On the Road 8: VA & NC, Pt. 2

In our last instalment of On the Road, we began in the Ham Belt and quickly made our into an overlapping, but not entirely identical, region known as the Barbecue Belt.  As we headed east, we soon entered one of the most famous parts of the Peanut Belt.

Peanuts

 fig. a:  peanuts & driftwood

In fact, at Mackey's Ferry Peanuts in Jamesville, NC, I found a little slice of peanut heaven positioned adjacent to a pretty nifty collection of driftwood.  I was on the lookout for peanuts--real ones:  jumbo, expertly roasted, and grown-in-the-USA--and that BOILED PEANUTS sign definitely caught my eye.  I quickly made a U-turn and found everything I was looking for inside:  salted roasted peanuts, unsalted roasted peanuts, peanut butter, peanut brittle, and boiled peanuts.  Actually, in spite of that eye-catching sign, I wasn't sure that I was looking for boiled peanuts until I asked the counterperson for a sample.  It almost sounds shameful, but I'd never, ever had boiled peanuts until that moment.  When she came back out with a Dixie cup's worth of piping hot peanuts I was pretty excited.  Then I tried one.  "Hmm, I like that.  Those are good," I told her, but I wasn't immediately bowled over, so I continued to take a look around the store.  After about a minute, though, I realized I was doing so distractedly.  Those boiled peanuts had gotten to me.  They were sneaky like that.  I had boiled peanuts on the brain.

What, exactly, is a boiled peanut?  Well, it's just a raw peanut that's been boiled in salted water.  You can make them with fresh, green peanuts during the mid-summer harvest, but typically they're made with peanuts that are unroasted, but that have been sun-dried.  And if you've never had the pleasure, the taste sensation is something akin to having edamame in a Japanese restaurant.  In fact, as the Lee Bros. recount in their Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, a friend of theirs once approached with the idea of marketing boiled peanuts as "redneck edamame."  They're both served hot and steamy, they're both salty, and they're both highly addictive and great as a snack food, and having them boiled really emphasizes the fact that peanuts are legumes and not "nuts."

Anyway, after a couple of minutes, I realized those boiled peanuts were much better than just "good"--they were "great" and that I was already hooked.  I ordered a small portion, and I received a sizeable ziplock bag stuffed full of them.  They arrived hot and steamy--straight out of the cauldron.

Now I just needed a place to sit and enjoy them, preferably with a beer.  They tasted pretty amazing right there in the car, but I was pretty sure I could find a more scenic location to enjoy the rest of them.  Which is where the Outer Banks came in handy.

 fig. b:  under the rainbow

Those boiled peanuts were still hot by the time I'd set up my campsite, and the light and the temperature were just perfect for my beer and peanuts appetizer.

 fig. c:  boiled peanut appetizer

Little Layer Cakes

Across parts of the South, you find a number of areas where the ages-old tradition of little layer cakes--lovely homemade layer cakes that are notable for the thinness of their layers and the number of layers involved (usually 12 or more)--still runs strong.  It's a region known as the Little Layer Cake Archipelago, and it extends at least as far south as Alabama, but some of its most famous islands of activity--perhaps even the most famous--can be found in an area that stretches from coastal North Carolina, up into the Eastern Shore of both Maryland and Virginia, including the Chesapeake Bay islands.  I don't think there's any question that Smith Island Cake, which became the Official Dessert of the State of Maryland in 2008, is the most widely known variation on the little layer cake, and one of the most beloved.  But, like I said, you can find little layer cakes throughout coastal North Carolina and Virginia.

 fig. d:  layer cakes & biscuits

In fact, you can even find them in gas station concessions in North Carolina--like Cindy's Kitchen & Katering in Barco, NC--alongside homemade country ham & egg biscuits.  They're right there on the shelf, freshly made, ready to take home with you (or to some friends of yours in New York), for $19.95 (!).*  Don't even hesitate.  There aren't tons of bakeries in the region that make little layer cakes--the field is dominated by expert home cooks--but those that do often make you order them well in advance.

Oysters

All through coastal North Carolina and Virginia you also find a whole lot of good seafood, including blue crabs, shrimp, fish, and oysters.  There are signs of it everywhere.

 fig. e:  signs of life

And when you see makeshift signs like these announcing a seafood shack, it pays to make a pit stop.  What you're likely to find are fried fish platters and fried sandwiches of all kinds, sometimes even cooked to order.  Like this freshly fried Chesapeake oyster sandwich, topped with tartar sauce and smothered in hot sauce.

 fig. f:  fried oyster sandwich

Here, the seafood shack in question was a ramshackle two-man husband & wife affair that consisted of a storefront (wife) and a tiny fry kitchen (husband).  The place was a real hotspot for the local blue-collar lunch crowd, and the Southern charm was in full effect.  In fact, the accents and the storefront banter were just as delicious as the sandwich.

Home

 fig. g:  the haul

When I arrived back in Montreal, I arrived bearing trophies and gifts, most of them edible.

Not surprisingly, I've been cooking a lot of Southern food since I returned home.  My Southern sojourn only served to whet my appetite for Southern fare, and, plus, I came back with all kinds of useful ingredients.  So I've been making a lot of barbecue, and cornbread, and grits, and I've been eating a lot of peanuts.

Last week I had a hankering for a fresh fried oyster sandwich, so I went ahead and made some.

 fig. h:  shucking

There are parts of the South where freshly harvested pre-shucked oysters are commonplace.  Here,  in the North, you pretty much have to shuck your own, and our oysters are delicious, but they're not exactly inexpensive. Even oysters at wholesale prices cost a pretty penny.  So it's a little cost-prohibitive to make an oyster sandwich as plentiful as you'd find in the South, but it sure tastes great, and you can make it to your specifications.

My fried oyster sandwiches were based on the recipe you find in the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, and once Michelle had shucked our oysters, they were cooked up and assembled in a flash.

 fig. i:  assembly required

Fried Oyster No' Boys 

a bare minimum of 12 plump, freshly-shucked oysters**
1/2 cup All-Purpose Fry Dredge (recipe follows)
2-3 cups peanut oil or canola oil for frying
Spicy Tartar Sauce (recipe follows)
Bibb lettuce
fresh avocado slices
2 Portuguese buns hot sauce

Pour the oil in a cast-iron skillet to a depth of about 1/2 inch.  Heat over medium-high to high heat until a thermometer reads 365º F.   

Scatter the dredge on a plate and gently toss the oysters in the dredge.  When your oil has reached temperature, carefully transfer the oysters into the oil, making sure not to splatter the oil, and turn down the temperature to medium.  Agitate the oysters in the oil gently until they're golden brown, about 30 to 45 seconds. 

Transfer the oysters to a plate lined with paper towel (double thick). 

Assemble your sandwiches, dividing the oysters between the sandwiches evenly.  Devour. 

[makes two sandwiches] 

Lee Bros. All-Purpose Dredge 

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp stone-ground cornmeal
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
a sprinkling of bread crumbs for quick browning, if you're dredging fish or oysters (which you are) 

Mix thoroughly.  Keep in a jar. 

Spicy Tartar Sauce 

1/2 cup Pickled Corn (or Chowchow, or Jerusalem Artichoke Relish)
1/2 cup high-quality store-bought mayonnaise
1/2 tbsp chipotle purée
1 scallion, diced

Mix together.  Adjust seasoning, if necessary. 

