Category: Poetry, Pubished yes and no

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India, part 3. Dhal and Khima (pigeon peas, pink lentils, meatballs with dried apricot


HAVING A BALL MY DHALING?

In the most beautiful of times, Autumn, we crave hearty and easy to heat or reheat foods. In Southern tradition the tailgate, campfire, back porch and by the fire foods have to be able to rest easy to eat, keep warm and/or fit inside a bun. Wanting to keep the focus on Indian cuisines for America the options were very easy to choose from for this colorful, cool season.

Meatballs and beans comes to mind. Pigeon peas (tur dhal) with diced pumpkin and fried pink lentils (masoor dhal); and ground beef, garam masala, and dried apricot khima. Our exploration of making the unfamiliar familiar and raising the familiar to the new or unfamiliar is a perfect project for kofta or khima in Mombai Parsi cuisine (keftedes, polpette, boulette de viands, meatballs) and dhal/dal (pulses is the culinary family name for legumes, peanuts, beans) which refers to vegetarian cuisine of the South or Dakshin, in this case of the Andrah region. As with all comfort foods the dishes may vary from region to region, home to home, mother to mother. The words may seem strange but the delicious is not.

Here we are in part three of a set of foods native to Indian cuisines that are items we regularly use in the Western Hemisphere. The more I learn the more these once mysterious ingredients and dishes arrive in my rotation of meals. This is as much fun as I have had in a very long time in discovering new ingredients and new ways of cooking. The dishes I have chosen are ones that friends have prepared in the past or that became alluring to me the more I learned of them. Please forgive if these are not completely of their home, the attempt is to familiarize for the ease of the American kitchen. Every time you shake a bottle of Worcestershire, use a chutney or cook split peas you are giving a nod to the vast continent of 33 distinct cuisines, India. Not only in dedication to Suyauta Winefield, Mariam & Wes Qureshi, Dot Whitelaw (Mother), Melanie P., Jordan T., Don Chambers, Jarad Blanton, Cindy and JP of Southern Distinction, Tom and Mel of Atlanta Food & Beer, but dedicated to the vast world of inspiration that is our world of food, inclusive and loving, from the ground to the plate in kitchens unhindered. I do this all for the pleasure of the plate without remuneration, simply so that all may enjoy the fruits of life.

 

Pigeon peas (tur dhal) with diced pumpkin and fried pink lentils (masoor dhal). Indian cuisines use only pink, green and yellow lentils. The pink cooks quickly and binds well for reforming to fry. You can use brown/green lentils with longer cook time. The brownish lentils we are familiar with are unhulled, which can be slightly bitter if not soaked and repeatedly rinsed in cold water. If you cannot find pigeon peas (in Athens area they are at Publix, Taj Mahal or at any Indian and Middle Eastern grocers) then use garbanzo, black beans (the closest in flavor) or kidney beans. Pigeon peas are used in Latin, Caribbean, Indian and most equatorial cuisines. The garbanzo is native to countries west of India, most notably Afghanistan, Turkey, Israel/Palestine and Lebanon. They are the primary pea used for humus, Latin dishes and Middle East recipes in America. Remember fresh cheese, paneer, from last month? Make it again or buy queso fresco as this dish is best garnished with crumbly paneer.

We are most familiar with pulses (traditional French cuisine term) or dhal as split peas, lentils, pigeon peas, black beans, peanuts, black eyed peas and various mung beans. Think of pulses/dhal as being the edible seed inside of a pod. When you see a recipe for various dhal dishes you are already familiar with some of the ingredients, the name dhal simply refers to it’s being an Indian dish.

The khima/meatball will be ground beef, garam masala, chilies and dried apricot. Middle eastern and Kerala (Southern India Christian and Muslim) cuisine uses lamb for the meat. The price and availability of ground lamb can be high here so I am using beef. Hunting season has begun so you can certainly substitute ground venison. The only ingredient change from traditional is the use of beef. Dried fruits are common across Asia to the Middle East, apricot is one of the most versatile stone fruits, welcoming in recipes from jams to hams.

Who doesn’t have some kind of meatball dish in their cuisine? Rhetorical question there. Meatballs are good anywhere from side dish to kebabs and pastas, sandwiches and on top of potatoes. You can use any meat, fowl, seafood or textured soy protein (tofu). The technique is the same from land to land. Grind, mix and gently roll into shape. They can be pan sautéed, grilled as kebab, roasted dry or in sauce. Who doesn’t like meat/food on a stick, so if kabobs are your thing then put them on skewers and cook over a grill or fire. If the meat is very lean you will need to add some kind of fat or oil to help it bind together. And now, time to cook!

PUMPKIN PIGEON PEAS WITH FRIED PINK LENTILS

You will need an inexpensive coffee grinder used only for spice grinding, a cutting board, sauce pot or slow cooker, and an iron skillet. The finished pigeon peas will be moist and soft, just a small amount of liquid. The pink lentils will be crisp and used as a garnish on the peas. Recipes are for four as a side dish so adjust as necessary for more people. Arrange ingredients for these recipes before you start prepping.

Asafoetida is derived from a kind of fennel, somewhat pungent, tastes of shallot, is used to help digestion, maintain color in the peas, and as a slight baking soda action that elevates the flavor. It is dark brown and hard. You will need to use a microplane grater. If you do not want to buy any then use 1/3 teaspoon baking soda and 10 crushed fennel seeds. If you have curry leaves use 4 in this dish.

PIGEON PEAS

1 cup dry pigeon peas (small, round and off white color)

2 ½ cups water, soak peas for 6+ hours

1/3 teaspoon cumin, powder

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon ginger, minced

½ teaspoon turmeric

2 teaspoons asafoetida

1 teaspoon red chili powder

2 teaspoons salt

.25 ounce cilantro, leaves and stems chopped

10 ounces pumpkin, peeled, fine dice

4 ounces white onion, chopped

6 ounces tomato, chopped, use juice and seeds

1 tablespoon lemon juice

6 ounces coconut milk

Pour peas and water into pot. In a mortar and pestle crush cumin, turmeric, garlic, ginger, cilantro, asafoetida, chili and salt into a paste. It will be a paste. Put everything into a crock pot. High for 90 minutes and low for 90 minutes. You can add sliced okra, green beans or any other gourd.

PINK LENTILS

If you have black mustard seeds then use them. When you crush the seeds do so between sheets of plastic wrap so that they do not fly all over the kitchen.

 

½ cup pink lentils (turns tan when cooked)

2 cups water, soak for one hour

½ teaspoon salt

1/3 teaspoon coriander, ground

¼ teaspoon black cardamom, ground, use a zester on whole pod

1 serrano pepper, minced

1 garlic clove, smashed and pressed into paste

¼ teaspoon mustard seeds, crushed

During last 3 minutes add:

3 tablespoons yellow fine corn flour, (Mills Farm Red Mule)

For pan frying:

3 tablespoons corn oil

1 tablespoon butter

 

Pour lentils and water into pan, add rest of ingredients except oils, corn meal. Boil and then turn down to low, cover and cook 45 minutes. Remove cover, turn up to medium, add cornmeal, stir. Dust a plate with corn flour and transfer lentil paste. If it is too loose add more corn meal.

Shape into 12 quarter sized discs, not very thick. Dust again with corn flour. Refrigerate for minimum one hour.

Heat butter and oil to 350 degrees. It will sputter. Add discs one by one to the oil. Cook on medium high until they are crispy and light brown color. Place 3 with each serving of pigeon peas. This is a very filling dish. Garnish with fresh cheese, cilantro leaves, crushed peppers and lime wedges.

 

MEATBALLS/KHIMA

The combination may sound extreme but the results are in the rich and complex flavor. Perfect to match up to any bean dish. Good as sandwich, pasta, rice or our pigeon pea recipe.

Makes 16.

1 pound sirloin, ground

1 1/2 teaspoon garam masala (re, August Southern Distinction)

1 teaspoon curry powder

¼ teaspoon cloves, ground

½ teaspoon red chili powder

1 tablespoon jalapeno, minced

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3 1/2 ounces apricot, dried, chopped

1 ½ ounces almonds, ground

3 ounces onion, minced

2/3rd cup fine bread crumbs

SAUTE:

3 tablespoons corn oil

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Mix all ingredients together in bowl. Do not over mix, just enough to combine. Roll into 16, 1 1/2 ounce balls. If they are not holding form add more bread crumbs.

Heat large cast iron skillet with 3 tablespoons corn oil and 1 tablespoon butter on high. When it is 350~ add the meatballs one by one. Let cook a minute all around so that it browns. Heat oven to 350~ and transfer skillet and meatballs to oven. Turn after 10 minutes. Cook 1o more minutes. Remove, set meatballs on paper towels to drain any oils.

Serve with our pigeon peas and fried lentils with paneer (queso fresca). Serve with naan for your bread. You can find this bouncy, soft, perfect flat bread in most grocery stores.

Khima can served in any number of ways such as sandwich with spicy tomato sauce, on buttery rice noodles and vegetables, brown basmati rice and roasted red bell pepper puree, roasted with chopped sweet potatoes

I know there are a few ingredients new to home cooks. Once you purchase in the smallest amount, use them a few times and your senses will tell you why these are such magnificent additions to the pantry. I can’t even cook black eyed peas without asafoetida! Comfort foods arrive when we least expect it, really. Take your time familiarizing yourself with the recipes, if you rush it then you open yourself up for mistakes.

With all hope for a beautiful season that you may eat well, freely converse and spread the love.

 

Picking Up The Scent Of Near October

Closer in from the treetop shouts

Of blaze and color against bluest sky,

The roses and tomatoes, fueled by rains

And August mulch bloom their strongest,

Brightest, longest on into November.

Friendships seem more conversational,

Politics more interesting and intriguing,

Weekend afternoons vibrant with the rush

Of collegiate football and home barbecue.

Staking out a crossroads in the woods

For the perfect tree, the perfect deer.

The smell of rows of rolled hay

On a backdrop of barbwire fences,

A herd of Herefords cattle gaze and laze.

And the stones in my pathway

Fall to the side beneath Octobers warmth,

Where for one last long gasp the season

Holds us before the first frost,

Carving pumpkins, telling ghostly lies,

Playing out the role of a Southern

Joy where one smile can change a life

And all loves have first and last names.

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India part 2, Paneer


BELOVED, THE WHEYS OF MILK AND ROSES

Homemade cheese or paneer is daunting for a novice. We will take it a step further into making our own cheese curd. Dairy is very prominent in Indian cuisines. Making the curd evolved from the very simple technique of stirring lemon juice into boiling milk. India, Bengal/Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, South Asian, Latin, Germanic and Mediterranean all make cheese curd. We are most familiar with fresh mozzarella, dry feta and Mexican queso fresco, i.e. fresh cheese. So, paneer in rose/orange blossom water for sweet or as savory cheese with salt and herbs, either way it is a pleasure.

I always bought the curd for buffalo mozzarella (moist, soft) and burrata, a mozzarella with cream center then folded in wheat grass, lotus leaf or banana leaf. For mozzarella cook the curd in 180 degree salted water and then quickly fold it into SOFT not chewy balls or logs and then cool. This method of making fresh mozzarella is a process taught in the early years of a true apprenticeship to become a Chef. Being a Chef is a lifestyle and profession. What one learns in the Classic style of apprenticeship requires 6 to 10 years of full time devotion to learning at least five cuisines and mastering one.. Speaking the language of the kitchen and knowing recipes is just the tip of the spoon. Learning, absorbing and applying is what separates dogma from beautiful actuality. Here, we seek the perfection of homemade. Not all learn how to make their own curd.

