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Welcome to the double-wide, chicken-fried, Southern food thread! There used to be a southern food thread but it went away and now here is a shiny new one! This OP is very much a work in progress, so if you have any ideas/contributions of your own, please tell me about them! The cuisine of the Southeastern US is a creole cuisine formed from the melding of the food traditions of white Europeans, Native Americans, and the enslaved Africans transported to the region. It is not a homogenous cuisine, with many local specialties and traditional dishes-the food of Appalachia looks very different from the food of Louisiana or Charleston-but there is plenty of common ground. Until the last 50 years or so, much of the south was quite poor and agricultural, and so meat was often an accompaniment to or seasoning for vegetables, rather than the main event. Wheat doesn’t grow especially well in much of the south, and so corn became a staple starch in the diet. American corn, squash, beans and tomatoes combined with European wheat and dairy and African cowpeas, okra, peanuts and so much else, to form a cuisine all its own. Because of the Great Migration of African Americans out of the south in the early 20th century, Southern food has spread widely to the upper Midwest, northeast, and West coast as soul food and reached a wider audience and means southern ingredients are at least somewhat available outside the south. I’m not a food historian, but this Wikipedia page is pretty decent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_the_Southern_United_States I would also very highly recommend Michael Twitty’s The Cooking Gene. Food history people, I would love any additions or contributions you may have here! To me, if there is a unifying element of southern cooking, the equivalent of katsuobushi in Japanese food, soy sauce and the wok in Chinese cuisine, the chile pepper in Mexican cuisine, or olive oil in the eastern Mediterranean, it is pork, usually cured and smoked. It is eaten for breakfast as sausage and bacon, used to season countless vegetable dishes, the lard is used to fry anything and as shortening in the ham biscuits we eat after a funeral. Hog killing time in the late fall was always a holiday in the south, and there’s plenty of big cast iron scalding and lard boiling tubs full of flowers out in front yards in the rural south to this day. The south is a big place, and regional (and ethnic) traditions vary widely. Many local specialties-low country shrimp and grits, Mississippi Delta tamales, Nashville hot chicken, chicken and waffles-have gone national, but most of those dishes aren’t really all that common throughout the entire south. Don’t be surprised if you ask for chicken and waffles in Montgomery and get a funny look. The way you grew up eating it may not be the way someone else grew up eating it, but I bet it’s still good- let’s share and discuss, and not tell anyone they’re wrong! Books/websites [to be continued-accepting recommendations, especially if you have a blurb about it!] I have mostly learned about this cooking through doing it, eating it, and watching other cooks do it, so I don’t have a ton of southern cookbooks except out of print local Junior League/church cookbooks. I would love to add any recommendations anyone might have here! I can recommend: The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis The Cajun/Creole food thread is great for Louisiana stuff: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3570811 Barbecue is also an important part of southern food that I don’t know anything about (except to eat-Eastern NC/VA vinegar style for me please!), but you can go argue about it here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3460953 Recipes Beans Greens Beans Cornbread Grits Biscuits Gonna try and link to recipes that get posted in this thread here so people can find them. Post a recipe so I can put it here! Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Apr 9, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 01:01
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 21:53 |
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Beans Man in the south we love our beans and peas. My local Walmart has more varieties of frozen peas/beans than anywhere I’ve ever seen and I love them all- blackeyed peas, purple hull peas (my favorite), pink eye peas, field peas, crowder peas, zipper peas, white acre peas, butter peas, purple speckled butter beans, green butter beans, pinto beans etc etc etc. Most are some variety of cowpea or cream pea/butterbean/baby lima. I prefer frozen ones (or fresh in the summer when I can get them) because I’m not very organized and you don’t have to soak them (and the flavor is a little better) but dried ones are widely available too if you can’t find frozen ones locally. Dried beans need to be soaked overnight, and may take a little longer to cook than fresh/frozen. Pretty much all of the above can be cooked this same way. Get some stuff:  Purple hulls, chicken stock (water is okay too), chop up half that onion, and then the real star in the middle  Jowl Bacon. Don’t smoke it and call it guanciale and it’s $15/lb, but call it jowl bacon and it’s $3/lb and half the price of normal bacon and it is the perfect thing for seasoning long-cooking vegetables. I slice it up about ¼” thick and throw all the slices in a bag and freeze them so it’s easy to grab just a few pieces at a time. Anyway throw the chopped onion and jowl bacon in a pot:  Awww look, it  loves you!Dump those peas on top, cover with chicken stock.  Bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for an hour or more, depending on how you like your peas. Season to taste with salt and pepper, of course. I like mine like this:  You can overcook peas and if you do they will still be delicious, but maybe mushy. They also like gelatinize overnight in the fridge, but they reheat fine. Okay how about Zipper peas, a pretty delicious kind of cream pea? First, get 2 slices of jowl bacon, from the freezer, half an onion, and some chicken stock  Sound familiar? It is. The same thing works just fine! Butterbeans are good without bacon, just some chicken broth and olive oil and S&P.