The fried oyster sandwich--sometimes called a fried oyster po' boy, and here designated the Fried Oyster No' Boy to indicate that this sandwich was a) made in the North, where oysters are b) rarely the food of po' folks--is one of the great classics of sandwichery.

We've got the oysters.  Don't you owe it to yourself?

aj

* If math isn't your strong suit, that works out to about $1.66 a layer.

** Again, if you're not that strong in mathematics, that works out to about 6 oysters per sandwich.  12 would be ideal, but six plump oysters will do, again, as a bare minimum.  It definitely won't take long to fry them--you can do them all in one batch.

eat your greens 2, rev. ed.

fig. a: time to fry

There are still some real green tomatoes kicking around. In fact, depending on where you live, there might still be loads of them. And, along with making your own chowchow, frying them is a pretty great way to make use of the last of the tomato harvest. But even if you find that the green tomatoes in your area have already disappeared, all is not lost. As the Lee Bros. point out, your standard supermarket tomato is effectively a green tomato--it certainly was picked green (generally, very green). So you may need to add a bit of lemon juice and some salt to your sliced supermarket tomatoes to coax out a little flavor and approximate the wonderful, citrusy tartness of a true green tomato, but fried green tomatoes are a classic Southern side that you can make pretty much all year long. If you want to make the real deal, however, and I strongly advise giving them a try, local green tomatoes were still available here in Montreal this week. And their bright, tangy flavor this late in the year made it feel like we were cheating the approach of winter somehow. If only for a moment.

Note: you also need some decent cornmeal to make these fried green tomatoes, and good cornmeal can be hard to find in the Montreal region. The best brand we've been able to locate around here is Indian Head Stone Ground Yellow from Maryland, available at Aubut.

fig. b: the B Bros.

Even better is Beattie Bros., which is owned by the same parent company, but produced in North Carolina. Though, as far as we know, you can only get Beattie Bros. in the States.

Fried Green Tomatoes

3 lbs green tomatoes
3 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup whole milk
3-4 cups peanut oil
3 batches fry dredge (recipe follows)
kosher salt, if needed
lemon juice, if needed

Core the stem ends of the tomatoes and slice them in 1/4-inch slices. Set aside. Whisk the eggs and milk together in a broad, shallow bowl.

Pour the oil in a 12-inch or 14-inch skillet (3 cups of oil will suffice for the 12-inch skillet; 4 cups should do for the 14-inch skillet, and the 14-inch skillet will make the task of frying 3 lbs of tomatoes much, much faster--ultimately, whatever size skillet you use, you need an oil depth of about 1/3 of an inch). Heat the oil over medium-high heat until the temperature on a candy thermometer reaches 350º-365º.

Heat the oven to 225 degrees. Set a baker's rack on a cookie sheet on the top rack.

Divide the dredge between two small bowls or shallow baking pans. Taste the tomatoes. "They should have a bright tartness like citrus fruit." If they don't, sprinkle the slices with salt and lemon juice (if you're using supermarket tomatoes, this additional lemon and salt will be necessary). Press 1 tomato slice into the first bowl of dredge on each side, shaking any excess loose. Dunk in the egg mixture, then place in the second bowl of dredge, coating both sides, and shaking any excess loose, before placing the slice on a clean plate. Repeat with more slices until you've dredged enough for a batch (roughly 8-10, if you're using the 14-inch skillet). With a spatula, gently transfer the first batch of slices into the hot oil, taking care not to create splatter, and making sure your temperature continues to hover between 350º-365º.

As the first batch cooks, dredge the second batch according to the directions above, while keeping a watchful eye on the first. Once the slices have fried to a rich golden brown on one side, roughly 2 minutes, flip them carefully and fry for another 2 minutes or so, or until golden brown. Transfer the fried tomatoes to a plate lined with a double thickness of paper towels and leave them to drain for 1 minute.

Transfer the slices to the baker's rack in the oven, arranging them in a single layer, so they remain warm and crisp. Repeat with the remaining slices until all the green tomatoes have been fried. Serve hot with Buttermilk-Lime Dressing (recipe follows).

All-Purpose Dredge

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp stone-ground cornmeal
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

In a medium bowl, sift the flour, cornmeal, salt, and pepper together twice. Stir. Use as directed.

This is a great all-around frying dredge. The Lee Bros. use this very recipe for everything from chicken, to fish, to fried green tomatoes.

Buttermilk-Lime Dressing

3/4 cups whole or lowfat buttermilk (preferably the former)
5 tbsp freshly squeeze lime juice
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup finely minced basil
1/4 cup finely minced green onions
1/4 cup finely minced parsley
1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste

In a small bowl, whisk the ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Cover tightly and store in the refrigerator not more than 2 days.

[these recipes are based very, very closely on ones that appeared in The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

These fried tomatoes make for a fantastic side with any number of dishes, Southern or otherwise. We love 'em with seafood, but then we've been known to have them with barbecue too, and I could easily imagine having them as part of a Thanksgiving dinner. Leftover fried green tomatoes taste pretty outrageous on top of a leftover pulled pork sandwich, too. Especially if you drizzle a little of that Buttermilk-Lime Dressing on top. Just take a look:

fig. c: deluxe pulled pork sandwich

Oh, and speaking of Thanksgiving and the Lee Bros.: if you haven't had the pleasure of reading Matt and Ted's New York Times exposé on Marilyn Monroe's stuffing recipe from 1955-6 (as it appears in Fragments, a just-published collection of previously unreleased Monroe ephemera), you really should. Not only is it a great read, but Marilyn's recipe is both mysterious (ground beef? Parmesan? City Title Insurance Co.?) and tantalizing. Just look at that picture. Just look at that recipe.

aj

p.s. Looking for "eat your greens 1"? You can find it here.

AEB classics #38: Crab Roll w/ Pickled Corn

It's that time of year again: M. Bertrand's crab from Gaspé. If you don't believe me, pay a visit to one of Montreal's better restaurants (everywhere from Au Pied de Cochon to Laloux to Reservoir) over the next couple of weeks and keep your eyes open for crab on the menu. You won't be disappointed.

Now, if you can actually get your hands on fresh crabmeat from Gaspésie or you're lucky enough to live in another part of the world where both fresh crabmeat and corn are available at this time of year (the Chesapeake region, say), well, this is a pretty fine way to combine them.

AEB Spicy Crab Roll

250 ml crab meat
1-2 tbsp quality mayonnaise
1/2-1 tsp chipotle purée
1 tbsp red onion, minced
1 tbsp medium-hot pepper (like a Hungarian banana pepper), minced
1 tbsp cilantro, minced
1-2 tbsp pickled corn (recipe below)
salt
freshly ground black pepper

butter
split-top New England/Quebec-style hot dog buns
iceberg lettuce, chopped

Mix the first seven ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Melt a bit of butter in a skillet and toast you hot dog buns on each side. When your hot dog buns are nice and toasté, add some iceberg lettuce, and then spoon in a generous amount of the crab mixture. Garnish with a little extra pickled corn. Serve and enjoy immediately.

Makes about 6-8 overstuffed crab rolls.

Among the many, many amazing Southern-style condiment recipes in The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, Pickled Corn has become one of our absolute favorites. It's just so versatile. And the corn flavor is so bright and crisp. Once you have a taste, you'll want to have it with virtually everything: hot dogs and hamburgers, huevos rancheros, black beans, tuna salad, and crab rolls/crab guédilles.