I dedicate today to my life long inspiration, friend and beloved, Melanie Paulk. She frequently travels to India, is a yoga instructor and has a yoga studio retreat in Utah. Our march into the world of spices, pulses, breads and heat is a search as ancient as the Silk Road and near as the travels of Columbus. As example, Pulse is a word in Escoffier’s La Culinaire as well as post-British occupied India. It refers to dried beans or legumes including fava, mung beans, chick peas, pigeon peas, split peas, black eyed peas, lima beans, crowder peas, cranberry beans, navy beans, red beans, etc. Learn the language of the Indian kitchen, then learn the dishes. In research and travel we find there are things quite similar between culinary cultures. Then there are those things that seem like they are from another world, which in some cases is close to social fact.

 

The only time I have seen fresh cheese curd made in TV-land (a place where few beyond Alton Brown and Mario Batali tell the truth.) was on Japanese Iron Chef. The Chef  was the inimitable Chen Kenichi of Sichuan fame. He separated the curds and whey, drained, wrapped in four folded cheese cloth and worked it into a viable soft crumble cheese. I was intrigued.

Making paneer required several readings in 7 different books. Days in the kitchen. Preparing “instant” (hah!) from the package, dining out, eating ready made styles and going it alone prepared me to stand as a chef of ancient kitchens. Yogurt cheese, dehin, is made by combining Greek yogurt with sea salt, wrapping in cheesecloth, draining for an hour and sealing in an airtight container overnight in the refrigerator. These are on a level with Neufchatel and cream cheese.

In Athens we have Taj Mahal and Fooks, both on Baxter Street, offering everything and more of Indian and Asian ingredients. Buying Asian, Indian and Latin ingredients is very easy today. Purchase what you need in small quantities for exactly what you need in any individual dish. Karen at Fooks will answer all questions, plus she carries my cookbook (A Romance With Food: Ginger, Lily & Sweet Fire).

Things like asafoetida, mango powder, pomegranate seeds and black cardamom pods for the next column sound like they are impossible, but on the contrary they were only 15 minutes away. As example, asafoetida made me shut a cookbook once and walk away. It is made by powdering the gum of a plant also known as giant fennel and has the slight flavor of leeks. When combined with gum Arabic (A powder made from a scrub brush grown in desert regions, is also used in Altoids.) is used in baking and making savory fresh cheese. It is also good for digestion and is prominent in Hindustan foods. Do not be afraid of what is new to you. Worcestershire is made from Asian fruit tree pod, tamarind. “New” is just a word away from the familiar. It is easier to say “you are what you eat” than it is to understand that “you are what you eat, eats” and their origins. I am sure the hunter gatherers made fun of the first farmers (An age old conflict).

Madhur Jaffery’s books are excellent introductions to Indian cuisines. “The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking” by Yamuna Devi is indispensible, and is perhaps the most definitive of vegetarian cooking. “Cooking At Home With Pedathia” on Andhra style South Indian cooking is a graceful look into home cooking. “Bengali Cooking” by Chitrita Banerji opened gates to the river kingdom. One of the books on Punjab cooking that was easy for me was “Menus and Memories From Punjab” by Veronica Rani Sidhu. She married a Punjab doctor that she met while in college in Michigan. He thought that the Hungarian meal of cucumber in sour cream and chicken paprikosh that her Mother made was a Punjab style meal to impress him! She never told him otherwise.  The world of love and cuisine uniting cultures is not just anecdotal , it is a reality.

 

PANEER

Time to make the cheese! Prep time is in two 15 minute sections, setting time is 3 hours and resting time is 8 hours. You will need a deep, stainless steel 6 to 8 quart pot, cheesecloth (a must for any kitchen) or damp handkerchief, yarn, slotted spoon, broad kitchen spoon, colander or strainer, milk and lemon juice. Seriously, the first stage is that minimalist. Follow directions exactly, the research is done so now for the easy part. Use the curd for the cheese, the whey is the liquid part of the dairy. You can keep reusing the whey each time you make cheese by adding the reserved whey to each preparation.  Fresh cheese is very easy, BUT you must be completely sanitary and precise. It may seem detailed but in reality it is simply a set of precise motions that become second nature, like making Southern biscuits, yeast rolls and cinnamon buns. 32 ounces milk ($2)makes 8 ounces fresh cheese ($12 in store). Use ONLY whole milk, skim and low fat will not make proper curd.

 MAKING THE CHEESE CURD

8 cups whole milk, anything less will not work

1 1/2 tablespoons each lemon juice, lime juice

In deep, heavy bottomed pot heat milk on medium to scald temperature or of 180 degrees. Slowly move the large spoon back and forth in the pot. As milk begins to foam add the juice one tablespoon at a time (10 minutes). Immediately remove from the heat and continue to move the spoon. You will see the curds and whey separate. The whey is watery and greenish yellow. Cover and let cool for 10 minutes.

The separation will be noticeable. Fold the cheesecloth into four layers and set it inside of the colander. Leave enough room to tie the cloth around the curd. Use a flat spider spoon or slotted spoon and lift the curd out of the pan. Place curd in cheesecloth. Save the whey for next time to use as the active acid solution.

Hold the curd bundle under warm water for 10 seconds to rinse off any whey. Gently squeeze the cloth around the curd to release any remaining liquid/moisture.

Drain for ten minutes. Place curd bundle on cutting board and roll it around to shape into a block or cylinder shape. Roll into shape in cloth. Drain for 3 hours.

After 3 hours unwrap the cheese and set on cutting board. Line plastic wrap with paper towels and roll the cheese into a cylinder shape. Refrigerate overnight.

SAVORY

Combine cheese curd with ½ teaspoon salt and 8th teaspoon rice vinegar. Press cheese over and over until it is soft and smooth. Shape into small discs.

SAUTE

1 tablespoon clarified butter or ghee

Heat on very low for 30 seconds each side. Remove and drain. Use for bruschetta, tomato sandwiches, for spicy bean dishes, light snack.

SWEET

1 tablespoon orange blossom water

3 tablespoons jaggery, date palm sugar, turbinado or light bright sugar

8 ounces water

If you want to color the cheese mix food color in bowl and hand press dye and cheese until soft and consistent. Shape cheese into small balls. Poach temperature is 150 degrees. Remove, drain and arrange on plates or serving trays. Sprinkle powdered sugar, cinnamon, allspice or cardamom for extra flavor.

Fresh cheese can also be used for dip, sandwiches, bruschetta and for adding to cooked pulses/beans/dhal. Eat with assorted breads, fruits, cured meats, olive oil and fruit vinegars. That was fun, wasn’t it? Please give fresh cheese making a go of it, you will be amazed and surprised at how much you can do with either paneer or dehin. Fresh cheese is for all cultures. Be warm, kind and loving.

Waking up from late summer hibernation,

Smile, she moves a little closer,

Seems the leaves have all dried up

And the yard is covered in sweet gum grenades,

Too hot to barbecue, fish or garden.

Song choices on the stereo are Blues fixed

And full of Southern hollers, songs of

No work dustbowl days in the 1930s.

Doc Boggs: “used to be a rambler,

Courting Pretty Polly, her beauty

Never been found…there she stands,

So come take a walk with me.”

And I feel the same way, we have our own

Burning long dog days, looking for my

Pretty Polly and sweet cornbread, ha!

A plate to fill and a life to sing,

Looking for a way to make the nights cooler,

To fill them all with food, art

And this world that I call love.

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India, part one, The Brave Hearted Will Take The Bride, Then We Spoke of Andhra, Punjab and Bengal Cuisines


THE BRAVE HEARTED WILL TAKE THE BRIDE,

THEN WE SPOKE OF ANDHRA, PUNJAB AND BENGAL CUISINES

Food is one of the many things where if you cannot go to the birthplace you can at least find it in books, restaurants and friends. When I told a friend of mine that I was exploring the cuisines of the India by studying several cookbooks (seven so far) and dining out she suggested that I go to India. I do not have the money. “You can go there on the cheap.” I was hungry to learn now, so to the books I traveled and found the world of Indian Cuisines. It would be great to travel the world in an endless feast of cuisines, sights and love of the people.

Cookbooks, poetry and history open doors that would otherwise remain closed. India is an open book of secrets, sometimes easy and sometimes daunting. How fun is that? Lots, lots of fun. So if you lived or traveled there feel free to judge or take pleasure in this presentation. My Mother lived in and traveled a good bit throughout India. She tells great stories . I love retelling them. Her impressions and those of my friends led to this fascination.

After my Mother, I happily dedicate this to a romantic and idealized couple, Richard  and Sujauta Winfield, Professor of Philosophy and Attorney. Here is a couple who met, fell in love and married in spite of the protests from her family about marrying an American intellectual. He is brave and philosophical to her beauty and brilliance, and that equals Romantic! They are as in love today as when they first met. They are an inspiration. Hers was the first home style Hindustan Andhra vegetarian appetizers I had experienced. Over the years I have eaten in many Indian style restaurants but hers remains the memory. Whenever I have served them I present a treat at the start of the meal as a way to show my continued love and admiration. Usually it is mango in some form or another. A king of fruits, the mango adapts to all cuisines and preparations. I’ve made mango BBQ sauces, salads, grilled with fresh cheese, ceviche and pickles. Always remember that fruit and cheese reach across thousands of years of world cuisines. There is never anything odd about the pairing of a fruit (from melon, tomato, grapes to mango) with cheese. Mango with a bit of fresh cheese is amazing. So, Mother, Richard and Sujauta, this is for you. I hope that here and in future explorations I represent y’all well.

 

The first challenge was one of choosing regions. India is Asian and that there are things that carry across cultures from the sub continent to Korea. The cuisines of India includes: Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and western Myanmar. Hindu India has a history of Muslim and British influence and occupation so the foods reflect this part of their history. We seek at all times to make the unfamiliar familiar. The foods of the South are spicy hot so that you perspire or cool off and the foods of the North so that the heat is warming, the same as for our Hemisphere. There are 33 regional Indian Cuisines. Yes, 33.

The following are distinct cuisines: Gujarat, Punjab (includes western Pakistan and is called “Land of Five Rivers. Mostly vegetarian but it is where tandoori cooking originated so some meats), Bengal (rice and fish), Kerala (Syrian Christian & Muslim immigrants includes meats), Parsis (Zoroastrian immigrants includes meats, small population in Mumbai), Andhra and Dakshin both Hindu of  southern India, Assam (Northeast includes fish and fowl), Goa (below Mumbai and is influenced by Arabian sea, Portuguese and Hindu), most of the distinctions between cuisines are religion based as in Hindu: Vegetarian and Muslim to Christian: non vegetarian and vegetarian. The lack of refrigeration means that fresh and local are not marketing terms, they are the way of existence. Practically every herb is a culinary herb so explore the options. It is with great pleasure that we all read, cook and admire cuisines for what they are and what they represent.

Bengal, Andhra and a touch of Punjab styles today. This is the first of a set of columns on Indian cuisines adapted to Georgia and Carolina kitchens. It is a venture of intellect, body and passion. Worcestershire, chutney, samosas (stuffed and fried breads), Basmati rice, rice pudding, curry and cinnamon are all from India.

Condiments are part of every meal, this includes pickles, chutneys, nuts, oils and clarified butter (ghee), breads and basmati rice or sweet potatoes. The parantha bread is in the family of pliable flat breads found in China, Ethiopia and Mediterranean Turkey, Lebanon and Israel; chapati is similar to puffy, toasted tortillas. The meals are generally not in stages, they are presented on trays at once with all of the necessary condiments. Chutney is not exactly always the Major Greys jam–like preparation. I was happy to find that they do relate in ways to pesto and spreads as well as chopped fruit style.