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Apr 9, 2020 01:02
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Greens There aren’t as many flavors of greens, but they are just as delicious. Collards, turnips, and mustard greens are pretty traditional. Collards are fine, but they can be a bit tough and bitter, especially if you get them fresh. My favorite is a mix of mustard and turnips best, but mustard greens are kind of seasonal and only available fresh. Collard greens and turnips are available fresh (prewashed in the bag are nice, but they have a lot of stem sometimes) and frozen. Fresh greens not in the bag are dirty and gritty as hell and you really need to rinse them very thoroughly. You could probably use kale too I guess. I actually prefer frozen collards and turnip greens-freezing seems to help tenderize them and they cook quicker, not to mention being clean and easy. So let’s cook some greens. Get some greens, a smoked pork product, half an onion, and some chicken stock or water and a pot. In this case we have a bag-o-fresh-turnips and a smoked pork hock.  Hocks have a lot more gelatin in them than bacon, and they are delicious. I usually keep one or two in a bag of in the freezer. Chop that onion, throw it in a pot with the ham hock and some water, and bring to a boil. Throw a few red pepper flakes in too.  There is no way in hell that big-rear end bag of greens is gonna fit in that tiny-rear end pot  Alright well magically they did. Let those simmer for an hour or so, or more. You literally cannot overcook greens. Salt and pepper to taste towards the end of cooking when you know how much the pork has salted the pot.  For added deliciousness, pull that ham hock out, get the meat out and chop it up:  This was not a very meaty hock. Toss it all back in there  Man those look tasty. This is what is known locally as ‘a whole dam mess uh greens.’ Turnip greens seems to have an umami kind of taste that I’m not sure other greens really have. All that juice is delicious pot likker and it is the perfect thing to sop up with your cornbread or biscuit (you did make some cornbread, right?) Many restaurants in the south have little bottles of vinegar with green peppers in them on the table-greens are a great place to splash that stuff if you like them spicy, and a dash of acid like apple cider or malt vinegar can help with some of the bitterness too. You don’t actually have to cook greens forever-you can saute them with garlic and olive oil like spinach and they are perfectly good too. I would use fresh though, not frozen. Mustard greens are especially good sautéed.