Pickled Corn

4 cups fresh corn kernels, cut from the cob
1 tbsp kosher salt
2 cups distilled white vinegar
2/3 cup water
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp ground mace
1 whole clove

Sterilize 2 pint-sized, wide-mouth jars and accompanying lids. Set aside.

In a large bowl, toss the corn with the salt. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside.

In a 3-quart pot, combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and spices. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and continue to simmer for 20 minutes, uncovered. The vinegar will be fragrant, it will be infused with the spices, and it'll have a bright yellow tint to it because of the turmeric.

Add the corn. Bring to a low boil over medium-high heat and boil for 5 minutes. The corn will soften slightly but should still be crisp and will have absorbed some of the flavor of the vinegar brine.

With a slotted spoon, transfer the corn into your sterilized jars. Carefully pour the hot liquid over the corn (using a funnel, if necessary) until it is 1/2 inch from the rim. Place the lids on the jars and seal. Allow them to cool, then store in the refrigerator. The corn and spice flavors will meld nicely after about 24 hours and will continue to steep and take on flavor for the next week. Pickled corn keeps for about 4 weeks in the refrigerator. Good luck keeping it that long.

[recipe from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

aj

T.G.I.F.

We were already pretty big fans of James Villas due in large part to his undeniably charming Town and Country Cookbook (1985). But then a couple of months ago, in the midst of a run of amazing secondhand bookstore finds, we found this.

fig. a: American Taste

Written at a time when the phrase "American taste" was considered by many to be an oxymoron, Villas' book was a direct challenge (a throwdown, if you will) to an establishment that was still blindly kowtowing to Continental cuisine--a provocation from the food and wine editor at Town and Country, no less. Aside from James Beard, Calvin Trillin, and a handful of others, there weren't a whole lot of people back in '82 with the guts to stick up for American cuisine in this manner:

For those of us who devote our lives to serious eating, it sometimes seems nothing less than absurd to refer to "gastronomic excellence" in a country where millions are nourished on junk food, frozen TV dinners, stale produce, and charred steak. Yet I am convinced there is no nation on earth that has a more exciting culinary potential than ours.

Villas was right on the money, of course, the unfortunate thing is that while America has realized this "exciting culinary potential" in the 25 years since wrote those words, it’s also even more of a fast food nation. In any case, we tore right into American Taste and devoured chapter after chapter of Villas' book, including "Cry, the Beloved Country Ham," "Creole, Cajun, Choctaw...," and "Star-Spangled Bourbon," but the chapter that resonated the most with us was one entitled "Understanding Fried Chicken."

You see, 2007 was the year we rediscovered fried chicken here at AEB--it was the year we decided it was time to stop moping around and take fried chicken seriously. If we lived in Nashville or even New York, we could rely on local expertise to provide us with "fried chicken for the soul," but here in Montreal, if you want fried chicken, real pan-fried chicken, you have to fend for yourself. So we started reading up, comparing philosophies, and testing recipes. We had a few minor fried chicken epiphanies along the way, but the very most important maxim we learned was a simple one: "Temperature is everything." By the end of the year we were pretty sure we’d gotten it down pat, but then we read Villas' polemic:

When it comes to fried chicken, let’s not beat around the bush for one second. To know about fried chicken you have to have been weaned and reared on it in the South. Period. The French know absolutely nothing about it, and Yankees very little. Craig Claiborne knows plenty. He’s from Mississippi. And to set the record straight before bringing on regional and possibly national rage over the correct preparation of this classic dish, let me emphasize the fact that I’m a Southerner, born, bred, and chicken-fried for all times. Now, I don’t know exactly why we Southerners love and eat at least ten times more fried chicken than anyone else, but we do and always have and always will… [We] take our fried chicken very seriously, having singled it out years ago as not only the most important staple worthy of heated and complex debate but also as the dish that non-Southerners have never really had any knack for. Others just plain don’t understand fried chicken, and, to tell the truth, there are lots of Southerners who don’t know as much as they think they know. Naturally everybody is convinced he or she can cook or identify great fried chicken as well as any ornery reb (including all the fancy cookbook writers), but the truth remains that once you’ve eaten real chicken fried by an expert chicken fryer in the South… there are simply no grounds for contest.

Now, I might have spent a healthy chunk of my adolescence and young adulthood south of the Mason-Dixon line, but that was in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., so, in the eyes of any self-respecting/ornery reb I might as well have come from Boston. That means that neither of us are Southerners, born, bred, chicken-fried, or otherwise--not even close. Hell, we live in a French province to the north of Yankeedom, so, according to Villas, we’re doubly cursed. We wouldn’t pretend to be “expert chicken fryers” or “fried chicken experts” either. We do, however, have a profound appreciation for real fried chicken (we happen to be naturally attracted to pretty much all those staples “worthy of heated and complex debate:” barbecue, pizza, tacos, bagels—you name it). So when Villas went on to claim that he’d broken the code on fried chicken, we paid close attention:

As far as I’m concerned, all debate over how to prepare fried chicken has ended forever, for recently I fried up exactly 21 1/2 chickens (or 215 pieces) using every imaginable technique, piece of equipment, and type of oil for the sole purpose of establishing once and for all the right way to fix great fried chicken.

Being a man on a mission, Villas leaves little to chance. His list of "Equipment (no substitutes)" reads like this:

A sharp chef's or butcher's knife 12- to 13-inches long
A large wooden cutting board
A small stockpot half-filled with water (for chicken soup)
A large glass salad bowl
A heavy 12" cast-iron skillet with lid
Long-handled tweezer tongs
1 roll paper towels
2 brown paper bags [heavy-duty ones]
1 empty coffee can
A serving platter
A wire whisk
A home fire extinguisher

Like I said: no fooling around. He also discusses everything from the quality of the bird ("Without question, the most important secret to any great fried chicken is the quality of the chicken itself, and without question, most of the 3 billion pullets marketed annually in the United States have about as much flavor as tennis balls."), the right skillet (basically: heavy cast-iron, well seasoned and black as tar), the seasoning ("Real fried chicken should be seasoned with nothing more than salt, fresh pepper, a touch of lemon juice, and a few tablespoons of bacon grease added to the cooking fat."), the cooking oil ("The one and only thing to use is a bland, high-grade shortening (Crisco is best) that holds up well over intense heat."), frying strategy ("The first rule in frying chicken is never to allow more than 1/2 inch of grease in the skillet. If you add any more, you'll end up with deep-fried chicken, or something that resembles the atrocities served at greasy spoons."), and the importance of paper bags ("Nothing in heaven or on earth (not even a sponge or Kleenex) absorbs chicken grease like a brown paper bag.") at length.

Now, if you’re having a hard time figuring out what an empty coffee can or a wire whisk have to do with frying chicken, Villas’ recipe makes everything oh-so clear. If you’ve been put off by his prescriptive tone, hear the man out. After all, this is a man who feels absolutely passionately about his subject.

James Villas' "all debate is over" Fried Chicken

3 cups whole milk
1/2 fresh lemon
3 cups top-quality shortening (like Crisco)
4 tbsp rendered bacon grease
1 freshly killed 3 1/2-4 lb chicken cut into ten pieces
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp flour
3 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper

Rinse the ten pieces of chicken thoroughly under running water, dry with paper towels, and salt and pepper lightly. Pour milk into bowl, squeeze lemon into milk, add chicken to soak, covered, and refrigerate for at least two hours and preferably overnight.