Legumes (pulses and grams) such as lentils, chick peas, pigeon peas, soy beans, mung beans and yellow lentils comprise a large part of the diet. Basmati rice is long and light starch. A lot of flour is made with these legumes and rice instead of the wheat flour style of our culture. We will be using brown rice and soy flour.

Eggplant with yogurt; basmati rice; cilantro chutney; mango pickles, red salt and cucumber shrimp cakes; pistachios in pepper oil; rose water lassi is our meal today. It is much easier than it seems. Organization is the key, the rest falls into place. All but two things can be made ahead of time. These recipes serve four.

MUSTARD OIL

This is a general purpose cooking and seasoning oil.

6 ounces Corn oil

15 black peppercorns

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

1 bay leaf

5 Sichuan peppercorns (optional)

Heat but do not cook over 150 degrees for ten minutes. Strain through cheesecloth and set aside. After it cools, cover and keep in refrigerator till use.

PISTACHIO

Shell 12 pistachios per person. Toast in one ounce mustard oil until the color of the nuts begins to tan. Strain. Reserve oil to use as condiment.

 

GARAM MASALA

‘Garam masala’ means hot spice blend. Like curry, there are many combinations of ingredients. The ingredients, along with ground red pepper make up the common spice wheel used in many regions. They are stored in small round metal containers in a round serving tray. No pantry storage, just the wheel and when they are emptied it is time to replenish. I make my own garam masala this way, but it can be purchased. In addition to the following spices I will sometimes add a bit of fenugreek and turmeric to give it a more curry style flavor. Combine and lightly toast.

1/3rd teaspoon Coriander

½ teaspoon Ginger

1/3rd teaspoon Black pepper

1/4th  teaspoon each: Cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves

GHEE

1 pound unsalted butter

Cut butter in 4 ounce pieces. Melt on medium heat in high sided pan. Once it has melted take off of the heat and let cool. Refrigerate in plastic container. After it has hardened lift solid out of container and pour off the water. Scrape off the top milky layer and discard. The yellow solid is the clarified butter or ghee. It can be heated completely on the stove top until the water evaporates. Do not use this method unless you are with someone who has clarified butter before.

BASMATI RICE

Basmati has a scent of roasting almonds. Great cooked in any style from pilaf to boiled. Cook rice in the water only. After it has cooked mix the butter and spice together and serve in small bowls at each plate for the diner to add as they wish.

½ cup basmati rice

1 cup cold water

½ teaspoon garam masala

1 ounce ghee (clarified butter, can substitute corn oil or olive oil)

CHUTNEY

Chutneys of Hindustan are different from what we use in the West. It was a treat to find their similarity to western pesto.

Make the cilantro chutney in a mortar and pestle in order to keep the integrity of the cilantro intact and to release just the right amount of oils from the crema without it separating. Mexican crema, a kind of crème fraiche, instead of making fresh cheese.

½ cup cilantro

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon roasted red chili peppers in corn oil

1 tablespoon +1 teaspoon Mexican crema

¼ teaspoon fine red sea salt

½ teaspoon lime juice

Combine and press together in a mortar and pestle until it is not quite smooth. Serve in small bowl or large spoon next to fish cakes.

EGGPLANT

Either the Japanese long style or ball shaped Indian eggplant is perfect for this dish. Peel the eggplant.

16 slices eggplant, thin slices

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

½ teaspoon ground coriander

½ teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon pink sea salt

2 tablespoons soy flour

1 ounce corn oil

4 thick slices tomato

Combine spices and sprinkle both sides of eggplant. After you sprinkle the seasoning on it let the slices sit for 15 minutes, then gently press with paper towel. Flour and sauté. Serve on top of tomato.

SHRIMP CAKES

This is our Bengal representative. The Bangladesh/Bengal and Coastal areas use shrimp quite a bit so I am using shrimp for this recipe. Whenever possible use Georgia Coastal shrimp.

16 ounces shrimp, chopped

2 ounces brown rice flour or mung bean flour

½ teaspoon granulated red sea salt

½ teaspoon serrano pepper, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ginger, peeled and minced

1 tablespoon lemon, juice

2 ounces cucumber, chopped

2 ounces corn oil or ghee

1 ounce brown rice flour, for dusting

Combine ingredients and pat into 8 small cakes. Dust with rice flour. Sauté on medium heat, turn four times until almost crisp. Internal Temperature will be 160 degrees. Serve on top of crisp lettuce leaves.

MANGO PICKLES

16 slices mango, peeled, thick sliced

2 ounces sweet pickle juice from the jar

2 ounces Shaoxing Chinese cooking wine

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

1 bay leaf, crushed

Combine and store in jar in refrigerator overnight.

LASSI

2 cups greek yogurt

2 cups almond milk

1 tablespoon rose or orange blossom water

2 tablespoons turbinado sugar

10 ice cubes

Puree smooth. Serve immediately in cold glasses.

ROASTED PEPPERS

Make your own or buy a jar of roasted red peppers to serve as a condiment. If making your own combine, red bell pepper and banana chili pepper with 1 ounce corn oil and 1 ounce ghee. Wrap in aluminum foil and roast 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

Set up your serving trays for each person. Keep items separate. Serve flat bread of your choice.  Talk and eat. Share the love.

Sitting on the front porch,

Holding hands watching the sun set,

Over our herb and flower garden:

The scent of roses, tomatoes,

rosemary and geraniums,

Alone and together they rise,

The smell of the South in August.

Sort of like washing up

On a steamy beach and finding

New worlds waiting,

New worlds free of greed and prejudice,

No slander, war and lies,

This banquet of life,

This humanity,

This place we call our own,

All things can be fresh, pure,

Beauty is always around us,

Beauty is always near.

I am glad you here,

Here in our own perfumed garden.

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Country Ribs, Catfish and Smoking Big Green Egg


CATFISH, RIBS AND A SMOKING GRILL
Ever think about how funny it feels to crank up the grill when the temperature of the sun is the same as the thermostat? To stand by the grill is a position of honor, and yet it can be the sweatiest place in the land. But that’s the way it is when the werewolf days (formerly dog days) come rolling in on hot rocks and humid soil. We just burn, take note though that we do not burn pork or beef ribs, catfish and Nathan’s Franks. For all the right reasons we love living in the heart of the South. Keeping cool after a full day of imitating race horses and farm mules is not easy.
The grill calls like a beloved, you want to sit in front of the AC vents, the grill just sits and waits, a still life with wonder, a callous pioneer of ceramic and steel. So we answer the siren of the back yard and promise all a smoke blessed dinner of Georgia and North Carolina, two of my three favorite states, the other being Northern California, a state into itself. Menu is: pork ribs and catfish, figs and peaches, tomatoes and Vidalia onions, jalapeno and poblano peppers.
If you do not have catfish from your family fisherman you can find Vietnamese swai or basa and Southern farmed catfish in the grocery stores now. Swai and basa are farmed Asian river catfish. Swai has been served by many restaurants of questionable nature as grouper for grouper sandwiches or as steamed grouper. When you see a value meal or low priced grouper sandwich the bet is on that it is not grouper and is in fact swai. Grouper is not inexpensive anymore and has not been for a few years.
This deceit of breed is a favorite find for investigative reports on TV and in food journals. Kind of like restaurants that sell farmed perch (tilapia) from China instead of Central American or Texas farmed. The difference is significant. Perch/tilapia is a delicious fish. Izumi dai tilapia raised in near cesspool conditions with questionable feed just does not taste very good. Not all tilapia is alike and not all catfish is alike. Buyer be aware of what you are doing. Tilapia is a herbivore so it is not fatty and really does have a slight green vegetable flavor, as with catfish a buttermilk marinade will smooth out the flavors. Both are sustainable and that is ALWAYS a good thing. Seafood Choices Alliance lists American farmed catfish as a best choice and swai as a good alternative.
Our other star of the sunset grill are country pork ribs. The big rich meaty and fatty jewels of the rib family. Ribs love a marinade and a hot smoke even more. We will be using coconut and tamarind juices in our marinade for the ribs. Stop it, don’t even complain that you can’t find these ingredients. They are right there in Fooks, Asian grocery, any Super Mercado or in the Latin/Asian section of most grocery stores.
You can make your own coconut milk with shredded coconut and water. That is how canned coconut milk is made, from by pressing and squeezing the water and coconut together through a cheese cloth. Tamarind water and paste is made by running warm water over tamarind and separating the seed from the flesh. Throw away the seed and mix the tamarind and water together into a paste. It is that easy. It is also easy to buy a can of coconut milk and a can of tamarind juice. Worcestershire sauce is made with tamarind. So it is not unfamiliar to you, just by name, by name and a few spices. In Thai grocery stores you will see tamarind labeled as candy. It is used for making soft drinks, candy, British condiments, sauces and marinades. The flavor is in the neighborhood of lemons and limes. Young coconut juice and tamarind juice are healthy and refreshing as a summer drink should be.
MASTER GUIDE FOR ALL GRILL/SMOKING OR KETTLE GRILLING:
Prepare your grill with 10 to 12 pieces chunk hickory and apple, or pecan and cherry wood and charcoal chunks. You will also need two cups of fruit wood chips soaked over night in water and then loosely wrapped in aluminum foil. Cook the charcoals to gray. Place the aluminum foil wrapped chips on top of the coals. Grill screen 12 to 18 inches from heat source. When the wood chips start to smoke then begin grilling.
Be careful not to let the pork burn so regulate how much air enters the base of the grill to a minimum, and frequently turn the meat. Total grill time is about an hour for fast and 8 hours for slow smoke. During the last five minutes of grilling brush the marinade on the meat. I have smoked ribs and briskets for up to 12 hours. Pork ham took 20 hours for my best friends’ wedding and it was the best I ever cooked. Avoid the little no match charcoal briquettes, use real wood charcoal and wood. The best smoke flavor comes from the best ingredients. Treated coals will ruin a ceramic smoker like Big Green Egg, Komodo and Primo.
The smoke matters so choose wood to compliment what you are cooking.
PORK RIBS, PEACHES, FIGS AND POBLANO PEPPERS
Recipes are for 4 people . Cut the rib meat in three slices keeping it on the bone. This allows smoke and marinade for short cook time and flavor. Grill temperature will be 250 degrees. Cook ribs to 165 degree internal temperature.
5 pounds pork short ribs/country ribs
2 ounces corn oil
6 ounces soy sauce
6 ounces tamarind juice
6 ounces young coconut juice
4 ounces apple cider vinegar
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 ounces ginger, sliced long ways
1 onion, chopped
4 ounces honey
2 ounces maple syrup
Combine, add ribs and marinade overnight in sealed plastic container.
Reserve one cup marinade for the sauce. Mix the reserved with 5 ounces ketchup. Heat 20 minutes medium low heat and brush on ribs during last 15 minutes smoking.
4 peaches, cut in half and remove the stone
12 figs, whole (pig with fig!)
1 poblano pepper cut in 8 squares
1 Vidalia onion, peeled, cut in four pieces
Remove pork from marinade and grill for 30 minutes per side turning them four times. Keep the lid closed on the smoker grill between turns.
Grill onion and peppers for 20 minutes, grill fruits for ten minutes.
Serve with favorite slaw, grilled corn on the cob and grilled potatoes.
BUTTERMILK CATFISH, JALAPENO AND TOMATOES
The buttermilk marinade removes the pond flavor and fills it with the medium fatty and smooth taste we look for in fresh water fish. Catfish loves to be fried but properly treated it is a great grill fish as well.
24 ounces catfish (or swai), cut into 8 small steaks
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
Combine and marinade 4 hours to overnight (12 hours). Remove and shake off the marinade. Discard marinade. Set catfish on paper towels. Sprinkle again with Bay Seafood seasoning.
Grill temperature to 400 degrees. Grill 5 minutes per side turning four times.
Serve with onion hush puppies, tartar sauce, sliced tomatoes and jalapenos.
Thanks, keep cool and truly love the ones you’re with.

