Saveur: The New Comfort Food (28 page)
Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
When I was growing up, my Italian-American family used fennel every which way. Its dried, anise-scented seeds studded my grandfather’s homemade sweet pork sausage, and its fresh, feathery fronds were chopped up and sprinkled into everything from salads to bean soups. At the end of each meal, after the plates were cleared and the coffee was poured, slices of the crisp, raw bulb were brought to the table as a refreshing palate cleanser. When I started travelling to Italy as an adult, I encountered this versatile vegetable in even more preparations that highlighted its sweet flavor. In Sicily, slender wild fennel fronds are chopped and tossed with sardines, pine nuts, and pasta, and in the north, the bulbs are grilled and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, or baked until soft and creamy.
—Dana Bowen
Spoonbread
This soft, luxurious spoonbread marks the start of most meals at Kentucky’s century-old Boone Tavern (pictured). The eggy corn bread pudding rises and settles like a soufflé and goes exceptionally well with that other Kentucky specialty, smoky and salty country ham.
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, 1 tbsp. softened and 3 tbsp. melted
3 cups milk
1¼ cups finely ground white cornmeal
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
2 eggs, beaten
Serves 6–8
1. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan with some of the softened butter. Cut out a parchment paper circle to fit inside the pan, nestle it into the bottom, and grease the paper with the remaining softened butter. Set the prepared cake pan aside.
2. In a 2-qt. saucepan, bring the milk to a boil, whisking occasionally, over high heat. While whisking, pour in the cornmeal in a steady stream. Whisk vigorously to incorporate the cornmeal, for about 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to let the cornmeal mixture cool to room temperature.
3. Heat the oven to 350°F. Transfer the cornmeal mixture to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the melted butter, baking powder, salt, and eggs and mix on medium speed until uniform and aerated, about 15 minutes.
4. Pour the cornmeal batter into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown and puffy and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Serve immediately.
Off State Highway 78 in central Kentucky you’ll find Boone Tavern, a century-old restaurant and hotel. Situated on the campus of Berea College, the establishment earned wide acclaim under Richard T. Hougen, who managed it from 1940 to 1976 and popularized such dishes as Pork Chops the Tricky Way, Chicken Flakes in a Bird’s Nest, and Kentucky Chess Pie. But the most popular item at this Southern institution is the spoonbread, a creamy corn bread soufflé (pictured, held by a waitress) that’s been served before each meal for more than 60 years. And while the building has undergone an overhaul, Bruce Alcorn, a Boone Tavern cook who, along with fellow old-timer Rawleigh Johnson, has been making the custardy pudding for decades, assures us that the spoonbread has not: “Me and Rawleigh made it back then, we make it now; nothing’s changed.”
Randy Evans, the executive chef at Brennan’s restaurant in Houston, grew up on slow-cooked Southern peas, also known as field peas or cowpeas. He recommends simmering them along with a ham hock, carrots, celery, and chopped onion and serving them with corn bread to sop up the smoky-sweet liquor that accumulates during cooking.
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1 rib celery
1 small carrot, peeled
2 cups fresh or frozen Southern peas (such as zipper creams, blackeyeds, or butter beans)
2½ cups chicken stock
1 small smoked ham hock Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Corn bread, for serving
Serves 4
1. In a 4-qt. saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.
2. Cut the celery and carrot in half and add both to the pan along with the peas, stock, and ham hock. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until tender and creamy, about 1 hour. (The time depends on the type and size of the peas; cook smaller peas about 50 minutes and larger ones about one hour and 10 minutes.)
3. Remove the ham hock, slice the meat from the bone, and chop; return the meat to the pan and discard the bone. Season the peas with salt and pepper and serve with corn bread.
There are dozens of varieties of Southern peas (which mostly fall into the genus Vigna unguiculata), but we’re especially fond of the five shown here, for their versatility, distinctive appearance, and flavors. The
zipper cream
, developed by a Florida agronomist in 1972, gets its name from the fact that the peas can be whisked from their hull in a zipping motion. Though not in the same genus as Southern peas,
butter beans
have a similarly luscious texture and taste and are often lumped into the Southern-peas category; we like the speckled variety. The light-hued, unblemished surface of
cream peas
accounts for the name, though the moniker is often attributed to the cooked peas’ butter-soft texture. The
pink-eyed purple hull
has a red spot at the center of each pea, and an earthy taste.
Crowders
have a squarish shape, a result of their being densely packed inside the hull (hence the name); brown crowders (shown), which have a deep, earthy flavor, are most prevalent in the South. Fresh-frozen Southern peas are available all year in supermarkets across the region, and can also be ordered online through websites like southwesternproduce.com. In the summer, you can find them fresh at Southern farmers’ markets.
(Top to bottom) Zipper cream, butter beans, cream peas, pink-eyed purple hull, crowders
Dietmar Muthenthaler, the head chef of Demel, the legendary pastry shop in Vienna, Austria.
Everyday ingredients can undergo remarkable transformations. Sugar becomes caramel, butter becomes butterscotch, egg whites become meringue. The metamorphosis from simple to sublime is the product of forceful whisking, patient stirring, and meticulous timing—processes that are as scientific as they are artful. From rustic sweets like huckleberry crisp and sticky buns to more lavish desserts, like a ganache-topped caramel tart, the meal’s sweet finish makes us feel like a kid again.
It seems that every Southern cook has a cherished recipe for homemade biscuits, but this one is a standout. Generous amounts of butter and buttermilk impart richness and a tender texture, and the sharp, tangy flavors of fresh chives and cheddar cheese provide a mouthwatering counterpoint.
2 cups flour, plus more for dusting
2 tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. sugar
1½ tsp. kosher salt
8 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into thin pats
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp. buttermilk
½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup minced chives
2 tbsp. heavy cream
Makes 6 biscuits
1. Heat the oven to 450°F. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Using a pastry cutter, work the cold butter into the flour mixture until the butter is the size of small peas.
2. Add the buttermilk, cheddar, and chives to the flour–butter mixture and stir with a fork to form a loose dough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and gently pat into a 6 x 9-inch rectangle. Fold into thirds as you would a letter and pat into a 6 x 9-inch rectangle again. Dip the edges of a 3-inch round biscuit cutter in flour and punch out 6 biscuits from the dough. Transfer the biscuits to a parchment paper–lined baking sheet. (Form and cut the dough scraps into another biscuit or two, if you wish; they won’t rise as high, though.) Brush the tops with heavy cream and bake until lightly browned, 14–16 minutes. Serve warm.
As big as the plate they’re served on and crisp around the edges, the tender buttermilk flapjacks at Robie’s Country Store & Deli, in Hooksett, New Hampshire, a town of 13,000 people in the southeastern part of the state, are so incomparably delicious that they nearly outshine the establishment’s other claim to fame: politics. The old-fashioned general store, with its eight café tables and its counter lined with jars of penny candy for sale, is a frequent stop for campaigning politicians passing through the state. Campaigners have long made a habit of pulling up a chair at out-of-the-way, all-American spots like Robie’s in the hope that their enthusiasm for down-to-earth, local meals would make them more appealing to voters. Robie’s is particularly significant because it’s one of the earliest and most anticipated stops on the cross-country campaign trail: New Hampshire traditionally holds one of the first primary elections of the voting season, so the nation naturally turns its attention to the state. Robie’s also functions as a community social club: Dorothy Robie, who ran the store for five decades with her husband, Lloyd (whose great-grandfather bought the place in 1887), can still be found having coffee and flapjacks with neighbors there a few times each week.
