A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (41 page)

LOWCOUNTRY RED RICE

MAKES
4
TO
6
SERVINGS

You might call this a tomato pilaf; indeed it almost has the consistency of risotto even though it’s made with long-grain rice, not the short-grain variety preferred for risottos. Some cooks add no onion to red rice, but I think it improves the flavor of this humble dish. If tomatoes are in season and bursting with flavor, by all means substitute two medium tomatoes (or one large) for the canned crushed tomatoes. Peel them, core them, seed them, and chop as fine as possible. Serve red rice in place of potatoes; you’ll find it especially good with roast pork, chicken, or turkey. Note:
There’s good reason to add the tomatoes at the end: Being acidic, they will toughen the rice if cooked along with it.
Tip:
Don’t rush the browning of the bacon; if you keep the heat low and let the drippings accumulate slowly, the bacon is less likely to burn.

5 slices smoky lean bacon, cut crosswise into strips ¼ inch wide

1 medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped

1 cup long-grain rice

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup canned crushed tomatoes (see headnote)

½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

¼ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

• 1.
  Fry the bacon in a large, heavy saucepan over moderately low heat for about 15 minutes or until the drippings cook out and only crisp brown bits remain. Scoop the browned bits to paper toweling and reserve.
  
• 2.
  Add the onion to the pan, then cook and stir in the drippings for 3 to 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Add the rice, and cook and stir for about a minute until it glistens.
  
• 3.
  Pour in the chicken broth, bring to a boil, adjust the heat so that the liquid barely bubbles, then cover and cook for about 15 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender.
  
• 4.
  Mix in the crushed tomatoes, salt, and pepper, and cook uncovered for about 5 minutes or until almost all the liquid has been absorbed. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed.
  
• 5.
  Scoop the rice into a heated serving dish, sprinkle with the reserved bacon, and serve.
  Note:
  I often mix in the bacon before I dish up the rice so that its smoky-meaty flavor has a chance to permeate.
  

HOPPIN’ JOHN

MAKES ABOUT
6
SERVINGS

According to Karen Hess in
The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection
(1992), “Hoppin’ John is one African-American dish that made it to the Big House.” She adds that the appearance of this cowpea pilau in Sarah Rutledge’s
Carolina Housewife
(1847) seemed to indicate “that the old slave dish had been accepted by some of the most aristocratic elements of the Lowcountry.” As for the recipe’s unusual name, Hess dismisses what she calls the current “pop etymology.” Her
own theory, developed after prodigious research, suggests that Hoppin’ John descends from
bahatta k-chang, bahatta
being a Persian word for “cooked rice,” and
k-chang
a Malay word for various legumes. Hess further believes that the recipe for Hoppin’ John may have arrived in Africa via Madagascar and that it was carried there by Muslims before making its cross-continental journey to Gambia and elsewhere along the west coast of Africa, which was to become a major rice-growing region. “My construction is logical,” she writes.
“
Bahatta k-chang
and Hoppin’ John both designate rice and peas, products indigenous to Asian and African tropics.”

The recipe here was given to me many years ago by Mary Sheppard, the plantation cook at Middleton Place near Charleston. Although Mary’s Hoppin’ John was made with dried cowpeas, she told me that black-eyed peas are perfectly acceptable. In fact the Hoppin’ John served every New Year’s Day at the old Sir Walter Hotel in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, always contained black-eyed peas. “Hoppin’ John’s supposed to be good luck,” Mary Sheppard told me the day I interviewed her for
Family Circle
.
“You eat it with green s [turnip salad or collards]. They’re ’sposed to be good luck, too.” Note:
Some people cook the rice along with the cowpeas. But Mary Sheppard always cooked the two separately and combined them just before serving.

1 cup dried cowpeas or black-eyed peas, washed and sorted but not soaked

4 ounces hickory-smoked slab bacon, cut into ½-inch dice

2½ cups water

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

¹
/
₈
teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne), or to taste

¹
/
₈
teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

1¼ cups long-grain rice, cooked by package directions

• 1.
  Bring the cowpeas, bacon, and water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan over moderate heat. Reduce the heat so the water bubbles gently, cover, and simmer for 40 to 45 minutes or just until the peas are firm-tender; drain well.
  
• 2.
  Season the peas with salt, cayenne, and black pepper. Add the rice and toss gently. Taste for salt, cayenne, and black pepper and adjust as needed.
  
• 3.
  Serve hot; this is particularly good with roast pork, braised pork chops, or baked ham.
  

