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Homemade Banana Pudding

Banana pudding casts a golden glow upon our lives.  Never have I met anyone who doesn’t like it, but should I ever, my dislike for them will be immediate and profound.

Like so many recipes on our sideboard, banana pudding has been corrupted by convenience. What’s most often served as banana pudding is made with cheap cookies, packaged Jell-O, green bananas, and topped with Cool Whip. But in the best traditions of Mid-South cooking, we make banana pudding with Nabisco/Nilla Vanilla Wafers (kinda/sorta the same thing), ripe, fragrant bananas, a rich vanilla custard, and top it with a sweet baked meringue.

First, the custard. Separate 4 eggs; blend the yolks well with 2 cups whole milk (or, better, half-and-half), and a teaspoon vanilla extract. Put this mix in a double boiler. Combine ½ cup sugar with two tablespoons all-purpose flour, stir into the warm liquid, and cook until thick, and cool.

You’ll need about 5 bananas. I implore you to select bananas well beforehand, because if you can only find bananas that have a tinge of green on them, you can set them on a shelf in the kitchen until they soften and ripen. And, yes, a banana will develop sugars in the pulp after being picked. Wait until the bananas are flecked with brown. Trust me, this is an essential step. An 11 oz. box of wafers has about 40 cookies. Use all of them.

I begin with a layer of custard in the bottom of an 8×8 baking dish, then a layer of wafers, then a layer of sliced bananas, and repeat until full. Whip whites of six eggs with ¼ cup sugar until stiff. Top pudding with meringue, and bake at 350 until lightly browned. Cool thoroughly before serving. This is best made the morning of and refrigerated after.

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Spatchcock Game Hen

An aromatic dish for small gatherings. These can be prepared on a sheet pan, but small skillets make a better presentation. Preheat oven to 400. Rinse hen, pat dry, and remove wing tips and backbone. Use scissors. Turn breast side up, open like a book, and whack it a time or two with your fist to crack the breastbone and flatten. Oil hen, season with salt and plenty of good black pepper. Line a well-oiled skillet with minced garlic and rosemary springs, place the bird on top, tuck the wings under the breast, and bake until nicely browned.

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How to Make a Mess

Messes are best made shortly before serving. Garnishes are totally superfluous. An Eton mess is made with meringue chunks, whipped/ice cream, and (usually marinated) fruit, traditionally strawberries. As the name implies, it’s said to have originated at Eton College, UK. The variation with bananas served at Lancing College is of course called a Lancing mess, which sounds a lot bloodier than it is.

A French meringue isn’t always practical in the humid South, so I often make what is called in culinary spleen Italian meringue. Heat a cup of sugar and a half cup of water to boil and cool to barely steaming. Whip four egg whites with a squirt of lemon juice to soft peaks, then SLOWLY drizzle in the sugar syrup. Keep whipping until quite stiff. Spoon this meringue on a lightly oiled sheet pan and bake in the oven until dry through, then break into chunks. I serve it with vanilla Häagen-Dazs when I want to feel like I’m twenty again.

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Buttermilk Spread

At the Warehouse in Oxford, we had this prep guy who was from the outlaw boonies way out toward Tula; total stoner with a hot car and a girlfriend with a great rack and a space between her teeth. He used to sell homegrown in the parking lot.

He mopped the floor, proofed the bread, switched out the soda canisters, and made a whipped spread with buttermilk and margarine. I loved watching him do it. He’d crank up our big-ass Hobart with a perforated blade the size of a hubcap and start throwing one-pound blocks of margarine straight out of the cooler into the barrel-size bowl. The chunks made a whomp-bump racket until they began to soften. Then he’d start pouring in buttermilk, and the noise became a sliding hiss as the margarine and milk began to meld. The final product was a creamy, fluffy, flavorful spread the waiters served with warm loaves of bread on cute little wooden paddles.

