbooks:
A Colonial Plantation Cookbook: The Receipt Book of Harriott Pinckney Horry
(1770); Sarah Rutledge’s
Carolina Housewife
(1847); or
Mrs. Hill’s Southern Practical Cookery and Receipt Book
(1872). Nor does it appear in Mrs. Samuel G. Stoney’s
Carolina Rice Cook Book
(1901), even though the original She-Crab Soup is said to have been thickened with rice. “Judging from the pasty versions served in most restaurants you would think its major ingredient is flour,” writes Lowcountry culinary sleuth John Martin Taylor in
Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking.
Taylor (a.k.a. Hoppin’ John) believes that She-Crab soup descends from the rice-thickened Partan Bree, a crab soup popular in Scotland. Still, the She-Crab Soup in Blanche S. Rhett’s
Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking
(1930), created by her butler William Deas (“one of the best cooks in the world”) and believed to be the original, contains no rice. It is thickened with a small amount of flour. Rhett’s husband, R. Goodwyn Rhett, was the mayor of Charleston soon after the turn of the twentieth century and during his term, President William Howard Taft visited the Rhetts’ Broad Street home several times (it is now the John Rutledge House Inn). One evening, the Rhetts asked Deas to dress up his crab soup; he did, adding the orange roe to enrich the color and flavor. From that evening onward, She-Crab Soup has been “quintessen
tially Charleston.” Charlestonians consider she-crabs sweeter and finer in every way. Taylor maintains that in the Lowcountry it is not illegal to take “sooks” (mated she-crabs) on hand-lines or to dip them up as long as they are at least five inches across the back. She-Crab Soup is a winter delicacy here because that’s when the females are full of roe. Unfortunately, most of us living beyond the Lowcountry aren’t likely to find she-crabs or live crabs, period, in the dead of winter and must settle for lump or backfin—scarcely a hardship. Needless to add, there are many versions of She-Crab Soup, three alone in that landmark Junior League cookbook,
Charleston Receipts
(1950). The recipe that follows is one that I’ve evolved over time—ever since I first tasted this delicacy in a Charleston restaurant. I now order She-Crab Soup whenever I visit Charleston, Beaufort, Pawleys Island, or any other Lowcountry locale.

that serves it. Note:
According to Louis Osteen, chef-proprietor of Louis’s at Pawleys as well as the author of
Louis Osteen’s Charleston Cuisine,
“Frozen crab roe, from what Charlestonians call ‘she-crabs,’ is often available in fish markets.” I’ve never seen it and thus do what others have done for years: Substitute coarsely sieved or crumbled hard-cooked egg yolks. They add the necessary richness.