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Apr 9, 2020 01:04
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Cornbread Lot’s of people say they don’t like cornbread. I think those people have only have bad cornbread, cold cornbread, or didn’t put butter/pot likker on it. If you have had good, hot, buttered cornbread and you still don’t like it, well bless your heart. I grew up with crunchy savory white cornbread, always cooked in screamin’ hot cast iron, but that cakey yellow stuff from the jiffy box has its place too, it’s just like, corn cake or something. Cornbread is very very easy to make because you just use this mix and it’s honestly perfect.  I was making half a recipe, so only one egg. Use the recipe on the bag:  See that part about getting the skillet/mold really hot? That’s important. You want a crunch crust and that’s how you get it. I like a higher crunch/bread ratio, so I like these little cup things from lodge. The little molds shaped like ears of corn are nice too. Throw whatever you use it in the oven when you start preheating and it will be ready when the oven is hot. When it’s really hot, mix up your mix (use buttermilk, full fat if you can get it) with a whisk to get the lumps out. Take the skillet/mold out, and rub it alllllll over with a stick of butter.  Pour batter in:  Bake until golden brown and delicious, 20 min or so for this little mold thing:  Butter liberally, and consume hot. Cold cornbread is kind of bad imo, and cornbread doesn’t keep all that well. 2 days on the counter, maybe 3-4 in the fridge. Cold cornbread mashed up in buttermilk used to be breakfast for many southern children and, it’s actually not terrible.
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Apr 9, 2020 01:05
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Grits Grits are much maligned, but grits are actually delicious when cooked right. Again, call it polenta and everyone loves it and it costs twice as much, but polenta=grits. Grits really need salt, and also fat, and most places you might have ordered grits probably didn’t put enough salt in them and you didn’t know you were supposed to add salt and butter. We’re going back to the back of the bag here again:  Start with as much salt as they tell you, but it’s nowhere near enough-you’ll season to taste later. Pour grits into boiling water (slowly and with the stove off-they make the water explode and boil over sometimes) while whisking to keep lumps from forming.  Whisk it again pretty good again in a few minutes after it comes back to a simmer. Cook them until they are done, and then add whatever the hell you want. Salt and butter is fine for plain grits-they might be kind of stiff. I like salt, pepper, paprika, milk, and sharp cheddar (‘rat cheese’ as my grandfather used to call it). Cream cheese is good too. If they get too runny, put some heat under them again and cook off some liquid until they are the texture you like. Plop 2 eggs on top, cut them up in the grits and let the yolk go everywhere.  This is super comfort food for me and is a nice easy supper or a big breakfast. Good with sausage cut up in there with the eggs too.
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Apr 9, 2020 01:06
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Biscuits Good biscuits are delicious. Plenty of southern mothers used to bake biscuits every single morning, and I’m sure some still do. I’ve tweaked my biscuits recipe/technique quite a bit over the years and this is what I’ve settled on. They get good reviews. I have always used White Lily self-rising flour. I literally do not know how to make biscuits without it. The recipe on the back is, again, a pretty good guide for proportions etc. but I just do it by eye/feel. Martha White self-rising is probably fine too, but you want a southern flour. They are made with a lower protein wheat that makes a more tender biscuit.  After much experimentation, I have settled on a three fat method of biscuit making. For a long time I just used all Crisco and that makes a good biscuit. I think an all butter biscuit gets tough, but the butter flavor is nice. I added some lard a while ago and it’s stuck-it just gives a certain something that makes it all better. It’s about equal portions of each. They don’t need to be chilled or anything. Put the fat on the flour, and cut it in. This is just like making pie dough.  You could use the food processor but omg that thing is hard to clean and I think it chops things up too fine. Get a pastry blender if you don’t have one.  When it starts looking like little peas, grab a handful and squeeze.  If it pretty much sticks together like that, and breaks apart like this:  Then you’ve got enough fat in there. If it doesn’t stick together, add a little more fat. Next add the buttermilk, a little at a time:  This is the tricky part. Too much buttermilk and the dough gets too sticky and for some reason it makes tougher biscuits. Not enough and the dough won’t come together and you get dry biscuits. Adding more milk is fine, but you don’t want to work the dough too much, because that will make tougher biscuits, and I like tender biscuits. When the dough comes together, turn it out on a floured surface, and roll or pat it out 3/8” thick or so.  Fold it back on itself like a wallet or quarters or whatever. We’re just trying to get some layers in there. This dough was a little sticky and difficult to deal with.  Do that again, then roll out ½” thick and cut with a biscuit cutter. Oh yeah and you should have been preheating a skillet in the oven like with cornbread (or not-they work fine on a cold sheet pan too)  Brush with some melted butter, and toss in the oven until nicely browned.  Mmmmmmm There’s a million ways to make biscuits. My great-aunt is from Kentucky and grew up eating beaten biscuits, someone told me the best biscuits they ever made were just heavy cream and self-rising flour and I keep meaning to try that. Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Apr 9, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 01:07
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Alright that's some photodump basics I've cooked over the last week or two to get started-what've y'all been cooking?