YELLOW SQUASH PUDDING

MAKES
4
TO
6
SERVINGS

Until the late 1950s, or perhaps early ’60s, there was a delightful tea room in Raleigh, North Carolina, called the Reinlyn House. Run by two elderly women (sisters, if memory serves), it was located on Hillsboro Street in a Charles Addams–style Victorian near the State Capitol. That proud old house, like so many others in Raleigh, succumbed to the wrecking ball, and although the tea room relocated to a small strip mall just off Glenwood Avenue, it didn’t survive. The one Reinlyn recipe that I’ve remembered all these years is the yellow squash pudding, which I’ve tried to duplicate here. The secret, I discovered, is slow, slow cooking so that the onions and squash actually caramelize. Despite its time on the stovetop and in the oven, this squash pudding requires very little attention. Note:
Before I had a food processor, I chopped the squash by hand. Now I chunk it and processor-chop in four batches, pulsing each to just the right texture. I also processor-chop the onion.

3 tablespoons butter

1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon crumbled dried leaf marjoram

½ teaspoon crumbled dried leaf thyme

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

12 tender young yellow squash (about 2½ pounds), trimmed and coarsely chopped

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

¾ cup soda cracker crumbs (not too fine) mixed with 2 tablespoons melted butter (topping)

• 1.
  Lightly butter a shallow 2-quart flameproof casserole and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Melt the butter in a large, heavy saucepan over moderately high heat. Add the onion, marjoram, thyme, and nutmeg; reduce the heat to moderate, and sauté for about 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the onion is lightly browned.
  
• 3.
  Mix in the squash, salt, and pepper, then cover and cook for 40 to 45 minutes until the squash is very soft, stirring now and then. Toward the end of cooking, preheat the oven to 350° F.
  Note:
  If the squash threatens to boil dry—not likely if you keep the heat at moderate or moderately low—add about
  ¼
  cup water
  .
  
• 4.
  Scoop the squash mixture into the prepared casserole, spreading to the edge, and bake uncovered on the middle oven shelf for 30 minutes. Stir well, scatter the topping evenly over all, then bake 30 minutes longer or until the topping is touched with brown.
  Note:
  If the topping is not brown enough to suit you, slide the casserole into the broiler, setting about 5 inches from the heat, and broil 1 to 2 minutes.
  
• 5.
  Serve hot with fried chicken or roast pork, turkey, or chicken. Delicious, too, with baked ham.
  

BAKED STUFFED YELLOW SQUASH

MAKES
6
SERVINGS

Among the vegetables Southerners love to stuff, yellow squash are at the top of the list. Some cooks like to mix sausage, ham, or hamburger into their squash stuffing, but I prefer this meatless one. Note:
Only straight-neck yellow squash will do here. Bypass any squash languishing at your supermarket and choose tender young ones at your farmer’s market.

3 medium straight-neck yellow squash (1 to 1½ pounds), trimmed and scrubbed (see Note above)

1½ cups coarse soda cracker crumbs

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

3 tablespoons finely grated yellow onion

1 tablespoon minced parsley

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon crumbled leaf thyme

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1½ tablespoons butter, cut into small dice

• 1.
  Preheat the oven to 350° F. Spritz a 13 × 9 × 2-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Place the squash in a large, heavy saucepan, add enough cold water to cover by 1 inch, set over moderately high heat, and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and boil for 5 minutes. Drain the squash and when cool enough to handle, halve lengthwise, then scoop out the centers, leaving shells about ¼ inch thick. Chop and reserve the scooped-out squash.
  
• 3.
  Place the crumbs, ¼ cup of the cheese, the onion, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a large bowl and toss well. Mix in the egg and chopped squash.
  
• 4.
  Stuff the crumb mixture into the squash shells, mounding it up in the middle. Dot each stuffed squash with butter, dividing the total amount evenly, then sprinkle with the remaining ¼ cup cheese.
  
• 5.
  Arrange the squash, not touching, in the baking pan, and bake uncovered on the middle oven rack for 25 to 30 minutes or until tipped with brown.
  
• 6.
  Serve at once as an accompaniment to roast pork, turkey, or chicken. Good, too, with baked ham.
  

BRAISED CYMLINGS

MAKES
4
TO
6
SERVINGS

I first tasted these braised cymlings (Southerners call them “fried”) at the home of a grade school chum and adored them at first bite. Known elsewhere as pattypan squash, cymlings are staging a comeback after years in eclipse. Boutique farmers, moreover, are growing them in a variety of colors—white, yellow, green-and-yellow-striped, as well as the more familiar celadon. I still like them prepared this way and find them the ideal accompaniment for roast pork, turkey, or chicken.

2 ounces salt pork or slab bacon, cut into small dice

8 small young cymlings measuring 3 to 3½ inches across (about 2 ¼ pounds), peeled and cut into sixths

1 small yellow onion, minced

Salt and black pepper, to taste

• 1.
  Fry the salt pork slowly in a large, heavy skillet over moderately low heat for 5 to 7 minutes or until most of the fat cooks out and only crisp brown bits remain. Spoon off most of the drippings but leave the bacon in the skillet.
  
• 2.
  Add the cymlings and onion, cover, and cook, turning now and then in the drippings, for 8 to 10 minutes or until tender.
  
• 3.
  Season with salt and pepper and serve.
  

SCALLOPED TOMATOES

MAKES
4
TO
6
SERVINGS