Everywhere around wild fruits
are racing with tomatoes
to see who ripens first,
leaves reach star-ward,
roots dig further and further
deeper down,
and we watch:
Hoping
the water and light
are just enough
just enough for the perfect
black Cherokee tomato,
just enough for long beans
and roses, Anaheim peppers,
basil, rosemary, garlic,
you name it,
Just enough for you and I
to bet on which will ripen first,
which green tomato is fried
and which lives another day.
This is the life, summer love
and patient love swinging
on the porch together at dusk.

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Learning the Charm Of Crock Pots From Kitchen Sink To Cassoulet


LEARNING THE CHARM OF CROCK POTS
FROM KITCHEN SINK TO CASSOULET
Happy New Year and Hello 2011! The black eyed peas and collards have all been eaten and it is time to keep the crock pot out for more great food. We owe a lot to the crock pot or slow cooker. Slow cooker dishes are made for families of one to full sized classic family of five. One pot is good for a week or a big Sunday. They cook smoothly, evenly and by keeping the top on they recycle the liquids. Since no stock is lost to the room it all stays in with the vegetables and meat. By simmering for 6 to 10 hours the meats become very tender and full flavored. Crock pots are excellent for short ribs. There are people who live by the crock pot, and this is dedicated to all of you who love or will love the beauty of a long simmered pot of navy beans/black beans/pinto/, okra, chicken and pork, and the elegantly peasant staple of cassoulet.
When I was getting ready for this I called my friends Don Chambers, Jarad Blanton and then Bryan Redding. I asked what they thought of crock pots. Immediately each said they used them all the time and love ‘em; and of course added that it is in high favor by all Mothers. Enough said. I had to do it. But the problem was how do I make it unique? I do not. The recipes here are classic French cuisine with the cassoulet and classic Southern as in gumbo variations. While shopping I saw that crock pots are now being sold in dual units. Side by side in the same console for optimized slow cooking! This is the way to save money and labor while putting together either a big family meal or a weeks worth of base for one or two people.
Purists put your heavy hand aside as this cassoulet recipe has smoked duck instead of duck confit in the recipe, nor are there copious amounts of thick cut pork belly or fatback, just hickory bacon and olive oil. I have adjusted for a slow cooker style. The rest of the dish is fairly standard in relation to the history of the dish. It is family food, farm food, a celebration of harvest. For us here in the South, crock dishes and cassoulet are festive enough by the very nature of the happy unity of flavors that takes place in the cooker. Winter demands we have big pots of something cooking from venison chili to cassoulet.
STANDARD PANTRY CROCK POT
Here we have the standard “there’s nothing to eat” emptying of the pantry and refrigerator. I know this because I have done this, and what fun it is to find jewels where we thought there were none. Not enough praise can be lain upon a cooking tool like a crock pot. I use a Cuisinart one that is all ceramic. The dual ones that I saw in the store were stainless-aluminum alloy in a polycarbonate cabinet. Pretty impressive stuff and well worth owning if your family needs require that much on going cooking.
The ingredients are not unusual. Everything is seasonally appropriate and if not fresh then dried is always there on the grocers shelves. I use guajilla pepper because the hot background to the fruity aroma adds a good even spicy heat to the dish. The peanuts and dried cranberries came as an after thought. On my second helping I thought that something was missing. This thing is crunch and the citrus sweet of peanuts and cranberries. Call this a gumbo if you want to, add fried crawfish tails to garnish and there you have a salty, crackly, smooth and earthy plate of goodness.
Cook pearled barley ahead of time and add to pot with other ingredients. Cook time for this recipe is 1 hour on high to bring it to a stable 300 degrees, then turn to low, 140 degrees, and cook for 7 hours. Cook a total of 8 hours. You can cook it for up to 10 hours if you want to really intensify the flavors. There are recipes requiring 16 hours time in the slow cooker. Keep covered except when adding ingredients. When using ground meats like our sausage then brown it first, pour off the grease and then add to the crock pot. Thick cut vegetables go into the bottom of the pot. Add fresh herbs and seafood add during last 60-45 minutes. Vinegar based seasonings like Tabasco and Cholula will get bitter so stick to the dried and fresh peppers. Do not uncover, between seasoning, just let the crock pot do the job it was made to do.
There is no “reducing” of liquids in a crock pot because the liquid recycles back down into the pot. Do not fill more than two inches from the top. Every time you lift the cover add an additional 20 minutes to your cook time. Do not stir after it starts cooking. Slow cooking is that sensitive! It is not merely mix and walk away, there really are techniques. Do not think of the crock pot as a place to empty straight from freezer to pot. Do not do it. Adding frozen foods to an already cooking crock pot is one of the things that causes intestinal discomfort, i.e. food poisoning. Best solution is to use fresh vegetables only and if you are using frozen meats then thaw thoroughly and sauté before adding to the cauldron of deliciousness.
A CHICKEN AND A HOG WALK INTO A BAR
Ingredients are listed in the order you should put them into the slow cooker.

1 1/2 quarts Chicken stock
1 1/3 cups White corn kernels
10 ounces Chicken, skinless, thigh and breast, thick dice
4 ounces Bacon, chopped, cook with sausage
6 ounces Ground sage pork sausage, browned and degreased
1 cup Pearled barley, cooked
2 cups Okra, sliced
1 cup Chayote squash, thick dice
1/2 pound Red potatoes, thick dice
½ pound Butternut squash, peeled, seeded, thick dice
6 stalks Green onion, sliced
4 cloves Garlic, crushed
Add during last hour of cooking
1/3 cup Cilantro, fresh, stems and leaves, chopped
15 fronds Rosemary, crushed
3 Bay leaves
1 tablespoon Guajilla pepper, dried, seeded and sliced
1 tablespoon Coarse black pepper
1 ½ tablespoons Coarse salt
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
12 ounces Dark Beer
At Service
2 tablespoons Peanuts per plate
1 tablespoon Dried cranberries per plate
4 ounces cooked basmati rice per plate

Garnish with whole cilantro leaves.

Serve over a plate of basmati rice with basil and olive oil. Cornbread is required.

A HUNGRY SOUTHERNER WALKS INTO A SUPERBOWL PARTY
This is a five ingredient slow cooker dish but the beef and potatoes do not count. Perfect for a base for chili.
1 pound Beef sirloin, cut in thick cubes
1 ½ pounds Russet potatoes, cut in thick dice
2 cups Cooked red beans
1 teaspoon Tony Chacheres Original Creole Seasoning
1 tablespoon Coarse Black Pepper
12 ounces Beef stock
12 ounces Good pilsner like a Terrapin brew
Combine and cook for 10 hours. Garnish with chutney or chow chow. Think chili. Serve over thick pasta like fettuccine.

SONOMA TO CLARKE COUNTY, CASSOULET IS HERE TO STAY
My best day with cassoulet was at St. Jean Winery in the early 1980s. We sat outside at a long wooden table under a huge magnolia in front of the main house. They treated the staff of St. Orres where I was working to a day at the farm. It was magnificent. The owner and his wife, Jean, were regulars at St. Orres and loved our food. What is not to love about any foods all fresh from Mendocino and Sonoma Counties? I sat next to the wine master. I did not know it at first and as I raved about the cassoulet, rye bread and Chardonnay he began to laugh and introduced himself. I felt honored and humble. The Coast and the Valley was vibrant with the rush of New American Cuisine back then, when Chefs worked together and Alice Waters was discussed at every meal, when farm to table first began in 1979 and still today seems like something new. Farm to table should never be a memory, it should always be now.
The smoker here is the Big Green Egg, Weber, Lil Indian, Brinkman or whatever brand you have for smoking the turkey and duck. I smoked a whole duck seasoned with rum, sweet soy, sambal and ginger for 6 hours with hickory wood. I seasoned the turkey with a traditional thyme, sea salt, black pepper, oregano, rosemary, sage and white wine rub. Let it stand overnight and then smoked with cherry wood for 12 hours. Crispy skin and smoky smooth meat. Cassoulet is a farm, home, peasant dish that originally used duck confit (duck cooked and chilled in duck fat) and haricot beans as the base. If you do not want to cook outside then roast the duck and turkey in the oven. You can cut the turkey in half and thus reduce the cook time. Internal temperature for duck should be 150 degrees while the turkey should reach 180.
The basic definition is “mixed bean and meat stew” so a lot is left to the particular bias of the chef preparing the dish. As I learned cassoulet from German and French Chefs it was duck, lamb, turkey, pork fatback, cranberry beans, white beans, white wine, tomatoes, wild rice and chicken stock.
As time goes by our tastes change a bit and the weather demands a nice day in and out by the smoker. Cold weather is perfect for grilling out in the South. Our cold weather is thankfully mild. If you have a Big Green Egg or other kind of ceramic smoker/grill and it is still hot from smoking the turkey you can make the cassoulet inside of it. Use an iron pot with lid, put the ingredients in and use hickory wood and apple wood for the smoke. Set it so that the temperature is at 200 degrees and leave it inside to cook for seven hours.
When using a standard slow cooker/crock pot you will cook the cassoulet for 10 hours, 1 hour on high and 9 hours on low. Add the duck during the last two hours of cooking. Start with all the other ingredients. When using dried herbs use flake, not powder.
10 ounces Duck, boneless, skinless
2 Turkey wings, skinless, cut in fourths
10 ounces Turkey breast meat, thick chopped
10 ounces Summer sausage, cut in thick cubes
4 strips Hickory bacon, dice, sauté, add all to pot
2 cups Navy beans, cooked
1 pound Red potatoes, large dice
1 cup Carrots, peeled, large dice
1 cup Turnips, peeled, medium diced
1 cup Onions, diced
1 Green bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons Tomato paste
1 cup Tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 ½ quarts Chicken Stock
1 pint White Cooking wine
1 teaspoon Thyme
1 teaspoon Rubbed Sage
½ teaspoon Oregano
1/3 cup Parsley, chopped
2 tablespoon Sea Salt
1 tablespoon Coarse Black Pepper
Garnish:
2 cups Spinach leaves, chiffonade cut (thin strips)

While it is cooking you can make a favorite rice or even mashed potato dish to use as service for the cassoulet. I have even had it in hollowed out bread bowls. Just take a thick crust round bread and heat it to very warm, cut out the top and remove the bread leaving a half inch to the crust so that it does not leak. Then spoon the cassoulet inside of the bread. Place a duck leg and turkey wing section on top of each serving. Garnish with thin sliced spinach over the whole serving. This is a rich dish that is good for any cold weather afternoon or evening.
If you don’t want to use the slow cooker for this dish you can cook the beans on the stove and roast the meats, then combine the ingredients in a roasting pan and cook again so that the ingredients are more distinct. After you remove the ingredients from the roasting pan pour the juices into a sauce pan. Add a cup of chicken stock and cook on high heat, stirring infrequently, until it has all reduced to one cup. Arrange each portion on a plate and pour the sauce over the cassoulet. Decorate with the chiffonade spinach. To really take this to the next stage you can then place a grilled lamb chop or pork chop next to the duck leg and turkey wing on the plate. This is as hearty and hardy as food can be.
This marks a great time for me. My book is finally in print and available in bookstores, Amazon, the publisher (Lummox Press) and from me at book events. This has been a labor of love for so many reasons and most of all it is a love letter to World Cuisine. The world is such a beautiful banquet of hundreds of cuisines and each as important as the next. Southern Distinction is where these recipes are first expressed beyond home or restaurant, and I am thankful to Bryan for his photography and inspiration, to Cindy and Keith for publishing such a great magazine and most of all to the cooks and readers here. It is all for you:
“Ginger, Lily & Sweet Fire: A Romance With Food”
At The Gates
Reading the Song of Songs
The way I have for years and years,
This little book,
The greatest love poem,
It goes beyond one man one woman,
It goes into the scope of life,
Of how to love
To hunt to harvest and enjoy,
To live upon this earth,
To simplify the seasons
Into the grace
Of doves and deer,
The sweetness here
Of almonds and figs,
The kiss of the Sing-Shulamite,
Of all things beloved,
We learn what is a grace
When we awake to being loved.