We used margarine and low fat buttermilk for economy, but butter and whole milk buttermilk are worth the expense. Set your mixer on low speed; use the whip attachment. Begin adding softened butter one stick at a time. After the second stick is creamy, slowly begin adding buttermilk in a dribble. You should be able to incorporate about a little over a half cup of buttermilk to a pound of butter. As the mixture begins to meld, put your mixer on high and toss in about a teaspoon of salt.  Whip until nice and fluffy. Refrigerate immediately; bring to room temperature before serving.

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Three-Bean Chili

Heat a quarter cup of corn oil in a deep skillet. Add a large, finely chopped onion, 3 minced cloves of garlic, 2 diced poblanos, and a four ounce can of diced green chilies. Stir until onions and peppers are soft, then pour into a pot on low heat along with a can of diced tomatoes and liquid. Add one each 15-oz. cans of red kidney, pinto, and black beans to simmering vegetables. Season with 2 tablespoons each of ground cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder, and a teaspoon of black pepper. I consider oregano optional. Stir well, and keep on heat to meld, a half hour at least.  Serve with warm corn chips, pico de gallo, chopped cilantro, fresh avocado, onion, and jalapenos.

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Our Southern Curry

This typically fussy vintage recipe for Country Captain comes from Winifred Green Cheney’s wonderful Southern Hospitality Cookbook (1976). Winifred informs us that she copied it from Mildred Williams, food columnist for a Virginia newspaper, but the original recipe came from Mrs. W. L. Bullard of Warms Springs, Georgia, who often served her famous dish to Franklin D. Roosevelt. “And once, when there wasn’t time for General George Patton to stay for dinner, he is said to have wired Mrs. Bullard to have the Country Captain waiting for him in a tin bucket at the train.”

2 frying-size chickens
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 clove garlic, chopped
1⁄2 cup olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 bell pepper, sliced
4 3/4 cups canned tomatoes
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon powdered thyme
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1⁄2 cup water
1 cup seedless raisins
2 1⁄2 cup toasted almonds
Melted butter
2 cups hot cooked rice
Fresh parsley (optional)

Cut chicken into frying-size pieces; split the breast, separate leg and thigh, and use the wings. Save bony pieces for stew. Flour chicken by shaking in a paper bag containing flour, salt, black pepper, and paprika. Make garlic oil by adding chopped garlic to olive oil and letting it stand until flavor is absorbed from garlic. Use 1⁄2 cup of hot garlic oil to brown chicken on both sides in a large skillet over high heat, turning pieces often so that it is golden but not dark.

Remove chicken to roaster and cover. Add onion and bell pepper to drippings in skillet; cook over medium heat until they are limp but not brown, stirring constantly. Add tomatoes, parsley, curry, thyme, and cayenne pepper; cook slowly about 5 minutes until blended. Pour over chicken, rinsing out skillet with water.

Cover and bake chicken in a preheated 325° oven for 45 minutes or until chicken is tender. Add raisins the last 15 minutes of cooking. Split blanched almonds in halves; brown lightly in a little melted butter. Arrange chicken in center of a large heated platter, pour sauce over it and pile cooked rice around edges. Sprinkle toasted almonds on top and garnish with fresh parsley, if desired. Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

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Grits and Eggs

For six servings, pour a quart of cooked grits seasoned and flavored as you see fit into an oiled casserole or skillet to cool until just warm. Then make six deep depressions in the grits with the back of an oiled spoon, and ease an egg into each hole. Bake at 350 uncovered until eggs have firmed, a good ten minutes for soft-cooked.

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Oysters Johnny Reb

This wonderful old recipe is from  Creole Gumbo, and All That Jazz, written by a Mississippi boy, Howard Mitcham, who became a chef of national repute. Cover the bottom of a 10-in. gratin with finely-crumbed saltines mixed with pepper, paprika, chopped shallots, and parsley. Add a layer of oysters that have been rolled in the crumb mixture, then top with another layer of crumbs and grated Parmesan. Drizzle with only enough melted butter to moisten, then slowly pour heavy cream into the edge of the dish until oysters are just covered. Place in a very hot (400 or so) oven until bubbling and browned. These are even good cold.