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and allow to return to room temperature. While melting the shortening over high heat to measure 1/2 inch in skillet, pour flour, remaining salt, and pepper to taste and drop into paper bag. Remove dark pieces of chicken from milk, drain each momentarily over bowl, drop in paper bag, shake vigorously to coat. Add bacon grease to skillet. When small bubbles appear on surface, reduce heat slightly. Remove dark pieces of chicken from bag one by one, shake off excess flour, and, using tongs, lower gently into fat, skin-side down. Quickly repeat all procedures with white pieces; reserve milk, arrrange chicken in skillet so it cooks evenly, reduce heat to medium, and cover. Fry exactly 17 minutes. Lower heat, turn pieces with tongs, and fry 17 minutes longer uncovered. With paper towels wipe grease continuously from exposed surfaces as it spatters. The chicken should be almost mahogany brown. [emphasis mine]

Drain thoroughly on second paper bag, transfer to serving platter without reheating in oven, and serve hot or at room temperature with any of the following items: mashed potatoes and cream gravy, potato salad, green beans, turnip greens, sliced homegrown tomatoes, stewed okra, fresh corn bread, iced tea, beer, homemade peach ice cream, or watermelon.

Serves 4.

Cream Gravy

Use coffee can to discard all but one tablespoon of the fat from the skillet, making sure not to pour off brown drippings. Over high heat, add two remaining tablespoons flour to fat and stir constantly with wire whisk till the roux browns. Gradually pour 1 3/4 cups reserved milk from bowl and continue stirring till gravy comes to a boil, thickens slightly, and is smooth. Reduce heat, simmer two minutes, and check salt and pepper seasoning. Serve in a gravy boat.

Makes enough for 4 servings fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

[both recipes from James Villas' American Taste]

If you’re skeptical and you need further proof that Villas knows what he’s talking about, let me just add that no less an authority than Edna Lewis, author of The Taste of Country Cooking and In Pursuit of Flavor, writes about pan-fried chicken in very similar, if less quarrelsome, terms, although her family recipe didn’t use Crisco: “Our chicken was not only carefully tended, it was also fried in sweet, home-rendered lard, fresh-churned butter, and, in addition, we would put in a slice or two of smoked pork for flavor.”

Gourmet’s Edna Lewis-inspired Fried Chicken with Bacon and Pepper Cream Gravy from January of this year recommends a frying temperature (350º) that we feel is too high, but has some ideas pertaining to bacon fat and cream gravy that are worth noting. First, if you don’t have 4 tablespoons of “rendered bacon grease” on hand, cook half a pound of bacon in a heavy skillet until browned and crisp. Set the bacon aside and then scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of your skillet with a spatula and strain the bacon fat through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, reserving the bits caught in the sieve. Wipe the skillet clean and add the strained bacon fat. Then add your oil, shortening, or lard and proceed with frying your chicken. Later, after the chicken is done, strain the frying fat through the aforementioned sieve into a bowl, then return one tablespoon of the fat and all the brown bits in the sieve to your skillet. Whisk in 4 teaspoons all-purposed flour and cook your roux over medium heat, whisking all the while, for 1 minute. Whisk in two cups of milk (either fromthe reserved milk of Villas’ recipe or fresh milk), 1 teaspoon salt, and 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper and bring to a boil, whisking, then simmer, still whisking, until nice and thick, about 3 to 5 minutes.

The long and short of it is we'd rarely encountered a piece of food writing (on fried chicken or otherwise) as encyclopedic or as entertaining as Villas’ “Understanding Fried Chicken.” Villas later wrote, “I don’t suppose any article in my career ever created such commotion as the three-thousand-word treatise I devoted to the art of Southern fried chicken,” as if surprised. Obviously we were left mightily impressed, but more than anything it was that one line--"Chicken should be almost mahogany brown"--that stayed with us. Mahogany brown? Pretty much the only thing we'd ever cooked until it was almost mahogany brown was Cajun roux, and then only rarely. Villas was going for something similar: a near-miraculous transformation of simple ingredients (chicken, flour, fat) that it takes patience to achieve.

Is this a crazy method? Yes. Does the resultant chicken transcend? Definitely. Just look at it.

fig. b: AEB blue plate special

Villas' chicken came out perfectly moist inside, while the crust was crisp but not at all tough, and, cooked to "almost mahogany brown," its flavors were deep and complex.

Is this recipe the alpha and omega of fried chicken? Well... The thing is, if you were making any more than just one chicken--for a big group, say--you'd be condemning yourself to hours of frying. The Lee Bros. Tuesday Fried Chicken recipe that we featured last May is a pretty fine method for producing some pretty fine fried chicken and it clocks in at 18 minutes, or roughly half the time that James Villas' "all debate is over" Fried Chicken takes. So you have options. If you've got the time and you've never had your friend chicken "almost mahogany brown," you really should. Either way, 325º F is the magic number. Like I sad at the outset, “Temperature is everything.”

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Wondering what that brightly hued side dish is in the photograph above?

Hot Slaw

1 3-lb red cabbage, cored and coarsely chopped
1/4 lb slab bacon, diced
1/2 cup white vinegar, cider vinegar, or white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp celery seeds
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Pepper Vinegar to taste

Bring 4 quarts of water to boil over high heat in an 8-quart stockpot. Blanch the cabbage by submerging it in the boiling water until it turns a dull grayish purple, about 5 minutes. Drain in a colander, shake the colander to remove excess water, and reserve.

Scatter the bacon in a 14-inch dry skillet over medium-high heat. With a wooden spoon, move the pieces around until the bacon is firm and barely crisp, about 4 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and reserve.

Pour the vinegar into the skillet. It will hiss and pop at first but will soon subside. Swirl the vinegar around with the spoon, stirring up any browned bits of bacon. Add the celery seeds and red pepper flakes and stir.

Add the cabbage to the skillet and toss to coat it with the vinegar. Add the salt, pepper, and reserved bacon, and continue to sauté, stirring the cabbage around the pan until all its bright magenta glory has returned [seriously, it's like a science fair experiment], about 4 minutes.

Place the slaw in a bowl and shake pepper vinegar over it to taste.

[recipe from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

Happy fryday!

aj

Tuesday Night Gumbo, Sunday-style

fig. a: late that night, Michelle sat down and started in on her bowl of gumbo

I suppose our 3rd anniversary celebrations here at "...an endless banquet" could have kicked off with the traditional 3rd anniversary gift (leather!), but we opted for gumbo instead. This means we've now celebrated our anniversary three different ways in three years. It also means that without even realizing it (until now, that is) we've been in the process of creating our very own set of food-related anniversary traditions, suitable for for all those who prefer apples over paper, barbecued ribs over cotton, gumbo over leather (or gumbo and leather over just leather). To recap:

1st anniversary
traditional: paper
modern: clocks
AEB: apples

2nd anniversary
traditional: cotton
modern: China
AEB: BBQ ribs

3rd anniversary
traditional: leather
modern: crystal
AEB: gumbo (and leather, if you so desire)

What tradition will AEB's fourth anniversary initiate? Stay tuned...

Anyway, there's obviously something about this time of year that gets me thinking about and a-hankering for gumbo, because although gumbo (in all its varieties) is seasonally-appropriate at any time of year, November has tended to be my most consistent gumbo month over the last few years (in fact, the last time I wrote on the subject was almost exactly two years ago). Weather is a factor, no doubt, but this time around it also had to do with the arrival of oyster season. I'd never made a gumbo with oysters before for some bizarre reason, even though a shared love of oysters is one of the strongest commonalities linking the cuisine of Cajun Louisiana with that of Quebec. Why? I wasn't 100% sure, but it probably had/has a lot to do with the fact that I'm such a big fan of oysters on the half-shell that I lack the self-control needed to shuck oysters for any reason other than immediate consumption. This time, however, armed with a new gumbo recipe (shrimp and oyster!) that I was eager to give a test-ride, I pledged to change all of that.