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Bison, Boar And Georgia Deer With Dumpling Squash And Sweet Root Beer


BISON, BOAR AND GEORGIA DEER

WITH DUMPLING SQUASH AND SWEET ROOT BEER

There are so many beautiful things here in Georgia that it is hard to pin down a few and say “that’s what it is” that makes life here so fine. I have to say that in late Fall (some call it Winter) it is the pines, the rhododendrons, pecans, fresh venison, thick skinned squashes, sweet potatoes, morning fog, and…oh well, I guess it is all those things and more that defines what is Georgia in December. This column is for those of you with a hunter in the family. If there is not one then you can find these meats online or in specialty grocery stores. The venison, boar and bison that you can buy commercial are all of course raised on ranches. We can only sell meats that have been inspected. The only non-inspected hunted species that we can sell in restaurants and grocery stores is fish and shell fish.

Venison, boar and bison that you buy are semi-wild. We call them game meats because that is what hunting on large estates (pre 20th century) was once considered, game. Gaminess, or more pronounced flavors were desired back then which was acquired both by the age of the animal and by how long it was hung to cure. Hunting is now sport. What will it be 25 years from now?

Today our tastes have become more attuned to less pronounced flavors than what was once desired. The diet for hogs and sows that are left to go wild on the ranch is regulated the same way that it is for red deer and American Buffalo or bison. This hold true as well for our beef and lamb. Corn feed has a lot to do with flavors for beef. Beef cattle that are allowed to eat hay and grass and are not fed corn and weight gaining feeds in the stockyards have a flavor that is perceived as slightly wild. After 30 years of corn fed beef I became bored with the one flavor germane to American bred cattle. If I want it to taste like butter or corn then I will add butter or corn, and then of course vary the types of meat. Near wild game meats and fowl have flavor. The food you eat tastes like what it eats. It continues to be true that you are what you eat eats. Fattier meats are more tender by the very fact that fat/oils do tenderize the muscle. The more we learn about our foods the more we learn how to cook them so that the flavors and textures compliment one another.

The Fall to Winter fruits that we have available match up to our inherent sense of taste of what goes together. Fuyu persimmons, dried cranberries, oranges, kumquats, pomegranates, apples, blackberries, aged cheeses, rice, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds and winter squashes are all perfect with our game meats. I like Georgia venison so much because of their diet this time of year, pecans. The famous Blackfoot (Serrano/Iberian) pig of Spain is famously delicious for the same reason except that they eat acorns. Virginia ham was once prized because of their diet of peanuts. Variety is good. Yes it is the spice of life and spice is good as well, so spice up and roll out the cutting boards we are doing what is natural in this time of year: eating. The more we buy the good foods the more they will produce to meet demand, and in the long run equals lower price.

From the edge of extinction to holding on enough to be raised on ranches the American Bison is one incredible animal. The flavor is what beef should taste like, full, robust and lean. For some reason most of what can be found in stores is always ground or sirloin (if you are lucky). I would like to buy bison ribs or bison T-Bone one day, now that would be a grocery store treat. The interesting meats should be made more available in butcher shops in areas that show support for near wild game meats. Restaurants can offer just about anything, but sometimes it is nice to cook the cool stuff at home. You can substitute any of our recipe meats with lamb, ostrich, Berkshire pork and ground hormone free grass fed beef.

BISON BURGERS

Our burgers will be mixed with gorgonzola cheese, cranberries. An easy root beer ketchup on whole wheat toast with hickory bacon and a small wild greens salad. Ground bison and sirloin are the only forms I have found it in grocery stores. Great, and I mean GREAT things about bison: Sustainable, low cholesterol, high in iron and protein, lean, grass fed, NO growth hormones, slightly sweeter than current corn fed beef and still has rich flavor. There are still people that think sustainable and grass fed are bad words but let me tell you, they are the only words we should be using today in terms of our red and white meat production. It is expensive. You can always mix with grass fed beef to balance the costs if you are on a budget.

Grilled or cooked in an iron skillet will work for this burger.

ROOT BEER KETCHUP (you can substitute Malta, Coca Cola or Dr. Pepper)

4 ounces root beer or ginger beer

6 ounces Heinz Ketchup

1 teaspoon Chipotle Mustard

Combine and simmer in sauce pan on low until it again thickens. Frequently stir as it cooks so that it does not burn and most of all so that the ingredients combine. When it is the texture again of ketchup remove from heat and set aside. This will keep in refrigerator for months.

BACON

8 slices maple bacon, thick cut

Cook crisp. Drain and keep warm while burger cooks.

BURGERS

1 pound ground bison

1/3 teaspoon ground sea salt

1 clove garlic, crushed

¼ cup white onion, minced

2 ounces gorgonzola, crumbles

Gently combine and pat into four 4 ounce square patties. Grill to desired temperature.

While they cook you can set up the plates:

4 teaspoons Root beer ketchup, one teaspoon per burger

8 slices whole wheat toast

8 slices grape tomato

4 leaves romaine

SALAD

2 ounces wild greens

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

½ teaspoon peach bitters

1/3 teaspoon soy sauce

4 figs, quartered

Mix in bowl when you are ready to eat. Divide between four plates.

Arrange all of the parts and leave the sandwich open faced.

This is the kind of burger that calls out for russet potato french fries or even sweet potato fries, yucca chips, boniato chips and even Southern Dukes Mayonnaise potato salad. Beer. Have a beer or high quality root beer with this sandwich.

BOAR SAUSAGE

Roasted dumpling squash stuffed with ground sage boar sausage and brown rice, blackberries and almonds. What can be said about Berkshire pork that does not get the ring in the nose and is allowed to roam the ranch and go semi wild? Sow or boar, both are delicious. Meaty, fatty, slight smoky taste and enough grain to have firm texture. I like boar chops. Boar sausage is what most of us have if you hunt them in the wild. If you have them in restaurants or specialty butcher shops you can get the loin, chops or hams as well as in sausage form.

Our recipe here puts to use the best of the season. Dumpling squash are fantastic receptacles for roasting. Nutty and sweet, firm, yellow meat and beautiful green and cream striped skin. Don’t try to eat the skins of winter squashes, they are all too thick and are perfect as they are for leaving on and roasting. You can also remove the skin and make french fries out of winter squashes like pumpkins, butternut, acorn, turban and dumpling. We will make garlic mashed potatoes out of butternut squash in the recipe for venison.

Follow all sanitation when working with boar. Wear latex gloves and always add this last to your mixtures.

Cook the brown rice early and let it cool.

2 dumpling squash cut in half and seeded

4 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon in each squash

Set aside in roasting pan.

STUFFING

1 cup brown rice, cooked with chicken stock

10 ounces boar, ground

5 ounces Jimmy Dean sage whole hog sausage

1/3 cup almonds, chopped

½ cup white onion, diced

1 ounce pickled peppers, diced

½ cup apple, diced

½ teaspoon oregano, fresh, chopped

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup Italian style bread crumbs

1 pint blackberries, fresh

Combine all ingredients except the blackberries and meat. Put the ground sausage and boar into a mixing bowl and gently mix. Let it rest a minute, then add the blackberries taking care not to crush them.

Divide between the four halves of squash. Add just enough water to the roasting pan to cover the bottom half of the squash. Roast 30 minutes at 350 degrees. The internal temperature of the stuffing will be 165 degrees.

If you want to add anything to this comforting harvest dish it would be a poached egg on the top of each stuffed squash. And again, this is a dish that calls for a beer or ale, full red table wine, sour mash, hot tea, hot Dr. Pepper with lemon or as simple as a glass of sparkling water with cranberry juice.

VENISON

Venison shoulder chops marinated in pomegranate juice and Dale’s sauce, with pomegranate seeds, fuyu persimmons, and whipped red potatoes and butternut squash. Again, this is for the home with a hunter or buy through upscale butcher.

Shoulder chops can be tough but they are flavorful which is why this is our cut of choice for this dish. Ask them to cut it into primal cuts for you if it is wild venison. It is just a waste to grind it all into sausage. You can also use Maggi Seasoning Sauce if you do not have Dale’s on hand. If you are gluten intolerant then use wheat free tamari.

Pomegranates are easy to seed. Lightly hit the bottom end on the counter and then cut it open over a glass bowl. Push your fingers into the back of the skin towards the seeds so that they gently pop out. Then separate the seeds from the thick pulp and skin. You cannot eat the pulp and skin. Only the seeds, eat only the seeds. Remember the story of Persephone in Greek mythology? She was kidnapped by Hades and she was bound to return to hell for six months every year because she mistakenly ate pomegranate seeds. The fruit also represents fertility and hope. Hope because even after the coldest of seasons Spring is near.

Fertility because of the abundance of seeds. Pomegranates are high in antioxidants as well.

The Fuyu persimmon is native to Japan and Korea. It is similar to our native persimmons of the South except that they do hold longer and are easier to commercially farm. The taste is close to that of Anjou pears and limes, the meat is soft not hard.

Try to find a ricer to use for making your garlic butternut and red potatoes. There are hand held ones that are perfect for smooth and well mixed mashed potatoes. If not then use a slotted spoon or electric mixer. The flavor is everything that triggers food memories of childhood Christmas. Why? Because of the allspice and maple syrup in the mix.

MARINADE AND GRILL

4, 5 ounce venison chops

1 cup almond milk

1 tablespoon Dale’s or Maggi

4 ounces pomegranate juice

1 tablespoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon coarse black pepper

Combine the marinade ingredients so that it is smooth. It may look a bit coddled but that is OK. Add the chops and cover. Let marinade at least 2 hours.

Do not marinade over 6 hours as the meat will start “cooking” after that because of the acidity in the marinade.

Grill or broil until cooked to desired temperature.

4 teaspoons pomegranate seeds

2 persimmons cut into 8 slices

Divide seeds and fruit over the four chops.

MASHED

1 pound red potatoes cut in half

1 pound butternut squash pulp, no seeds or skin

3 quarts water

1 tablespoon salt

1 clove garlic, minced

Combine in large pot and boil for 20 minutes until firm but soft enough to mash. Strain. Press the squash and potato through the ricer into a metal bowl.

Add:

1 teaspoon allspice, ground

3 tablespoons maple syrup

3 ounces unsalted butter

Whip together until well incorporated and smooth. Keep warm while the venison is cooking.