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Apr 9, 2020 01:08
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Croatoan posted:Your greens are fine but I really like a vinegary pot likker. I use my instant pot and cook kale greens with country ham pieces and a few glugs of vinegar and cook them for about 4 hours. It helps break down the cellulose and makes the pot likker super green and tasty af. A ham hock is probably cheaper but I like the little bits of ham you get from the country ham. I will have to try more vinegary greens. Sometimes I splash a little vinegar on them on the plate. I don't have a pressure cooker, but they would definitely be a perfect candidate for that. There is a tire store here where the owner is a crazy grits purist and grinds his own and sells them in ziplock bags and they are in fact pretty good! They're definitely better when I have them, but I tend to goop my grits up so much I don't mind regular old jim dandy. Dinner tonight:  Smothered pork chop with turnip greens, zipper peas, and leftover biscuit.
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Apr 10, 2020 01:55
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:I made Nashville hot chicken (first time I've ever deep fried anything) and it was extremely crispy. Probably the best chicken I've ever had. Had to leave half of it un-sauced though because my wife thinks Dr pepper is too spicy. That looks very good. Did you dredge in buttermilk before frying? Last few times I've done fried chicken I did a buttermilk marinade and it did give a great crunchy crust but then I decided it was too much crust and next time I fry chicken I think I'm gonna just season and flour the chicken and skip a liquid step for a lighter crust.
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Apr 27, 2020 17:18
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Suspect Bucket posted:Oh thank god. The Fiance picked up a bag of Collard Greens from Stop And Shop because it was the only green leafy vegetable left. I don't even know how they got here, this is New Jersey. Who eats collards up here? Despite living in the south for ten years, I never got the trick of making good collards (only really tried twice, something was very swampy and sulfurous about them). Do you have to boil them? We really like stir fried greens, mostly cabbage or spinach. Yeah you don't have to boil collards but they are the toughest of the greens IMO. Taking the ribs out like Whalley suggested helps alot, and the bagged ones are usually younger/tender and chopped up anyway. I like them with garlic and olive oil like spinach, but add a little water and cover and cook a little longer than you might spinach or kale.
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Apr 28, 2020 17:44
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Croatoan posted:Yes. I have and they're really good. Well, actually I use kale but you seem to be pearl clutching at the time regardless. No it does not atomize the greens. empty sea posted:I've roasted pork neck bones before, but they are just way too much work for the meat IMO unless you're broke. They're cheap but goddamn the amount of wrestling with the tiny bones doesn't make it worth it. e: recipe found! George Graham - AcadianaTable.com posted:PORK NECK BONE FRICASSÉE Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 12:56
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Is there an appetizer/snack with a better effort:delicious ratio than cream cheese and red pepper jelly on crackers?
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Apr 29, 2020 17:38
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Resting Lich Face posted:Pepper jelly is bitchin for stir fry too. But then that's not really southern. I hadn’t thought of that, but what made me think of red pepper jelly was actually some sambal olek in stir fry. It’s a lot hotter of course, but some sweetness elsewhere in the stir fry with it just made me think red pepper jelly. (And then I got a jar and block of cream cheese at the store)
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May 2, 2020 04:33
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mediaphage posted:But then, what does?