The recipe came from our good buddies the Lee Bros, who we still don't actually know, but at this point, having posted about a number of their recipes, we might as well. As I've mentioned before, a number of the Lees more classic recipes are offered up in pairs: "Tuesday night" versions versus "Sunday night" ones. Gumbo is no exception, and here not only does the "Tuesday night" gumbo amount to a simplified version of the "Sunday night" gumbo, but it's also a 100% seafood gumbo and that's what I was craving. [The "Sunday night" gumbo, by comparison, consists of what you might call a meat-lover's "home run": chicken (in the form of gizzards), beef (1 pound of beef round, beef shank, flank steak, or skirt steak), seafood (1 pound of shrimp, 6 blue crabs, and 24 oysters), and pork (in the form of Cajun andouille, or kielbasa)!] There were things about the "Tuesday night" version that I wasn't crazy about and that I intended to change--#1 being its lack of a roux*--but it also contained a trick or two that I found mighty intriguing.

Shrimp and Oyster Gumbo

1 1/2 lb headless large fresh shrimp (25-30 count)

broth:
2 1/2 qts water
homemade shrimp boil [ directions here] or Old Bay seasoning
3 bay leaves
2 celery stalks, chopped

1/2 cup canola or peanut oil
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup yellow onion, diced
1 large red bell pepper, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
1 28-oz can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp thyme, finely minced
24-36 shucked oysters, with their liquor
1 tbsp gumbo filé powder

Peel the shrimp (deveining them in the process, if you prefer) and put them aside in a bowl. Place the shells in a large pot, add the water, the shrimp boil or Old Bay seasoning, the bay leaves, and the celery and simmer over medium heat for 30-60 minutes. Strain the broth and return it to your pot, keeping it warm over low heat.

In a large skillet, add the oil and the flour and make a proper cajun roux, nutty brown or darker, being careful not to scorch the roux at any time. [For complete instructions consult our earlier post on gumbo.]

When your roux has reached the depth you desire, add the onion carefully (the roux is extremely hot and the onion may cause it to spatter a bit) and sauté over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly. Then add the garlic, the bell pepper, the celery, the salt, the black pepper, and, if you desire, the cayenne pepper, and sauté until all the vegetables have softened, about 5-10 minutes.

Add the vegetable/roux mixture to the shrimp broth, stirring (or even whisking) constantly to incorporate it smoothly. Add the tomatoes and their liquid and stir. Bring to a vigorous simmer over medium-high heat, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 30-60 minutes. The broth should reduce a fair bit and the flavors should intensify considerably. Adjust the seasoning, adding more salt and freshly ground black pepper as needed, then add the gumbo filé and stir.

Turn off the heat. Add the peeled shrimp, the oysters, and the oyster liquor (the magic elixir) to the broth and stir. Let stand about about 5 minutes, until the shrimp are cooked through, perfectly tender and juicy. Serve the gumbo in wide bowls over hot white rice with cold beer and a selection of hot sauces.

Important note: For optimal flavor, it's apparently always best to allow your gumbo to "cure" for 24 hours in the refrigerator, but I've never had the will power to do so. If you do, add the shrimp and oysters only after you've reheated the gumbo, lest the shrimp become tough and the oysters bitter (because of the acidity of the tomatoes). Also, if you think you might have leftovers, you might want to cook the oysters by placing them in a strainer and dropping the strainer into the broth to gently cook them (like I did). That way you can just top each bowl of gumbo with a few of the stewed oysters and you won't have to worry about an oyster going AWOL and turning up in your leftovers tasting bitter. This might mean that your leftovers are just "shrimp gumbo" leftovers and not "shrimp and oyster gumbo" leftovers, but, trust me, your leftovers will not be short on flavor.

Serves 10-12 people.

[adapted from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

Frankly, I was a little skeptical that that broth and that roux/vegetable combination would successfully become one, but they did. Of course, I simmered them considerably longer than the Lee Bros. did: 30-45 minutes versus 10 minutes. In the end, my Sunday-style Tuesday Night Gumbo took a good two hours to make, twice as long as the Lees' Tuesday-style Tuesday Night Gumbo, but every extra minute was worth it. That gumbo was full-bodied even before the seafood entered the picture. Five minutes later she was positively voluptuous, a true Cajun Queen.

If you've got your reservations about cooking oysters, just do what we did: buy some extra and serve yourself an oysters-on-the-half-shell appetizer while your gumbo is busy simmering. I mean, you're already buying oysters anyway, and if you look around you can find pretty good deals on small cases of oysters from Malpeque and elsewhere, so...

And while you're at it, you might as well buy some extra shrimp--let's say a quarter pound per person--and make yourself a proper shrimp boil for lunch. You're going to need some energy (and some patience) to make that gumbo properly, why not throw yourself a shrimp doubleheader?

fig. b: earlier that day we luncheoned on spicy boiled shrimp

Simple Shrimp Boil

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 tbsp (+ a little extra) homemade shrimp boil [again, you can find directions here] or Old Bay seasoning
1 lb shrimp, in shells

Combine the first three ingredients in a saucepan and bring them to a boil. Add the shrimp, stir gently, and cover. Cook until tender, about 3-5 minutes, depending on the size of the shrimp. Drain the shrimp, reserving some of the broth for dunking. Sprinkle one teaspoon (or more, if you like them extra spicy) shrimp boil over the shrimp, toss, and serve with crusty bread and a salad for a light lunch.

Serves 2-4.

[recipe adapted slightly from the back of a McCormick Old Bay seasoning tin]

Now that's fast food. And who can deny spicy shrimp? We sure can't.

aj

* I'm definitely one of those "it just ain't a gumbo without a roux" types of people, but it's more than just the taste--it just isn't any fun to make a gumbo without making a roux, regardless of what night of the week it is.

Relatively Quick Breads 1: Sally Lunn

fig. a: sliced Sally Lunn

Suddenly, I awoke from my slumber. After years and years where I baked virtually no bread, aside from the occasional batch of corn bread, I've baked two--count 'em, two--loaves in under a week. I'm sure Michelle thought it would never happen. For years she's been listening to me tell tales of my days as a "professional bread baker" in London, days when I manned the ovens of a take-out & bakery on Portobello Road, but, no, nothing ever came of it. Not one single, solitary loaf. "Mmm-hmm. Yeah, I know, honey," she'd say. "You were famous for your rice bread..." The curse is now broken, though, and all it took was a little help from Sally Lunn, and a little patience.

