Category: Food and Cooking

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Pulled Pork

This method takes much less  time than  the a slow cooker and gives much better results. I prefer a bone-in shoulder roast, also known as a “picnic” shoulder. This is an inexpensive cut of well-marbled meat, and the bone adds flavor.

Preheat oven to 400, For a 6-8 pound cut, make a spice blend of 3 tablespoons each paprika, granulated garlic, and black pepper, and about a tablespoon of salt. You can add a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar to this if you like, but I don’t. I don’t like to use much salt, either, because salt and sugar draw moisture from the meat. Besides, you’re going to get plenty of sugar and salt in any barbecue sauce, no matter who makes it.

Mix  this blend with about 1/2 cup vegetable oil and rub over meat. Peel and chop into quarters 2 white onions, separate, and place in the bottom of an oven roaster. Put meat on top on onions, a set on a mid/low rack; I place a saucepan of water alongside the roast to help keep it moist.

After an hour, reduce heat to 250. After another two hours or so, when the pork is fork-tender, remove from oven, cool enough to handle, discard fat and bone, and reserve some of the pot liquid (without the fat). Shred meat into a lidded container and add enough of the reserved liquid for even moisture.

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Ice Cream Bread

Versions of this recipe have been bouncing around a lot recently, most of them praising its fool-proof simplicity, but as with these simple recipes—and those with two ingredients are about as basic as they come—the devil is in the details.

Most versions call for 1 ½ cups of hot rise flour and a pint of melted ice cream that makes  a soft, sticky dough rather than a batter baked in a standard 8×5 loaf pan at 350 for 45 minutes. I’ve found the recipe works best when baked in a 5×3 (16 oz.) loaf or a similarly-sized spring-form pan at 350 for only 35 minutes.

I’ve also found that you must use a very rich ice cream such as a French vanilla or (as in this case) a butter pecan and that LuVel works just as well if not better than Ben & Jerry’s, but you must let the ice cream melt slowly on the kitchen counter or in the refrigerator. I’m unsure of the science behind this, but microwaving the ice cream will make for a dense, pudding-y cake.

Though for many a dollop of whipped cream might seem less excessive, I don’t find a scoop of ice cream redundant at all.

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Ginger Pecan Sandies

A simple recipe for a rich, crumbly cookie.

Cream 1 stick butter with a cup of confectioner’s sugar and a teaspoon each almond and vanilla extract. Blend in 2 cups plain flour sifted with a teaspoon of baking powder, a  half cup chopped pecans, and a heaping tablespoon of ground ginger.

(Note: I have tried this recipe with freshly-grated ginger, and it simply does not work at all well with the butter.)

This makes a soft, elastic dough. Work it into a ball and refrigerate for an hour or so. You can wrap it up if you want; I never do, I’m going to wad it up and roll it out anyway.

Pat or roll dough a half inch thick, sprinkle with sanding sugar, and cut into rounds or squares. Bake at 350 until lightly browned.

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Autumn Cider

This recipe fills your home with those aromas many Southerners associate with the coming of cool weather: apples, cloves, cinnamon, and oranges. I recommend tangerines, satsumas, or Valencia oranges, and a mix of tart and sweet apples.

To a gallon of water, quarter about a half dozen apples and three or four oranges, depending on size. Don’t peel the apples, but by all means peel the oranges, saving a strip of peel for zest. Add four sticks of cinnamon, a teaspoon of whole cloves, and a thumb of peeled ginger.

When the apples are soft through, let it cool. Then mash and strain, first through a colander, then a wire strainer. For better clarity, use cheesecloth. Add the juice of a lemon, and brown sugar to taste. A healthy slosh or two of dark rum ensures a warm reception.

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About Molasses

All of my life, I’ve heard sorghum syrup called molasses, so it came as something of a shock when I read recently that sorghum molasses is not considered a “true” molasses by certain authorities. These same people will tell you that the only real molasses comes from sugar cane and beets, though in the same breath they will also say it can be made from grapes, dates, pomegranates, mulberries, and carob, which certainly muddles the definition. Thoreau, in one of his more superfluous tangents, claims he made “excellent molasses from pumpkins”, exhibiting an appealing disregard for the fine line between molasses and syrup.

The process for making what passes as true molasses seems complicated, since once the canes (or beets) are crushed (or mashed), the juice is boiled to concentrate and crystallize the sugar. This stage produces the “first molasses” which has the highest sugar content. Boiling the cane/beet juice again produces “second molasses” (!), and the third boiling produces blackstrap. This is a simple process of reduction identical to the one used to make sorghum molasses which even Harold McGee, the genius who wrote the authoritative On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, claims is a syrup. What it boils down to (sorry) is a matter of terms; if I want to call sorghum syrup a molasses, then I will and do.