Spoon the mashed onto each plate next to the chop. Garnish with baby lettuce greens.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all, be good to each other, to family and friends, and even better to those who are not.

Sometimes a smile equals

All the people

We can and cannot count

In these long winter hours.

To hold a hope

And set free a dream,

Watching ice melt

Watching fires around the lake,

Something really is always

Glistening here,

Blue shadows,

Silver clouds,

Bells ring in dreams

And a cynic tries to steal

With dollars

What their heart

Cannot create,

To this reach we pull away,

Try again with a hymn

Of redemption and peace,

Sit down to the table

With love, with bread,

Push away the fear,

Listen again for prayers to peace,

This is the day

We were living for,

Today is the day

All hearts embrace.



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Between The Sea And The Chattahoochee (eating lean)


BETWEEN THE SEA AND THE CHATTHOOCHEE
(how to eat lean in the Autumn times)

Our Autumn adventure begins with those things that come into season when the first chill nights arrive. Watch the color of the leaves turn and you know it is time for wild Georgia deer (or farmed New Zealand or Texas). From Georgia ranches like Harris Ranch we have grass fed beef flank steak. The sea is always offering something in each season so if pole caught mahi mahi is not available see what else is from the wild or from the farms. All of these recipes are quite healthy and lean. Venison “Denver” leg steaks with turkey sausage, spiced peanuts and local blackberries with honey-rosemary olive oil. Grass fed beef flank seared with caramelized onions, Maytag bleu cheese, thin sliced apple on chicory greens and acorn squash. Atlantic mahi mahi grilled with roasted garlic aioli, jalapeno, raspberries, rum and pumpkin fries. If there is a wild boar hunter in your family or if you can buy it then by all means include wild baor/sow on your post frost Autumn table.
Today we shop, cook and dine in ways far beyond those of our parents and grandparents. They may have drank a beer, sweet tea or glass of wine with their dinner but the expectation was never that it be a beer brewed up the road, a wine from the West Coast, new age cocktails or tea arriving in hundreds of flavors. Mine had Liptons Orange Pekoe tea, Pabst Blue Ribbon, moonshine and very refined wines of France or on the border at Alsace-Lorraine. Today we are aware, very aware that our meals can be best paired with a boutique beer or herb and roasted tea from flower to white to green and black, with any combination of spirits and mixed drinks, and of course with wines from any place in the world. Pair your foods with beverages reflecting the ingredients, the tastes, the general aroma and appeal of your meal.
Since Autumn invites a host of seasonal memories it is always fun to invoke what has passed, what was before and then to create what is yet to be. Food is as alive as you and I, the dishes we prepare help to define who we are at the table, with guests and family. Food reflects our vision of the world. Some embrace and some set up boundaries. The adventurous cook is constantly studying all things taste and combination both with boundaries and without boundaries. Perfection often arrives by way of repetition. I am justifiably interested in the way our foods are produced, raised, farmed, harvested and hunted. Create the memories with a love of the world and all it has to offer.
Every now and then it is important to reevaluate what “sustainable” means. The overall effort of serving sustainable, something I have been doing for over 15 years is to seek variety. If we eat the same fish over and over, if we fish the same trenches or reefs over and over eventually the snapper/flounder/grouper post office will run dry. Just because something is in abundance today (re passenger pigeons of last century) does not guarantee that without management it will be there tomorrow. Harvest is not greater than reproduction and there is little to no impact on local ecosystem: Sustainable.
As consumers we should be involved in proper food source management for ALL of our foods as well as in protecting blue fin tuna and orange roughy, Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish), Atlantic cod, red snapper, shark, imported swordfish, grouper, monkfish, imported caviar and skate. All of these are all long over fished and on a short list for threatened. Easy solution is to simply lay off of these fish for a few years. Easy kill is to continue on our present path. Check out Seafood Choices Alliance, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Seafood Watch, Blue Ocean Institute, the Marine Stewardship Council and of course Clean Fish (through Inland Seafood) and anything Honolulu Fish out of Hawaii. All of which can be found online or by phone within a days reach of UPS or your home.
I use a lot of fish that are caught by sport boats. Yes, when you see that “moby” marlin or redfish hanging in those sport boat photos the next step is often off to a middleman and then to a chef (such as myself!) and on to your plate.
The ways of keeping the last hunted wild protein (seafood) around are many, the ways to destroy are few: overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction. It is not a matter of left or right. It is a matter of how do we feed our enormous population and maintain healthy farmland and waters. There are many fresh water farmed fish and shellfish that are life and health friendly operated such as tilapia, catfish, oysters, clams, mussels, striped bass, arctic char, rainbow trout, white sturgeon and agria (red fish, a member of the drum family) that help us to keep some menu variety. The rest of our strong stock is all wild caught from healthy fisheries like wreckfish, black cod, stone crab, Pacific halibut, albacore, pink shrimp, pole/troll caught mahi mahi, Alaskan salmon, pole/troll caught Hawaiian big eye, yellow fin and skipjack tuna. Imagine, all wild caught.
My career and that of all involved in the seafood industry depends on diverse seafood and reasonable prices. It is implausible to figure a future without wild seafood. So what do we do? Be wise shepherds of our land and waters. Keep it clean and keep it diverse. Every mammal matters and every cetacean matters, every fish and every shellfish, fowl, every fruit and vegetable, they all really do matter in this, our own vast and hurried span of life and time. It is our only earth.
Long ago we learned that if the same plant is grown in the same soil for too long without diversity then the soil becomes infertile. The same holds for our waters.
VENISON
Venison “Denver” leg steaks with mergheza sausage (beef and lamb), spiced peanuts and local blackberries with honey-rosemary olive oil.
Any thoughts about venison always arrive at how lean it is and how different it tastes from county to county, state to state. I like Georgia deer the best because it is less acidic or gamey than deer I have had from elsewhere in the South. Some say it is because of the pecans. Could be. The restaurant industry is dependent upon New Zealand and Texas venison. Both are quite delicious and are very stable in their flavor and texture profiles. Look for venison that is deep red, almost the color of a Romane Conte vintage wine.
The most economical cut is the Denver leg. This is the leg bone removed and the meat already broken down into sections. When cutting your meat do it so that it best resembles a cut of beef filet mignon, round and thick. There will be a few stray pieces of meat so set those aside to use for a pasta dish or to grind with sausage. People generally take this lean and healthy mean and grind it with pork sausage, a tactic that I have never really liked but do understand why people do it.
VENISON
4, 5 ounce venison steaks, shaped into round
2 ounces Worcestershire sauce
1 ounce Tiger Sauce
4 ounces red wine or black grape juice
1 tablespoon pickling spice
Combine and marinade venison for 5 hours.
SPICED PEANUTS
¼ cup shelled and hulled peanuts
½ teaspoon wasabi powder
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon butter
Mix with peanuts and toast in 300 degree oven for 10 minutes.

ROSEMARY HONEY
1 small stalk rosemary
3 ounces local honey
3 ounces Spanish extra virgin olive oil
Combine and warm in pan on low heat for 8 minutes. Remove rosemary.
8 ounces mergheza sausage (a mix of lamb and beef)
Cook sausage on grill. Set aside.
20 blackberries

Grill venison to desired temperature. While venison is cooking the last turn brush the olive oil honey over the meat. Paint the bottom of four plates with the olive oil honey. Place one steak on each plate. 2 ounces of sausage with each steak. Garnish by placing peanuts and blackberries on top of venison.
This is the kind of meal that is great with a fruit and spinach salad, yeast rolls and grilled corn on the cob.
BEEF
Grass fed beef flank seared with caramelized onions, Maytag bleu cheese, thin sliced apple on chicory greens and acorn squash.
People who are unfamiliar with the distinct flavor of grass fed meats are quite surprised by how once fatty meats are now lean and still taste great. That is the thing about grass fed, hormone free meats. They taste like the land around us smells, at least here on the border of woods, river and open pastures. There are many ranches in the South that are grass fed. Harris Ranch is one of the better and more established. The real add ons to beef happen in the stockyard and that’s where grass fed takes the advantage in that nothing is done to the meat as far as changing their diet. What it lives on is what you get. Grassy, fresh and lean.
Flank steak is good for searing and thin sliced. Very lean, very flavorful and easy to prepare. Maytag blue cheese is produced in Iowa in caves and made by hand as it has been done since the late 1800s by the very family that makes Maytag appliances. The herd of Holsteins were favorites of the Maytag family and it turned out that their milk was perfect for making this rich and sweet, best of America blue cheeses. Go for the gold every now and then. Treat yourself and your dining mates to something they will swear is British or Danish. Maytag blue cheese is another in a long line of great American cheese. The first in that line is Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes, California. Find these cheeses and splurge on their goodness.
MARINADE
24 ounces flank steak
1 1/2 cups apple juice
4 ounces Dale’s steak marinade
1 onion, sliced
Combine and marinade 6 hours minimum.

3 onions, thin sliced
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
½ poblano pepper, very thin sliced
2 ounces corn oil
Combine and place in small pan. Cover. Roast for 45 minutes in 375 degree oven. Remove and leave covered. Let stand for one hour.
1 (16 ounces peeled) acorn squash, diced
1 teaspoon butter
1 tablespoon sourwood honey
1/3 teaspoon granulated sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
Combine and cook in 375 degree oven for 15 minutes. Remove. Cover and reserve till dinner. If longer than 30 minutes then reheat in oven.
1 gala apple thin sliced into 16 slices
10 ounces autumn chicory and sweet lettuces
1/3 cup crumbled Maytag blue cheese
4 ounces fig balsamic vinegar
Sear flank steaks in iron skillet. Remove and thin slice against the grain. Divide lettuces and caramelized onions between four plates. Place 4 slices flank on each salad. Set slices of apple between the steak slices. Garnish with blue cheese. Eat and drink an autumn pale ale with this great beef and cheese salad entrée.
MAHI MAHI
Atlantic mahi mahi grilled with roasted garlic aioli, jalapeno, raspberries, rum and pumpkin fries.
It seems that when the full moon is up more than werewolves prowl. Beyond the moors of Northeast Georgia and across the boiling hot piedmont region of South Carolina lies Charleston Harbor and beyond there when the moon rises the surface of the ocean comes alive with feeding sea creatures. Lucky for us this includes mahi mahi. Long a sport fish and for many a good luck symbol the mahi mahi is a staple fish for many tables in the South. Great on the grill and great sautéed mahi mahi is fine with any high heat preparation. I have poached it in extra virgin olive oil to great success. Poached in olive oil? Yes! Keep the oil at 120 degrees and lower the fish into the oil and cook for 15 minutes. Perfection. It is not oily. In fact it is simply moist, velvety and cooked to the same temperature as the oil. Poaching is not frying.
Pumpkin fries! Yes anything can be fried. Peel, seed and cut into classic french fry sizes. Put in cold water bath and leave in refrigerator over night. This will help them to crisp when it is their time for the oil.
Roasted garlic aioli makes for a very rich fish. Brush it onto the fillets while they are grilling. This version of aioli does not contain egg. Originally back in the pre Caesar days of the Etruscans they made aioli simply by mashing the roasted garlic and olive oil into a paste. All the other stuff (eggs) came later with the French. We will use rum instead of lemon juice to thin out our aioli.
October is a great time for blackberries and raspberries. Use them in all the places that you can from salads and entrees to desserts and teas. The jalapeno is there just for the flavor and the heat. Jalapeno is a nice addition to this smooth entrée.
AIOLI
6 cloves garlic roasted
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 ounces dark rum
1/3 teaspoon pink sea salt
1/3 teaspoon fine ground black pepper
Roast garlic wrapped in aluminum foil in 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove and place in blender. Turn blender on and slowly add the olive oil, then the rum. Set aside till time to cook.
GRILL FISH
4, 6 ounce fillets mahi mahi, skin off
Hot grill. Grill fillets for 5 minutes each side; more if you like it cooked well done.
FRY
20 french fry cuts pumpkin
2 cups frying oil like peanut or corn
Fry in oil at 350 degrees for five minutes. Remove from oil. Place in 300 degree oven and bake for 10 minutes.

