Category: Food and Cooking

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Steak for Two

Back in the ’50s and ’60s, the country was overrun with “Continental-style” restaurants offering Naugahyde banquettes, white table cloths, and tony, bastardzied Euro/American menus. One of these retro-glam dishes was steak Diane, a wonderful dish for two.

Use 2 6 oz. slices of tender beef, season with a smidgen of salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper, dust with flour, and sauté in butter with two finely-diced shallots and a small clove of garlic to taste. Set the meat aside.

Working quickly, add a half stick butter to the pan, a hefty tablespoon of prepared mustard, and 2 cups sliced mushrooms. When cooked down,  add heavy cream, reduce, and stir in enough stock to make a smooth sauce. Spoon over beef, and serve with a love.

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Make Hash

I like corned beef hash for breakfast, chicken hash for lunch, and beef hash (without gravy) any time. Such are are the rules of the universe in this modest sphere.

My hash is made with leftover/canned meats. Sometimes I’ll use leftover roast potatoes, but for breakfast hash, I’ll dice a small red potato and cook in oil until browned and done through. Don’t ask me why; if we’re incapable of the inexplicable, then we are nothing.

Sometimes I’ll throw in some onion, but I don’t belong to the bell pepper crew. Basic seasonings: salt and pepper, paprika; a little dry mustard is a nice touch.

Keep it simple. Anyone who tries to gussy up hash needs therapy.

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Mix a fifth of light rum with a fifth of dark rum, 2 cups lime juice, 2 cups orange juice, 1 quart passion fruit juice, and a cup of simple syrup. Serve over crushed ice.  Keep a pour spout bottle of grenadine near the ice bucket, and don’t even worry about garnishes unless you want to pick orange rinds and toothpicks out of the couch cushions.

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Seafood Stuffing

Deep-fried stuffed crab shells were once a staple side in fish shacks throughout the lower South. You’ll  still find frozen stuffed shells as well as 1-quart bags of stuffing in markets all across the region.

With more crab meat (or shrimp), brushed with butter and baked, this recipe works as a stand-alone buffet dish. It also makes great hush puppies.

Combine two cups crumbled stale cornbread with a cup of coarse bread crumbs and a half cup grated Parmesan. Set aside. Dice finely white onion and enough celery to make 2 cups. Sauté in a stick of butter with a clove of minced garlic until soft. Add to crumbs with a slosh of white wine and enough water to make a thick batter.

Mix thoroughly with a pound of clean lump crab meat. I throw in a few minced cooked shrimp for color. Stir in two or three tablespoons of Creole mustard, and a bit more melted butter. Pepper and salt to fit you. Roll in corn meal if making puppies.

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Walking Tacos

Most of you will recognize this snack food as the mini/mobile version of  that Frito pie you’re no doubt familiar with, but made in a single-serving bag of corn chips–I prefer good old Fritos, but some people will use a variety of Doritos–with chili or taco meat, topped off with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, onions, and peppers, grated cheese, and sour cream.

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Yam Not

Okay, let’s straighten this out once and for all. Those big orange roots you find in the grocery store are not yams. Got that? As a matter of fact, it’s a good bet that most of the people who just read that have never even seen a yam.

Sweet potatoes came to be called yams because they’re kind of/sort of similar, both starchy/sweet root vegetables, but they’re quite distinct; a sweet potato is far sweeter and much smoother than a yam. The most important distinction is that yams don’t grow in the South, but sweet potatoes do, in glorious profusion.

Sweet potatoes have always been a staple of Southern tables as well as a reliable source of income. The sweet potato is the state vegetable of North Carolina, and the Sweet Potato Capitol of the World is Vardaman, Mississippi. (If tells you any different, they’re a double-dog liar who needs a solid ass-kicking.

Still and all, you’re bound to find cans of yams in many local grocers, but due to USDA requirements, you’ll find “sweet potatoes” somewhere on the label.

So there.

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Culinary Jackson

Does Jackson, Mississippi have a distinct culinary signature?

The short answer is no. Even the city’s–somewhat recently distinguished–signature recipe, comeback dressing, has its roots not so much in restaurants here, but in diners across the South for the simple, practical reason that it’s easily made from on-hand commercial ingredients–ketchup, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce and pepper–easily stored, and versatile.

So as to a distinct culinary presence, well, no. What we have in Jackson is a cuisine typical of cities throughout the Mid-South: Herculean breakfasts featuring lard biscuits, grits and rice, eggs and pork, meals of meats, starches, and vegetables stewed in fats.

These are the foods you’ll find all over Jackson, in restaurants and supermarket deli buffets for breakfasts and “meat-and-three’ (more often meat-and-two) lunches, dishes adopted from the home table that speak of place and past.

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Oysters Bienville

Nowadays most discussions—more often polemics—about culinary authenticity involve terms such as “the salience of ethnic identity” and “aligning broader socio-political representations”.

These investigations certainly have their place in this global franchise we call a world, but when it comes to a specific restaurant recipe, we’re on less esoteric footing. We know that at some point in time, at this particular place, a recipe was formulated, prepared and served, a recipe that became an archetype for any that followed, and our best means of replicating such dishes is to find recipes written by people who are thoroughly familiar with the original and have the wherewithal to replicate it with authority.

Such is the case with Arnaud’s signature recipe for oysters Bienville in Bayou Cuisine that’s credited to Jackson restaurateur Paul Crechale. This recipe rings with authenticity and authority. Note the use of a beige roux to thicken, cream and egg yolks to enrich, mushrooms, shrimp, and a hard dry cheese for substance.

Prepare the sauce by browning lightly in 3 tablespoons butter 2 minced onions. Stir in 3 tablespoons flour and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture is lightly browned. Be sure not to let it burn. Add gradually 1 ½ cups chicken consommé, ½ cup white wine, 1 cup minced raw mushrooms and 1 ½ cups chopped cooked shrimp. Cook slowly, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes.

Open 3 dozen oysters and put them in their deep shells (my italics, jly) on individual baking dishes. Bake the oysters in their own juices in a moderate oven (350) for about 6 minutes. Thicken sauce with 2 egg yolks beaten with 2 tablespoons heavy cream and heat the sauce without boiling. Cover each oyster with some of the sauce and sprinkle lightly with equal parts of dry bread crumbs and grated Parmesan or Romano cheese. Return the oysters to the oven for about 10 minutes, until browned.