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May 4, 2020 15:21
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with bacon. I much prefer it to salt pork because a lot of time salt pork isn’t smoked or isn’t heavily smoked. Those crappie look delicious. How did you fry them? My uncle is one of those people who can eat whole bass/bream/catfish and leave nothing behind but the cartoonish fish skeleton, and I have no idea how he does it. Now I want some fried catfish but my kitchen is terrible for frying since it has no exhaust anywhere 
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May 6, 2020 01:40
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Suspect Bucket posted:I caught them at about 1pm, gutted them at 2, coated them with gator seasoning ( salt, celery, paprika, black pepper) and let them chill in the fridge, then I dredged them in AP and shallow fried in canola at 6:30. I topped the collards with the pan drippings. Fish was delicious! White crappie are excellent eating fresh water fish. Great for the freezer as well. Crappie are really great. Good to know they freeze well too. I used to think I hated lake fish until I had some that were hours out of the water really really fresh and that changed my mind even on bass. Cornmeal is my go-to for pan frying because it gets so nice and crispy, but it looks like you got plenty of crisp with just flour.
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May 6, 2020 02:24
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They need salt more than anything imo. Cheese and milk is good too, but lots of salt and some butter are essential to making plain grits edible.
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May 7, 2020 12:55
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learnincurve posted:Coming over from the general thread - The green part of the recipes I can do but what’s an alternative for smoked pork/ham hock? Smoked meat in general is really specialist in the U.K. and the latter I can only get from the meat market which is shut down because of coronavirus. I think really the cured part is probably more important than smoked. Isn't British bacon still cured/salted? Ham or something would be good, or some other cut with with lots of fat/connective tissue. IDK exactly what cut a belly pork joint is, but I'd guess that would be your best bet. Beef brisket might be good too, though a different flavor. It's tough stuff with lots of flavor and connective tissue. Basically whatever bone/joint you'd use to make soup/stock with would be fine. You also don't really need the meat. I've done them vegetarian with just broth, onion, pepper, and some olive oil, or you can add some gelatin to get that lip-smacking collagen that the ham hock provides.
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May 15, 2020 19:06
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What’s everyone’s favorite baby yellow squash preparation? I’m about to be buried in them from the garden. Sliced, lightly bread in cornmeal and fry? Sautéed with onions and some bacon grease?
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May 21, 2020 18:41
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THE MACHO MAN posted:I love learning about random stuff like this I have a big half green, half yellow/red tomato that fell off the plant before it really got ripe. Can I still make fried green tomatoes or will it be too watery/mushy?
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May 23, 2020 15:21
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I think it's gonna be fried green tomatoes, bby squash, and maybe some frozen peas or turnip greens tomorrow night. Maybe some biscuits too. It's been forever since I did fried green tomatoes-what's a good technique/recipe? I think I used to dredge in flour, then buttermilk, then cornbread mix and fry, but I can't remember?
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May 27, 2020 01:44
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Croatoan posted:Edit: wait, you said cornbread mix. Do you mean Jiffy? I've never done that but I guess it'd be ok but way less crunchy than I like. If you want to use a box of Jiffy just make hoecakes. There has never been any Jiffy in my house  Martha white cornbread mix-it's mostly just flour and cornmeal with leaveners. I'd use real cornmeal but I don't have any and don't feel like braving the store. Panko is a good idea, and I think I have some so I may try that.
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May 27, 2020 14:41
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I actually love Jiffy it just fills a niche in my mind called 'sweet corn muffin/cake' not the one called 'cornbread' because I grew up on salty, savory, crispy, unsweet cornbread.
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May 27, 2020 15:09
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Fried green tomatoes went well: It's summer y'all. Snap beans, sauteed squash and onions, hoecake, fried green mater. Maters maybe could have used some kind of sauce? It was the best damned squash I've ever cooked, and I forgot how good fresh snap beans are just boiled in well salted water. I fried everything in a lard/bacon grease mix and I feel like it upped my frying game 100% vs oil. Everything was crunchy and crispy and brown and not at all greasy. Had some cute lil baby yellow and pattypan squash from the garden:  Browned onions in bacon grease, and then added squash. Kept it on very high heat to get color on the squash:  It probably would have been best at this point. I stuck it on the back of the stove while I did the green tomatoes and it steamed and got a little mushy, but still one of the best squash things I have ever cooked, especially for having 4 like ingredients. Hoecakes frying looking so pretty:  Martha white cornmeal mix, and then add roughly equal parts hot water and buttermilk to make a batter. So tasty.