OTHER
12 slices jalapeno
20 raspberries, large, ripe

Remove mahi mahi from grill. Paint one more time with the aioli. Arrange pumpkin fries in criss cross pattern on plate. Set fillet next to potato. Garnish with raw jalapeno slices and raspberries. Grilled squashes would be perfect with this crisp dish.

Have a great time this Fall. When you are not cooking at home please go out to eat and enjoy the Autumn flavors offered by our beautiful South. Especially at my new home, “Chef Lamar’s Iron Grill”!

SIGNS
A voice soliciting sunrise,
She throws back a cup of sweet Kenya coffee,
Offers crumbs to the cardinals on the back porch,
She watches as they flit away, hunting,
Crunching seeds, scratching mulch,
Rousing the six o’clock yard dogs
From their dreaming running across the fields,
Waking me with barks, chirps and laughter.
Seems a whole zoo is loose out here today.
Seems a Rothko sunrise, layered, the way the leaves
Crank out the colors one by one into the other,
The Autumn palate goes hazy,
And there is no blues before this sunrise,
It’s all a shout of raw sienna rock and roll.
Bacon on the stove top,
Buttermilk biscuits in the oven,
Cold orange juice and a kiss so sweet
It seems that wars really were fought for her.
A kiss at dawn so sweet that the world is at peace.
The world rests in her arms the way it should.
And I am more a man just by being so blessed;
Blessed to be with her on this brisk October morning.

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A steak a fish a sour mash


A STEAK, A FISH AND A SOUR MASH
There is no secret to the fact that I love wine butter sauces and of course that I love all things seafood. Our South Gulf Coast has been under severe
environmental attack and ruin of late and it will be a while before we can fully enjoy the fruits of the Gulf of Mexico. Southern oysters will be available again someday, but just not yet so I will hold off on any oyster raw or cooked. We will be cooking clams in beer and sausage broth; tilapia with ginger-sake butter sauce and fresh melons; rib eye steak with sour mash sautéed pecans and avocado on butternut squash and tempura okra. Sauces can involve any properly used alcohol, juice or tea instead of classical creams, stocks and egg based sauces. Let’s have fun with what each season offers!
The culinary exploration and work involved in developing my new restaurant was herculean and with ease at the same time. When I realized that there is nothing so great as this love for my home land and nothing so professionally awkward for me as Southern cuisine I knew I had to take on the task. My 30 year career has opened many beautiful experiences in the foods of the world. The most difficult was the food of my family, of Georgia. The most inspiring has been the foods of Pacific Asia. The most technically important, valuable and necessary has been Classical Continental. Bringing it all together is an act of love. I feel as if every day in this life of food and literature has been a love letter to my beloved South and to the intriguing woks of Asia. If there is no love then how can there even be a cuisine? Each recipe is a paragraph in this love affair with cuisine. For those who live to eat you will understand, for those who live to cook and eat you will have already uncovered the reasons why this love is so great and never ending.
The weather this year has brought a lot of vegetables and fruits into an early ripe stage so things like butternut squash and small pumpkins, okra and various melons are perfect in September. Various beans have taken a hard hit this year but tomatoes have gone wild, especially the smaller, sweeter ones. To take advantage of this we are using butternut squash and okra, melons and basil as contenders for best bounty thus far this year.

Our first dish is a bowl of fresh, salty, gently chewy middle neck clams. Clams come in all shapes and sizes. The best is open to any number of argument. Discuss among yourselves but I am partial to razor clams, cherry stone and middle neck.
CLAMS
This one is so easy it is kinda funny. Hardest part is finding fresh, perfect clams. Check each clam by tapping the back end of it on the counter. If the clam slowly closes then it is alive. Never eat dead clams. Throw dead ones away. Cook from live.
A good clam will be a bit chewy but have a rich, brine flavor cherished by all lovers of bivalve sea creatures!

2 dozen very fresh middle neck clams
½ cup tomato, seeded and chopped
1 cup dark beer
1 cup dark chicken stock
2 sprigs oregano, fresh
4 slices jalapeno
2 wedges lime
½ teaspoon flaked pink sea salt
Bring liquids to a boil and reduce by half. Add clams, tomato, oregano and jalapeno. Squeeze lime over the clams and then sprinkle salt.

Serve with toasted french bread.

TILAPIA WITH MELONS AND SAKE BUTTER
I feel obligated to write about this wonderful super food of the perch family at least once a year. Sake is rice wine but what a complicated wine it is. Most of us understand sake as something reserved for sushi night out but there is a complicated array of interesting flavors going on as one goes up and down the list of sakes made today. They can taste like lighter fluid and moonshine on the one hand and as sublime as a fine Pinot on the other. Sake is in many flavors and the best will have a plum cured in the bottle the way that Poire William Liquor has the pear inside of it. Sake is not for everyone but when it is made via the classic style of a fine pan butter sauce then it fully expresses itself as a great cooking wine.
Melons define the South as much as anything else does and what better way than to use melons of the world that grow well here? Sweet, complex, refreshing and everything good about a late summer day.
Cook jasmine rice, sweet potatoes and pineapple together as a starch to go with your tilapia.
TILAPIA
2, 6 ounce tilapia fillets
1/3 cup flour
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon black pepper, cracked
10 thin slices Crenshaw or honeydew melon
10 thin slices Korean watermelon
1 shallot, minced
4 ounces sake
½ teaspoon ginger, minced
2 ounces butter, very cold, cut in small squares

Dust tilapia in flour, salt and pepper and sauté on medium high heat for two minutes per side turning four times. Add melon and cook just enough to soften. Remove from pan and place in warm spot on the stove. Add shallot and ginger to pan, then add the sake. Cook the sake down until the shallots begin to bubble and almost dry. Stir in the butter piece by piece until fully incorporated and it is like a thick cream. Reserve in warm place.
Place tilapia and melons on the rice. Pour sake butter over the fish.
This is good with a well mixed and represented mesclun mix of lettuces with a tangy vinaigrette (citrus and coconut water with rice vinegar and corn oil style).
SOUR MASH, AVOCADO, OKRA AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH!
About avocado, a local newspaper, the Athens Banner Herald on 8/17/10, reprinted this research from a column by “You Docs”:
1. They’re full of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, which increases your healthy HDL cholesterol and lowers your triglycerides. Only olives have more.

2. Their good fats are full of omega-3s, which are world-class do-gooders when it comes to your arteries, brain, skin, sex life and more.

3. They have more potassium than bananas, which helps keep your blood pressure in check, and a ton of magnesium, too, which every cell in your body needs to work well.

4. They make good foods taste even better and, like a great teammate, make them better for you. Add, say, 1/2 cup sliced avocado to your spinach salad, and your body will absorb five times more lutein.

5. They contain compounds that may slow the growth (or even kill off) some precancerous and malignant cells.

6. They turn up your levels of leptin, the feel-full hormone, which turns down your appetite, so that bowl of guacamole may not disappear.

So have at it but not too much on the avocado. Avocado and rib eye is just too delicious to pass up these days.
Sour mash is one of those things whose flavor is so pronounced that the difference between a sour mash and bourbon whiskey is easy to sense. A Jack Daniels Black, Makers Mark or Wild Turkey next to Knob Creek bourbon (one of the best by the way) is as different as Dr. Pepper next to Coca Cola. Slight but enough to divide the ranks. Sour mash is made with bourbon, brewers yeast and a bit of water to the mix, it is then fermented and strained. You can have bourbon without sour mash but you cannot have without bourbon. Sour mash will always be Sour Mash Bourbon. It is not necessarily the best choice of sipping whiskies though so choose by asking your bar tender to give you samples of high end and low end Sour Mash, and then the same for high and low end Bourbons. You will notice a tremendous difference in flavor between each level of whiskey.
The flavor of a sour mash is more pronounced on the back of the tongue in the form of being almost like that of wheat and corn (like oatmeal and grits at the same time) whereas that of a fine bourbon rests on the edges and center of the tongue in a way more akin to fresh ground hominy. Think sour dough bread and regular white bread. Bourbon and Sour Mash Bourbon are often overlooked in matching food to beverage. Don’t be limited in how you approach a complete meal, all you have to do is look around in the region where you live and you will find that there is more to taste that first meets the eye.
We live in Georgia so use those just off the stalk okra and off the vine butternut squash. Tempura okra, whole okra is amazing. Pass over this fresh vegetable of the South and you really missed on something essential to our very cuisine. Butternut squash is not just for mashing, baking and roasting with butter and cinnamon sugar. Butternut squash likes to be fried as well. Yes, you can peel it, seed it, cut it into long french cuts and fry like a potato. It tastes great.
RIBEYE STEAK WITH AVOCADO, PECANS AND SOUR MASH
This is the part we all like the best, the big, thick, rich indulgence of red meat and even richer sides. Rib eye is the cut that is fatty and has a perfect tenderness of texture and fullness of flavor much prized by beef eaters everywhere. A good rib eye can make any day a grand day.
2, 12 ounce center cut ribeye steaks
1 tablespoon butter
10 halves pecans
10 slices avocado
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon worchestshire sauce
2 ounces favorite sour mash whiskey (it is your meal)
½ teaspoon garam masala spice blend
1 large iron skillet
Heat the skillet to medium heat and add the butter. When the butter melts and foams add the steaks. Cook to desired temperature. Add soy and worchestershire, reduce. Remove meat from pan. Add pecans and sour mash whiskey. Add garam masala spices. Pour over meat. Place avocado on meat.
OKRA AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH
6 okra
½ cup tempura flour
3 tablespoons vodka
1 cup peanut oil
Dust okra in tempura flour, place in another plate and sprinkle with vodka until it mixes into the flour/okra. Fry in hot oil, 350 degrees, for three minutes. Lift out and drain.
10 slices butternut squash
1 teaspoon honey granules or coarse brown sugar
1/3 teaspoon garlic powder
1/3 teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon cornstarch
2 cups peanut oil (use same oil as for okra)
Dust the butternut french fries with the spices and fry at 350 degrees for 4 minutes. Lift and shake off excess oil.
Keep okra and squash warm while you cook the rib eye or cook them while you cook the rib eye steaks.
Arrange okra and butternut squash in Lincoln log style on two plates and set rib eye next to them. Eat. Really eat.
Thank you and I hope your meals are a success. Please visit me at our new restaurant, Chef Lamar’s Iron Grill. We are new and the adventure is just now beginning.

I dream of her curves even when she is beside me,
I see her almond eyes shining as she looks at our feast,
She could sweeten the bitterest herbs and olives.
Given that there is a way of oranges and sweet shrimp,
Given that there is a path of glory and ceramic grills
And given that the summer days are better with her.
She does this,
She does this when we are together,
Simply by enjoying all things,
Her lips curve towards heaven,
And everything around becomes richer and more full,
Everything is born again in her smile.