Like any sugar in solution (i.e. a syrup), sorghum molasses differs in taste and texture depending on the length of time it’s reduced, resulting in varying degrees of caramelization. I’ve seen blackstrap-style sorghum as well as sorghum pale as honey. Me, I prefer it light, retaining just a shadow of the golden-green color I remember from my childhood dripping from a paddle over a simmering pan of syrup, in Ellard, Mississippi, a memory I’m more likely to realize now since rural family-run sorghum cane mills are making a comeback.

Be advised that the production of sorghum molasses remains a largely commercial enterprise, and there are dozens of brands on the shelves throughout the region, but most of these are not pure sorghum molasses; if you read the ingredients, corn syrup will likely be the first ingredient listed. Unadulterated sorghum can always be found in autumn at roadside stands and farmers’ markets. Find it.

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New Stage Baked Eggs

This stellar recipe comes from Standing Room Only, the stellar entertainment cookbook published by Jackson, Mississippi’s New Stage Theatre in 1983.

The original recipe states that this breakfast casserole can be prepared the night before and refrigerated, but I don’t because the croutons get soggy. It also calls for a sprinkling of chopped black olives and crumbled bacon, which is a nice touch.

Beat six eggs in two cups of whole milk, add a teaspoon of dry mustard and two cups grated cheddar along with chopped ham, green onions. Butter a 9×13 casserole and cover the bottom in a layer of herbed croutons, pour in egg and cheese mixture, and bake at 350 on a middle rack until lightly browned and springy, about 45 minutes. I often serve it cold with sour cream.

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On Heirloom Recipes

For a long time I’ve been remiss about not getting beloved recipes from people who’ve since passed from my life. I came to feel those recipes were irreplaceable riches that had been swallowed by the maw of time, as indeed they are.

Yet this remarkable world goes around, and I’ve come to realize that getting recipes from others is important, perhaps even crucial in some larger scheme of things. So we must wrench the dishes we love from those who create them, even if we have to beat the holy hell out of them to do so.

It’s our duty as members of the human race.

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Calliope Muffins

The lady who gave me this recipe said it came from the Ringling Estate in Sarasota, Florida, and while I have no reason whatsoever to doubt that it did, I wish she had known the history behind them.

Whisk together 2/3 a cup of cocoa, 2 cups plain flour, 1 ¼ packed cup brown sugar, a teaspoon each of baking powder and soda, and dash or so of salt. Set aside. Beat 2 large eggs into ¾ cup milk. Add 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and a slash of vinegar along with a melted stick of butter. Mix dry and wet ingredients. Blend just enough to ensure the moisture is evenly mixed; muffins don’t need a lot of work. Bake at 350 for about a half hour.

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Alice’s Salmon Mousse

In my book, which got another rejection this month –“Your approach to cooking is mind-numbingly academic and disturbingly pugnacious”–Alice Brock is a bazillion times cooler than Alice Waters. Brock’s humor and ill regard for bullshit establishes her biography, My Life as a Restaurant, as the hands-on-hips precursor to Bourdain’s somewhat more cantankerous Kitchen Confidential. Not only that, Waters never had a song written about her, much less an anthem.

Alice and her staff up in Massachusetts had a thing with mousses/mooses. The drawing with this recipe has antlers, and they include a story of a moose falling into a vat of cocoa for the chocolate version. This fixation seems to be prevalent in New England where moose/mooses/meece live, but in this culinary reference, the homonym proves emphatic. This salmon mousse is great hot weather nosh and can be served either from your great-grandmother’s fish mold or if you’re just totally white trash in a bowl.

Put a quarter cup diced onion and lemon juice in a blender with an envelope of gelatin and a half cup hot water. Blend at high speed for one minute, then add a half cup of mayonnaise and 16 ounces of canned salmon. (Red is best, leftover homecooked is wonderful, and pink will do.) Blend/pulse this mixture until smooth. Add a tablespoon paprika and a cup of heavy cream. Blend for about a half minute, and cool for at least 6 hours before serving.

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Marchand de Vin

This smart-ass from New Orleans—they’re all over the place down there, trust me—once asked me in a job interview (in Oxford, Mississippi in 1990, no less) if I knew how to make marchand. When I said no, the bastard actually curled his upper lip in an unctuous, condescending sneer. If I’d had heat vision, he’d have been char.

I got the job anyway because the guy who asked me to apply owned the joint. The asshole from New Orleans got fired four months later for stealing from the payrole and selling coke under the bar. This version of Brennan’s batch recipe makes about a quart and refrigerates well.

In a stick of butter, lightly brown a quarter cup of flour. Add a minced clove of garlic  smashed and minced, three or four chopped green onions, and a cup of diced shallots. Alternately, whisk in beef stock and wine until smooth and somewhat on the thin side. Season with thyme, parsley, fresh black pepper, and reduce heat. Salt to taste before serving.