I'm something of an amateur of Southern culture, but before reading The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook I had absolutely no idea Sally Lunn was a Southern thing, "the South's challah," as they put it. I'd encountered my fair share of spoonbread in my crisscrossing of the South, but never Sally Lunn. My only previous experience with Sally Lunn was in its birthplace, Bath, where the local tourist board makes sure that even if you arrive knowing nothing of Sally Lunn, you leave knowing every apocryphal and vaguely saucy detail of her life--her French heritage, her development of a "rich, round, and generous" bread which is now known as "the Sally Lunn Bun," her peddling of her "hot buns through the streets of Bath" and her rise to fame because of them, etc.--preferably having paid a visit to "Sally Lunn's house" along the way. But the Lee Bros. cookbook not only includes a recipe for Sally Lunn, it features it prominently throughout the text, mentioning it in connection to at least half a dozen other recipes, including everything from their Grilled Pimento Cheese Sandwich to their She-Crab Soup, and when I looked it up I found out they were right: it is a Southern thing.

fig. b: United States of Sally Lunn

It's not as easy to make as corn bread (and it's not nearly as contentious, corn bread being a serious affair in the South), and therefore it's in no position to unseat corn bread's dominance in their repertoire of breads (corn bread is mentioned in connection to at least ten other recipes), but it's versatile and they're clearly very fond of it.

But even all that wasn't enough to inspire me to actually bake a loaf of Sally Lunn. Strangely, what it took was word that there were problems with the Lee Bros. recipe. For some reason, hearing that the recipe might be flawed was what got me back into the bread-making business. If there was something wrong with Sally, I wanted to know just what, and whether anything could be done help the old gal along.

The word was that the problems with the Lees' Lunn had largely to do with faulty proofing times, and, sure enough, when we took a look there were things amiss. You see, there's no question that when someone tells you that a bread's second proofing stage, a stage which is supposed to result in the dough doubling in size, will take place in "about 12 minutes" that there's something ambitious about that claim. The power of yeast is something of a miracle, as we all know, but there's no need to get overexcited. Then again, it does get awfully hot down in Charleston, but "12 minutes"? The recipe had specified that the dough needed to double in size during this proofing stage, though, so we decided to give the dough all the time it needed to reach that point. And the same thing held for the first proofing: the Lees had rather optimistically suggested that this stage would take "about 35 minutes," but again what was crucial was that the dough double in size. Pretty much everything else about the recipe seemed kosher. We could tell because we checked it against a couple of other Sally Lunn recipes we just happed to have kicking around (who knew?), such as the one out of Marie Nightingale's Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens (!--Sally Lunn may be a Southern thing, but it's also apparently a Maritimes thing),*

fig. c: Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens--mmm!

and for the most part the recipes were identical. The only potentially major flaw we could see with the Lee Bros. recipe had to do with the final baking time. Now, I guess it's also possible that a 350º oven in Charleston runs hotter than a 350º oven in Montreal, but when we compared it with our other recipes the Lees' recipe was off by about 15-25 minutes when it came to baking time and that was a discrepancy we just couldn't account for. You never know, though, right? Maybe those wily Lees had found a way to streamline the process. The only way to know for sure was to roll up my sleeves and get to work, so that's what I did.

Sally Lunn

1 cup whole milk
1 package (1/4 ounce, or 2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast, at room temperature
8 tbsp butter (1 stick), softened
1/3 cup sorghum molasses, cane syrup, or honey
3 large eggs, at room temperature
4 cups (16 ounces) sifted unbleached all-purpose flour, at room temperature
1 tsp salt

Heat the milk over medium heat in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally, until the temperature reads 105 degrees on a candy thermometer. Turn off the heat. Pour the yeast into the milk, whisk gently with a fork to dissolve, and let stand until tiny bubbles form on the surface of the milk, 5 to 10 minutes.

With an electric mixer, cream 7 tbsp butter with the molasses, syrup, or honey [we used honey] in a large bowl until smooth, glossy, and slightly fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat until the mix takes on a café-au-lait-like color (if you use honey [like we did], it will be more of a creamy light yellow color).

In a medium bowl, sift the flour with the salt. Add the flour mixture and the milk and yeast mixture to the egg mixture alternately, one fourth at a time, mixing well with a wooden spoon after each addition, until all the flour has been incorporated and the dough comes together. Stir for a few minutes to ensure a smooth consistency.

Mark the level of the top of the dough on the outside of the bowl with a dab of butter or flour. Cover the dough with a clean dish towel or a piece of plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place. When the dough has doubled in size, about 35 minutes if you live in Charleston and more like 1 1/2 hours if you live in Montreal, transfer it to a clean, flat surface and punch it down. Beat it with your fist 30 times.

Butter an 8 1/2-x-4 1/2-inch loaf pan with the remaining butter (1 tbsp). Transfer the dough to the loaf pan and pat it evenly into place. Mark the level of the top of the dough on the outside of the pan with another dab of butter or flour. Set in a warm place to rest.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. When the dough has doubled in size again (about 12 minutes in Charleston, about 1 hour in Montreal), bake on the middle rack for 35 minutes if you live in Charleston or 50-60 minutes in Montreal, or until the top is a deep golden brown and the loaf is cooked through. Cool the bread in its pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert the pan and remove the loaf. Allow the loaf to cool at least a little bit longer (say, 10 minutes). Slice with a serrated bread knife while warm, or let cool completely on the rack.

Makes 1 loaf; enough for 6 sandwiches and a healthy amount of toast.

[recipe based largely on the one found in The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, with a little help from Marie Nightingale]

So, yes, we too found some stumbling blocks in the Lees' otherwise classic recipe, but a few adjustments and the recipe turned out perfectly. The only major adjustment, really, was the baking time, but, like every other recipe, the bottom line is, "if it ain't done, it ain't done." We took our loaf out after 35 minutes and it looked golden on top, but the loaf was clearly still structurally unsound: it was wobbly and needed to bake some more. 20 minutes later, though, it had firmed up nicely and the crust was now a gorgeous deep golden brown.

I sliced off a couple of pieces while the loaf was still warm and slathered them with butter (yes, that's right, more butter) and some of Michelle's strawberry jam

fig. d: god bless Sally Lunn, strawberry jam, and butter

and the ensemble was like cake, maybe better. Later, that Sally Lunn made for great toast and, as the Lees had promised, a wickedly good grilled cheese sandwich.

Q: a) When I bake my own loaf will my slices of Sally Lunn come out looking like a map of France like yours did, and b) is that the final, incontrovertible proof that Sally actually did hail from France?

A: Uh: a) Not necessarily, and b) No.

All I know is that many of the best things in life take time, and relatively quick breads appear to be no exception.

aj

* Incidentally, this is a book Michelle's particularly fond of (which is why I've reproduced its cover). She often imagines herself being Marie Nightingale, sitting in front of her Old Nova Scotia fireplace with her cat and her knitting, gently rocking Junior to sleep, a cauldron of Scotch Barley Broth simmering over the fire. Why? You'd have to ask her.

Tuesday fried chicken

fig. a: mmm, fried chicken

Sometime late last year we came to the decision that it was about time we rolled up our sleeves and learned to fry some dang chicken. Having the tangy fried chicken at Ange & Ricky one day, fresh out of the fryer, was the turning point--especially because for some strange reason every bite kept reminding me of my Slovak grandmother's fried chicken. I felt like I owed it to her. I felt like I owed it to the two of us. Anyway, early 2007 saw us dabbling with recipes, trying to find our sure-fire method, but still a bit hesitant to dive in and officially become regular chicken fryers. Then the Lee Bros. stepped into our life. Their no-nonsense approach to fried chicken freed us right up. Grease? Ventilation issues?

We hear people say they don't fry chicken at home because they don't want to live with the grease, and our answer to that is this: we've fried in galley-sized kitchens with no ventilation whatsoever, and it's rarely been a problem. If you were running a fried-chicken restaurant from such a kitchen, there might be cause for concern, but you're not. So just open your windows wide and fry away. You'll be glad you did.

