Drizzle warm simple syrup with a squeeze of lemon over fresh figs and refrigerating overnight. Slit, stuff with Roquefort, and top with crushed pecans. These are good with iced coffee.
Cucumber Lime Sorbet
This recipe comes from my pal David Odom. Puree two peeled chopped cucumbers, one cup simple syrup, 1/4 cup of fresh lime juice, a pinch of salt and 5 basil leaves in ta blender, then press through a fine screen. Pour the mixture into a container, and float a cleaned egg in the mixture . If a quarter sized portion of the shell is showing you are good, if not add more syrup. Chill mixture then run in ice cream maker.
Banana Pudding Cookies
For best flavor, you must use bananas that are soft, aromatic, and with a light freckling. The vanilla wafers should just be broken up into small pieces, not reduced to crumbs. Some people top these with whipped cream and a banana slice, but that makes them soggy.
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup cane sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ripe banana mashed
1 package banana cream instant pudding mix
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup smashed vanilla wafers
Preheat oven to 350, and line baking pans with lightly oiled parchment paper. Combine flour and baking soda, then set aside. Cream butter and sugar thoroughly, add the banana, pudding mix, and eggs. Mix until smooth and slowly stir in the dry ingredients, then blend in the chips and wafers. Use about a tablespoon of dough for each cookie. Bake until lightly browned, about ten minutes.
Oven Ribs
Unless you have a pit handy, can afford one of those expensive outdoor cookers capable of maintaining a low even temperature for a very long time, or–like me–just don’t like tending to a fire in the blazing heat of a Mississippi summer, oven ribs are your option; a crock pot just don’t cut it.
Try the following rub mix, then modify it as you see fit. I tend to be heavy on the garlic and cumin, light on the salt and pepper. For two full racks or four six baby backs make a rub of:
1 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons each of cumin, granulated garlic, black pepper, and salt
1 tablespoon cayenne
Cut ribs to fit roasting pan, pat dry, oil, and coat with rub. Place pan in middle level of oven and an oven-proof container of water on the bottom; I use a 2-quart pot. Set oven at 350 for first hour, then turn the ribs and reduce heat to 225. Cook until meat is tender, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, about half that for baby backs.
Tomato Canapés
Fry to a crisp, drain and crumble 1 pound bacon. Mix with a cup and a half (or so) of Blue Plate mayonnaise, and 2 bunches minced green onions. Season with a teaspoon (or more) Tony Cachere’s and black pepper to taste. Spread on 2 inch rounds of bread, top with drained and lightly-salted Roma tomato slices. Dill is a nice touch. This recipe makes about 35.
Strawberry Biscuits
Here’s a pretty scone that shines split and spread with sweet cream cheese. Preheat oven to 425. Toss a cup of diced fresh strawberries with a tablespoon or so of sugar and set aside. Sift 2 cups flour with a tablespoon of baking powder, and work in a stick of cold butter until grainy. Mix in strawberries and refrigerate for 5 minutes.
Add enough milk to make a sticky dough, turn out on a floured surface, pat down to about three quarters of an inch, and cut into rounds. Place on a lightly oiled pan, brush with melted butter, and bake until lightly browned. Cool before serving.
Little Red Ribs
Cut two pounds of meat and end bones from a rack of pork ribs into more or less bite-sized pieces.
Mix a half cup each hoisin and brown sugar, stir in a quarter cup each rice/cider vinegar, vegetable oil, and lite soy. Add a toe of grated ginger, and a teaspoon (or so) red food coloring. Mix very well with rib meat, and marinate for at least an hour.
Drain, spread meat onto a sturdy well-oiled pan, and roast on low heat until crisp. Boiled Irish potatoes are nice option, fresh onion an absolute must.
Pepper Cheese Biscuits
Cut a stick and a half of butter into four cups self-rising flour. Add one cup grated cheddar cheese, one cup raw chopped mild red pepper, and enough sweet milk for a stiff dough. Roll out, cut into rounds and bake in an oiled skillet in a hot oven until lightly browned. Serve hot or cold filled with shaved ham and herbed cream cheese.
Angelo’s Hamburger Steak
Angelo Mistilis opened his restaurant on College Hill Road in Oxford, Mississippi, in May, 1962, and fed thousands upon thousands before closing in 1988. The menu featured dozens of items, but by any stable reckoning, first and foremost was his hamburger steak.
“The hamburger steak was on the original menu, the hamburger steak with cheese and onions came in a little later, in the mid to late 60s,” Angelo said. “You could have it regular, you could have it with onions, you could have it with cheese, or you could have it all the way,” Angelo said.
“We used about nine tons of fresh ground beef a year. I had a butcher that got my hamburger meat with all the trimmings, and I got some from James’ Food Center.”
“We always served it with hand-cut home fries,” he added. “We’d use around 1200 lbs. of potatoes a week and two fifty-pound sacks of onions. The cheese was always sliced American, and we served it on a paper plate in a wicker basket.”
My Rift with Rose Budd
Jerry Clower once declared (Jerry never simply “said” anything) that Rose Budd Stevens is a national treasure, and I agree with every piece of my heart.
If you are interested in the way Mississippians cooked and prepared foodstuffs in the first half of the 20th century, then you should get From Rose Budd’s Kitchen (University Press of Mississippi: 1988). For those Mississippi foodies who love the literature of the table, this is an essential addition to your bookshelf, a wonderful work written by a remarkable woman.
Mrs. Willoughby and I grew up in rural Mississippi at different times. Reading her reminds me of the words, phrases, and cadences I heard from my grandmothers and great aunts, a noisy, lively chatter from a kitchen long ago. Mamie resembles them when it comes to a lesson, too, as she sets forth–fists on hips–in this passage:
Let’s get this chicken stew, dumplings and chicken pie business straight right now. Chicken Stew: Roll thick dough, cut into strips, drop into boiling chicken broth, and cook uncovered. Chicken Dumplings: Drop spoonfuls of dough on top of boiling chicken and broth, cook with tight-fitting lid on, and don’t peek. Chicken Pie: Put layer of chicken and broth in large pan. Dot with butter and black pepper, then layer of rich dough. Bake until light brown; add another layer of chicken, broth, and dough, bake. Do this until pan is nearly full. Some hold with a cup of sweet milk added, then back 30 minutes. I like hard-boiled eggs and sweet cream in my pie. Last would be cups of cooked-down broth, tasty with floating eyes of chicken fat, all melded together, food fit for the gods, company or family. Remember this was before it was known you could eat yourself to death!
Here’s where Mamie and I part ways. My recipe for chicken and dumplings perfectly matches her chicken stew rather than her “Chicken Dumplings.” The difference might be simple semantics, and covering the dumplings as they cook is part of my process as well. But in the end, the dumplings are always folded into the broth. This is my recipe:
Poach a roasting hen with carrots, onions, celery, salt and pepper, a fresh bay leaf if you have one in water to cover by about an inch. Skin and debone chicken. Set meat aside, return bones to the pot, and reduce by about a third. Strain liquid and return to pot with about a tablespoon of bouillon paste. You want a gallon of good, rich broth. Make a stiff dough with 2 cups self-rising flour, butter, and sweet milk; roll it out to about an eighth of an inch, cut into strips and drop into boiling broth. Jiggle them around a bit to break them up and keep from sticking. As the broth begins to thicken, add the chicken, cover, and let boil for maybe another minute. Then reduce heat and let the pot sit for about another five minutes. You’ll have to adjust the salt, since dumplings, like any boiled starch (potatoes, rice, pasta, etc.) will absorb salt in cooking. I like my chicken and dumplings with a good dose of black pepper.