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May 28, 2020 04:26
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What are quick southern-ish meat/protein dishes that come to mind? I sear a ham steak real quick sometimes, but I'd love some more ideas for things to eat with my million vegetables. Snapbeans with onions and bacon grease, butterbeans, and a kind of lame smothered chicken breast tonight.
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Jun 30, 2020 02:28
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All Cornbread Is Delicious. We should celebrate our differences and not let them divide us! We must present a united front against the real enemy- people who call a Coke ‘pop’ and think mayonnaise is gross.
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Jul 1, 2020 00:45
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If pork fat and dairy were vegan, I could totally do it.  Really needed some cornbread but I didn’t want to turn the oven on because it’s still 83 outside
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Aug 13, 2020 02:33
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:If pork fat and dairy were vegan, I could totally do it. I’ve been eating this same pot of peas and pot of greens for 8 days now with some cornbread and hoecakes and it’s literally the best $8 I have ever spent.
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Aug 21, 2020 02:53
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I used to just use crisco, now I use crisco, butter, and lard In about equal parts. I’ve done all lard and all butter, but I prefer all lard to all butter. Butter makes tougher biscuits or something in my experience. They’re not bad, they’re just not melt in your mouth tender southern biscuits.
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Aug 31, 2020 04:22
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SweetAl13 posted:Anyone have a decent recipe for smothered pork chops? I've never made them before, but it seems like the type of stick-to-your-ribs meal that would be perfect as the weather is getting colder. Kaiser Schnitzel posted:
E: ‘make gravy’ is doing a lot of work in that recipe-if you need more instruction on how to make gravy I am happy to share!
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Oct 26, 2020 16:42
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Anyone have a favorite fried catfish recipe? I haven't done it in a long time. I used to marinade in buttermilk and then dredge but that was kind of heavy and gloppy.
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Mar 10, 2021 18:35
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Discovering the package of diced ham at the grocery store was the best thing to ever happen to canned green beans
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Mar 18, 2021 02:30
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Does frozen cut okra work fine in okra and tomatoes? I’ve only ever used fresh.
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Apr 6, 2021 19:10
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Notahippie posted:Yeah, it's fine but the texture is mushier. Fresh is best, blanched and frozen at home from fresh is second best IME, and commercially frozen is a little mushier and less flavorful, but still better than no okra. Thanks it turned out well. A little tough, might should have gotten the frozen young whole okra and cut it up myself. Eastern NC style crock pot pulled pork, purple hulls, okra and maters and cornbread: 
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Apr 7, 2021 02:50
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Fresh field peas are showing up in my local produce market. I cooked some pink-eyes and zipper peas the other day that were really good with baby squash casserole. They had some good snap beans too so I did snap beans and red potatoes. I don't know what it is about boiling snap beans with potatoes that makes them both taste so much better but dang they're good, no pork required.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:55
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Put melted lard in your cornbread instead of oil. It’s good and makes it super crispy. I dunno why, but a little lard in the oil when frying seems to make things crispy too?
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Oct 13, 2021 03:05
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I can't get into chitterlings but neck bones are good as heck. I made some neckbone gumbo one time that was amazing.
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Oct 13, 2021 13:19
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I had some of the best fried catfish of my life today and I just want more. Think I might fry some at home this weekend.
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Sep 3, 2022 00:07
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 21:53 |
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Just made biscuits with heavy cream and self rising flour and a little bacon grease and they aren't the best biscuits i ever ate but the  to delicious ratio is off the chart. Gonna try adding some buttermilk powder in next time.E: upon further testing I've concluded they are a touch dry? But still good, just need some butter or a sausage patty in the middle. Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Feb 4, 2024 |
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Feb 4, 2024 16:06
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