The other thing the Lee Bros. helped us out with was our frying temperature. It's kind of hard to believe, but even among fried chicken experts, there's a fair bit of debate about that most essential of chicken-frying factors. We'd tried a few of these other methods with mixed results, then we heeded the Lee Bros.' advice, keeping the temperature pegged at 325º F, as much as humanly possible, and our results were, well, golden. We've never looked back.

We've yet to make the Lee Bros.' Sunday Fried Chicken recipe, which involves a good 4 hours of brining, but we've been using a slightly modified version of their Tuesday Fried Chicken--a simplified version perfect as a "pick-me-up at the end of a long, bluesy workday"--for the last couple of months.

Tuesday Fried Chicken

3 cups peanut oil
1 recipe AEB Spicy Fry Dredge
3 pounds chicken legs and thighs

essential equipment: candy thermometer

Preheat the oven to 250º F.

Pour the oil into a 12-inch skillet and heat over medium-high heat until it reaches 325º F on a candy thermometer. [Note: if you use a different size skillet, make sure you've got 1/3" of oil in order to ensure proper frying.]

Place the fry dredge in a medium bowl or in a large, sturdy plastic bag. Dredge the chicken thoroughly by rolling it in the bowl or shaking it in the bag. Shake off any excess dredge. Using tongs, transfer 3 legs and 3 thighs to the skillet, skin side down, and cover. Fry the chicken, maintaining a constant temperature of 325º F or higher, until the chicken is golden brown, about 6 minutes. Uncover the skillet, turn the chicken pieces with the tongs, and fry 6 minutes more, until the chicken is golden brown all over. Turn it and fry for another 3 minutes, then turn again and fry for 3 more minutes. The chicken should be an even dark golden-brown all over.

With the tongs, transfer the chicken to a paper-towel-lined plate and place in the oven to keep warm. Repeat above steps with the remaining chicken.

When all the chicken is done, serve immediately, and pass a cruet of Pepper Vinegar at the table so you can spritz your chicken.

Serves 4 hungry people.

AEB Spicy Fry Dredge

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp stone-ground cornmeal
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 rounded tsp smoked sweet paprika
1/8-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

In a medium bowl, sift the flour, cornmeal, salt, pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper twice. Use as directed.

Makes 3/4 cup.

fig. b: yes! pepper vinegar

Pepper Vinegar

1 cup white wine vinegar
2 Thai, serrano, or bird's eye chiles, fresh or dried

With a funnel, pour the vinegar into a cruet or mason jar. Add the chiles and use a chopstick or the handle of a wooden spoon to submerge them, if necessary. Cap the cruet or place the lid on the jar and refrigerate. The vinegar will be well infused in 24 hours and will keep for months in the refrigerator.

It's Tuesday. Start frying.

aj

[Thanks again to the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook.]

Ramps 'R' Us

fig. a: Nino's ramps

It hasn't been the most prolific year for ramps in this area in large part because the government of Quebec decided to crack down on the sale of ramps again (for more on this phenomenon, see last year's ramps post). We went by Chez Nino (at Jean-Talon Market) early in the season and he had the first of the ramps on offer, but they weren't the nicest we'd seen, so we held off, thinking we'd come back in a week to see what the next batch looked like. When we did, we found out that Nino had been raided, their sale of ramps brought to a halt. Surely their ramps weren't from Quebec and surely they had the paperwork to show that they'd actually come from Ontario or upstate New York or someplace else--whatever the case, they sure didn't have any ramps and they weren't sure if they were going to be able to have any before season's end. That's when Michelle decided to take things into her own hands. She got on the horn and and left a message with "Raoul". She knew that if anyone in town had ramps for sale, it'd be Raoul, a contact from her days at Les Chèvres, and she was positive they'd be beautiful. The very next day we came home to find a message waiting for us from Raoul in his inimitable gravelly voice--our very own Deepthroat. He was going to be getting ramps later in the week, the message said; he'd give us a call when he did. Three days later, not only had Raoul managed to score his Ontario ramps, but he was delivering them to our door. He didn't bother ringing the doorbell, he just called from the street on his cell phone and Michelle dashed out to exchange unmarked bills for her precious bundles of ramps. I looked out the window to see if I could get a glimpse of the shadowy Raoul, but the windows on his truck were tinted and, anyway, at over 200 paces, the distance was too great to get a good view. When Michelle reemerged, she looked like this:

fig. b: "Raoul's" ramps

Might not look like much, but that's something in the neighborhood of $70 worth of this highly coveted commodity. Plus, not all of them were for us. Michelle had gotten the word out to some of her ramps-loving friends, so a few bunches were already accounted for. In any case, having already succeeded in making the world's most expensive marmalade earlier this year, Michelle decided it was time that she proceeded to make the world's most expensive pickles too. The double whammy. We trimmed the tentacles from the bottoms of the ramps, but otherwise nothing went to waste. The white parts of the ramps mostly went into Michelle's terribly exclusive pickled ramps; the greens we ate raw, as-is, we added them to salads, we sauteed them,

fig. c: NY strip steak, mushrooms, fiddleheads and ramps greens sauté

and I even made a couple of risottos with them. They've got a whole lot of flavor, so a little goes a long way.

Want to make your own jar (or two) of the world's most expensive pickles?** Michelle made two recipes this year, including this one. [Note: this recipe doubles as a Pickled Scallions recipe for those who can't get their hands on ramps or who'd like to make something a little less exclusive]

Lee Bros.' Pickled Scallions

2 pounds ramps or scallions
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp kosher salt
1 quart plus 1 cup water, room temperature
4 cloves garlic, peeled
4 dried hot chiles, such as Thai or Arbol
2 cups distilled vinegar
2 tsp sugar

2 pint-sized mason jars, with rims and lids

With a small paring knife, trim the roots from the ramps (or scallions) plus any outer leaves that look tired or wilted. Cut them crosswise 4 inches from the root end and reserve the greens for another use.

In a 2-quart bowl, dissolve 1/4 cup salt in 1 quart water. Add the ramps (or scallions), garlic, and chiles, and weigh them down with a small, clean plate to keep them submerged, if necessary. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator overnight.

Fill a 3-quart pot 3/4 full of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Using tongs or a jar lifter, carefull set the jars on their sides, along with their lids, in the boiling water to sterilize. Boil for 15 minutes, then remove the jars from the water with tongs or a jar lifter and set aside.

Pour the vinegar and 1 cup water into a 1-quart saucepan. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons salt and the sugar and bring to a boil.

Drain the ramps (or scallions), garlic, and chiles. Dip the tongs into the boiling vinegar brine for a few minutes, then use them to transfer the ramps or scallions, garlic, and chiles to your sterilized mason jars. If the bulb ends of the ramps (or scallions) are stout, pack half of them into each jar with their root ends facing down, and the remaining half with their root ends facing up, to maximize the space in each jar. Pour the brine into the jars and tap them to release any air bubbles. Place the lids on the jars, seal, and set aside to cool. Allow the ramps (or scallions) to steep in the refrigerator for 2 days before serving. Pickled scallions will keep for about 4 weeks in the refrigerator.

[recipe from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

Anyway, had we only managed to get our hands on Raoul's backdoor ramps, I think we would have refrained from posting about it. But just this week we stopped by Nino again, and, out of the blue, ramps were back. Act fast, because just like fiddleheads,

fig. d: fiddleheads

this is in all certainty the last week they're going to be available. Sure they're a little pricey, but isn't that the case with everything that's similarly rare, similarly fleeting, similarly singular?

aj

*This name has been changed to protect "Raoul's" identity.

**Of course, if you foraged your ramps, like you're supposed to, they'd cost next to nothing and wouldn't be very exclusive at all.

Shrimp, Shrimp Boil, Shrimp Burgers

fig. a: freshly boiled shrimp

We might seem like a couple of Johnny-Come-Latelys with this post because those of you who keep abreast of the world of food magazines know full-well that shrimp have been nothing if not a hot topic over the last couple of months. They were the lead story in the March issue of Saveur, gracing the cover and providing the focus for a sweeping 15-page spread; they made the cover of the May issue of Food & Wine in the tantalizing form of "bacon-wrapped shrimp with passion fruit," the lead-in to a story on Jean-Georges Vongerichten's very own Polynesian Fantasy Island; and they played a prominent part in the bouillabaisse gracing the cover of the May issue of Gourmet. Hell, if that wasn't enough, we got a loaner copy of the January issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller because there was a feature on summer cocktails that one of Michelle's friends thought might be of interest, and, sure enough, there were "poached prawns" and "scampi with chilli and shallot salt," artfully placed next to a cool summer drink, right there on the cover. Everywhere we looked: shrimp, shrimp, and more shrimp.

Now, we're both big fans of shrimp--we don't know many people who aren't--so it wouldn't have taken much persuading to get us to try out some new shrimp recipes, especially because it's crevettes de Matane season around these-here parts--the one time of the year when shrimp are not only plentiful, they're tasty, regional, and relatively cheap. But what really got us all revved up and raring to go was the truly fantastic The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-Be Southerners, which entered our lives recently when a certain someone picked it up for Yours Truly on the occasion of his birthday. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook is smart, charming, well-researched, and chock-full of all kinds tempting recipes for everything from cocktails, to snacks, to grits and rice recipes, to a stunning array of vegetable recipes ("Where did the South get its reputation for being hostile to vegetarians?," they ask). It's also got many of the poultry, pork, beef, and game you'd want from a book on Southern cuisine, from Baked Country Ham, to both Tuesday and Sunday Fried Chicken, to a "suite of pork picnic shoulder recipes" (Yes!). But for some reason we found ourselves particularly attracted to the seafood recipes right off the bat. In fact, when it came to giving our copy of The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook a test drive we started with the very last recipe in the whole cotton-picking book, pg. 553's Lee Bros. Shrimp Boil. For those of you unfamiliar with Southern coastal cuisine and the range of spice mixes expressly intended for boiling seafood that are known as "boils" (of which McCormick's Old Bay is the most famous variant), the phrase "shrimp boil" might very well fill you with dread. It need not. As Matt and Ted Lee explaing, "A shrimp boil is a spice blend that combines with water to make an instantly spicy and aromatic broth, a perfect medium for boiling all sorts of fish and shellfish." We were curious to see what a homemade shrimp boil would be like, and we'd already determined that Lee Bros. Shrimp Boil was going to be crucial to upcoming Lee Bros. recipe testing, so we got to work. The fact that we had everything necessary onhand made things that much easier.

fig. b: freshly prepared Lee Bros. Shrimp Boil

Lee Bros. Shrimp Boil

1 tbsp peppercorns
1 tbsp celery seeds
6 bay leaves, shredded with scissors
1/2 cup kosher salt
3 tbsp ground cayenne pepper

Pound the peppercorns, celery seeds, and bay leaf with the salt in a mortar, in batches if necessary. Place in a small bowl and stir in the cayenne. This mixture will keep for up to 2 months in an airtight container.

Makes 1 ridiculously fragrant scant cup.

With that out of the way we were all set for our first test. We were enticed by everything from the crab cakes, to the Bobo-Style Oyster Pie, to the Legareville Oyster Roast and the Rural Mission Crab Crack and Fish Fry, but what we settled on, what Michelle decided would make a particularly delicious lunch, was the recipe for Shrimp Burgers. I'd had my share of shrimp po'boys in East Texas and Louisiana, but I'd never been to any of the shrimping towns like Thunderbolt, GA, McClellanville, SC, or Morehead City, NC that the Lee Bros. single out as being prime stomping grounds for shrimp burgers. The Lee Bros. recipe was admittedly a bit new-fangled, utilizing the sweetness of corn to draw out the full flavor of the shrimp and ginger "to give it complexity," but we liked its apparent lightness of touch and its admonition to "use a gentle hand when flipping the burgers in the skillet," which was reminiscent of just the kind of crab cakes we prefer.

Shrimp Burgers

2 quarts water
2 tbsp Lee Bros. Shrimp Boil
1 pound headless large shrimp (26-30 per pound), shells on
2 tbsp chopped scallions
1/4 cup fresh corn kernels, cut from the cob (about 1/2 ear)
2 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 tsp lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
3 tbsp high-quality store-bought mayonnaise, such as Hellmann's
1 cup bread crumbs, preferably fresh
kosher salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste
pepper vinegar to taste (optional)
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 tbsp canola oil

Bring the water and shrimp boil to a boil over high heat in a 3-quart saucepan. Turn off the heat. Add the shrimp and let stand until they are just pink, about 2-4 minutes, depending on just how big your shrimp are. Drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Peel the shrimp and chop coarsely [You can devein them first, if you like, but the Lee Bros. aren't fussy about such things unless the shrimp are being showcased in such a way that their aesthetics are critical, which isn't the case here.] You should have 1 3/4 cups chopped shrimp.

In a large bowl, mix the shrimp with the scallions, corn, parsley, ginger, and lemon zest. Stir in the mayonnaise and bread crumbs and season with salt, black pepper, and pepper vinegar. Add the egg and gently fold with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until evenly distributed.

Form the shrimp mixture into four patties, each about 3 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the patties in plastic wrap and let stand in the refrigerator for 30 minutes [as in the case of crab cakes, this is an important step, so don't skip it].

Remove the burgers from the refrigerator and unwrap them. Place the oil in a 12-inch skillet and heat over medium-high to high heat. When the oil shimmers, add the burgers and sauté until both sides are gently browned, about 3 minutes per side. Drain on a dinner plate lined with a paper towel.

Serve on a toasted hamburger bun (or a fresh Portuguese bun) with lettuce, tomato, and Tartar Sauce (such as Lee Bros. or A.J.'s E-Z Spicy).

Serves 4.

Pepper Vinegar

1 cup white wine vinegar
2 Thai, serrano, or bird's eye chiles, fresh or dried

With a funnel, pour the vinegar into a cruet. Add the chiles and use a chopstick or the handle of a wooden spoon to submerge them, if necessary. Cap the cruet and place it in the refrigerator. The vinegar will be well infused in 24 hours and will keep for months in the refrigerator.

A.J.'s E-Z Spicy Tartar Sauce

4 tbsp high-quality store-bought mayonnaise, like Hellmann's
8 salt-packed capers, rinsed and minced
1 tsp chipotle puree

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl. Makes enough for four shrimp burgers.

fig. c: freshly made shrimp burger

How'd they turn out? Just great--look at that baby. Really one of the best lunches we've had in recent memory and an auspicious debut for The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook.

aj

Top Ten #18

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3. Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook

4. shrimp burgers

5. Benne wafers



6. Simcha's relics

7. Momofuku clams

8. Éthiopiques 21: Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou

9. Mexicali Madness I



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4/19/07