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Marshmallow Shrimp (mine alone)


MARSHMALLOW SHRIMP
Having fun with Georgia white shrimp.
12 shrimp, large one ounce each, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons red bell pepper, diced
2 tablespoons green bell pepper, diced
2 tablespoons Vidalia onion, diced
2 tablespoons Rice vinegar
3 tablespoons honey
1-tablespoon Sriracha chili sauce (Green Tabasco or Cholula OK as well)
1-teaspoon kosher salt, or coarse sea salt
12 cashew halves
12 medium marshmallows
Heat the butter in a medium skillet on high. Add peppers and onions and cook to just tender. Add shrimp and cook two minutes on each side with heat on medium. Sprinkle vinegar, honey and Sriracha into the skillet and mix ingredients. Place one marshmallow on top of each shrimp, and then one cashew half on top of that, place pan in 400~ oven for two minutes. The marshmallow will melt and brown.

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Chinook Salmon and Sesame Catfish


THE RETURN OF THE KINGS OF SUMMER:
GRILLED SALMON WITH PINEAPPLE AND ROSEMARY
AND
SEARED SESAME CATFISH WITH BABY BOK CHOY

The return of summer for the West and the South is defined by two fish, for the West it is salmon and for the South it is catfish. Today we pay our culinary respects to the mighty King Salmon, the Chinook, the Coho, the Pink, the Silver bright (chum), and the fatty, deep red Sockeye. It will be grilled with rosemary and pineapple. This traveler of the oceans who knows two homes, the river bed of their birth and the oceans they explore and live before returning to spawn and die in the smooth rocks from which they were raised. I can imagine no life so determined and so beneficial to all life as the salmon. They swim UP waterfalls! Imagine how they swim upstream. They manage every possible roadblock in the water world. As fingerlings they feed a great amount of other fish, as kings of the sea they devour tons of krill and shrimp. After a few years they return from their mystery tour of the seas to the mouths of the rivers of their birth. They then stop feeding. After crossing our dams and our intrusions, our overheated overflows, our pollution, they pass waterfall and rapids, they pass bears and other mammals, they pass our nets and lures, and then they spawn and die. At the end of this journey they nurture the soil and they enrichen the fresh water with their decaying bones. Parts of our Northwest are alive and green, the rivers themselves are alive, all by the presence of the powerful and life giving salmon.
I feel a kinship to this fish. Much of my life has been enjoyed on the rocks and sands of the magnificent coasts of Northern California and the Carolinas. I am a native Georgian, and by native I mean going back into the 1700’s where my relatives settled into what is known as Tucker, Georgia. There is a lot of Irish and English in my DNA. The wandering nature of my life I attribute to the ancient line of world roaming Celts, and of course of personal love of our beautiful nation. How did I come to enjoy working with the flavors of America and of the far Pacific? By traveling in both life and thought through the vast network of poetry, food and philosophy that this land has to offer. My love of salmon is not just culinary; it is also a philosophic and poetic love. Watching the salmon run on a river is beyond description. Understanding the life of the salmon is to understand how Life interacts in our world where all things really are connected and that all life is sacred. As with all life on this earth we must work to protect and properly harvest salmon so that we can enjoy the flavor and health benefits, and so that the ecosystem can flourish through the life of this unmatched species of life. Wild salmon is filled with all things good for our health. Also, fresh wild salmon is just about one of the best tasting things I have ever eaten. In June I will be hosting a sustainable seafood dinner at the restaurant for those of you interested in the benefits of our streams and oceans.
Now on to the good stuff of why we are here: the fish and the grill! Everything will be cooked on the grill. And I trust you are eating outside, close to the source. Also, if you are buying your fish at Publix or Earthfare, remember that their seafood delivery days are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Ask ahead for special fish so that they can have it in for you. Except for my Hawaiian fish we use the same purveyor, Inland Seafood, so I can vouch for the superb quality.
We will be using wild Chinook salmon for this recipe. If you cannot find the wild Chinook (King), then use sockeye, chum or Coho. If at all possible avoid the Pacific Ocean farmed Atlantic salmon as the harm outweighs the benefits of this particular fish. The first run of Chinook is a treasure. This fish is fatty, healthy, strong, large, and full of wide flaked meat. If you buy the whole fish you can use the head and backbones for fish stock for a rich and hearty chowder. When buying the steak cut go for the one that still has the backbone in it as this has more flavor and is more amenable to the grill. After it has grilled just lift the center bone out of the fish, all the other bones will come along with it.

What better way to celebrate Summer than with the best of both coasts? Catfish and Salmon! We will have catfish for the appetizer and salmon for the entrée. I recommend frozen green grapes, blueberries and raspberries sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar for a cooling dessert.
The history of Southern cuisine is lush with odes to catfish. From the catch to the table this slick fellow is the South. Can you imagine the writings of Mark Twain, or even our own late, beloved Lewis Grizzard without catfish? As a boy I learned to fish by catching bream, crappie and catfish. Later in life I developed a love of fly-fishing for trout and steelhead. A s my Uncle Allen Driscoll tells me I will end up at the end of a boat spinning for the three great bass species. Any way it goes, I am happy just to be near the water. This is pretty much how it is for most of us who grow up in a fishing boat, on the edge of a stream, or in the cold surf.
Farmed catfish is a stellar example of environmentally friendly and delicious fish cultivation. Catfish, trout and tilapia farming are what fish farming is all about. Everything is used, and nothing is poisonous to the earth or to us, the consumer. And besides, each one is delicious and easy to prepare.
For our grill we use an equal portion of two different charcoal briquettes, coconut and hickory. Coconut charcoal for intense heat, and hickory for the flavor.
It has to be blazing hot for the catfish appetizer so don’t fear the red glow from the base of your grill when the coconut charcoals are primed. By the time you get to cooking the salmon (20 minutes) the coals will have calmed down a bit and the hickory smoke will be dominate in the mix. This meal is for 4 people.
Four hours before it’s time to eat you will do all of the preparations. This way when the grill is ready all you do is cook and eat. Oh yes!
SESAME CATFISH
1 pound catfish cut into two inch cubes
4 teaspoons soy sauce
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
2 ounces cilantro, fresh, chopped
4 tablespoons poblano pepper, diced
1 cup beer (yeah beer, any non-light kind)
1 teaspoon Tabasco Sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
4 teaspoons sesame oil
8 bamboo skewers
Mix all together in bowl and marinade in refrigerator for three hours. This removes the pond taste and gives them an extra punch of flavor. Four pieces of catfish per skewer.
GREENS
4 heads baby bok choy (find this at Fooks Market on Baxter St)
1 medium red onion (or Vidalia if they are any good this year)
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut in long thin strips
2 medium parsnips, peeled and cut in long thin strips
1/2 cup sweet rice vinegar
1/4 cup turbinado sugar (raw sugar)
Cut the baby bok choy (a.k.a. Shanghai cabbage) in half. Slice the red onion in rings. Mix all together in large mixing bowl and marinade two to three hours. After it marinades, drain the liquid before cooking it. Roll the Shanghai cabbage in aluminum foil.
SALMON
4 –8 ounce salmon steaks
1 cup pineapple juice
2 tablespoons coarse pink sea salt, or any other coarse salt
1 tablespoon coarse black pepper
1/2 cup oyster sauce (Asian section of store or at Fooks store)
1/3 cup corn oil
4 stalks rosemary, fresh of course
1 pineapple, check to see that it is a sweet one
When it comes to the oyster sauce, as with all things culinary the better the brand the better the flavor. Mix the pineapple juice, salt, black pepper, and oyster sauce together. Core and cut the pineapple into one-inch thick triangles. Cut the rosemary stalks into 8 two-inch pieces. Pierce each salmon with two rosemary fronds. Rub the salmon steaks with the oyster sauce mixture and let them set in this for about thirty minutes. Save the juices for brushing the steaks while they grill. Save the corn oil for grilling time. You can buy rosemary bushes at Home Depot.
IF you have a rosemary bush all you gotta do is reach over and pinch a bunch off of the bush and throw it on the grill for extra flavor. Two years ago I presented a salmon recipe with rosemary, so as an anniversary memoir I am using the two together again, in a different way, but still together. Fresh rosemary is an incredibly versatile herb that I think is not used enough in the home kitchen from appetizers to desserts. It must be fresh. I’ve used it in crème brulee, ice creams, savory dishes, with fruits, with roasts, on the grill, and as a garnish. Fresh rosemary is without bounds and in many ways has more uses than even the most popular of all, basil.

HONEY WASABI SAUCE FOR THE SALMON
1 tablespoon wasabi powder
1/2 cup honey (check for different kinds of flower honey)
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
3 tablespoons sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
Whisk all together and refrigerate until time for supper.
VEGETABLE
Do you ever feel as if you were a slave to the will and whim of the grocery stores here in the Athens area? FOOKS on Baxter in Athens is a great choice for a concise selection of Pan Asian ingredients.
That no matter what you plan they will not have the best produce that you need? If that is the case then make the drive to the International Farmers Market, or to the market at 99 Ranch, and best of the best is Super H on Pleasantdale Road. What you save in groceries far exceeds the cost of gas in driving there and back. If you have no idea what it is that you are looking at when you examine the produce, the seafood or the prepared foods and ingredients then just ask anyone close by. In my experiences most of the time people are more than happy and ready to not only tell you what a food is but also how best to prepare it the same way they did in their native lands.
If you are afraid to try the too culturally different, then stick to the tried and true of grilling our own sweet corn and zucchini, yellow squash, or green tomatoes. After all, Southern cuisine is a true and valued food all it’s own just the same as any other international cuisine like French, Chinese or Italian. True Southern, for many of us, is really the first and foremost food of life. Thing is, you really must follow the rules of fresh and take your time. Fresh is the only way to cook. There is no excuse today to cook any other way. Some will eat to live, and others happily live to eat. I prefer to live to eat. When you live to eat there is no obstacle too great to stand between yourself and a cherished meal or ingredient.

So, if you can’t make the drive and the yellow squash is looking good then go with the squash. It’s the same for sweet corn as either is perfect on the grill with salmon and pineapple. The plate will be sort of yellow looking but that’s ok. Sometimes our foods can’t be as colorful as we would like.
GRILLING
The first stage is ready. The grill is fire hot from the coconut or cherry wood coals. Place the roll of Shanghai cabbage on the backside of the grill. After five minutes brush the grill with peanut oil and place the catfish skewers on the grill. Cover the grill. Turn them after five minutes. Turn again and cook for another five minutes. So, that’s fifteen minutes cook time for the first course.
Unroll the baby bock choy and divide between four plates. Place two catfish skewers on each plate. Pour the juice from the boy choy over the food. Garnish with lemon and cilantro.
For the salmon brush the grill with corn oil. The heat should be a bit calmer by this time. You will grill the fish five minutes per side, turning three times. Be careful when you turn the fish over as they may stick, so use a flat metal spatula to loosen them off of the grill rails. Place pineapple on the grill at the same time as the salmon, but only turn the pineapple triangles two times. This is also fifteen minutes cook time for the second course of your meal. The squash only needs about ten minutes. Corn will need about fifteen minutes. The hickory flavor of the smoke should be plenty enough seasoning for the vegetables. If that is not enough then sprinkle with salt and pepper and a little bit of chopped fresh garlic.
When they have cooked remove the salmon from the grill and pull out the backbone. Then pull out the rosemary sticks. Brush the fish with the honey wasabi mayonnaise and set on plates. Arrange pineapple and vegetable around your centerpiece of salmon. Sprinkle chopped macadamia nuts or cashews mixed with chopped parsley and rosemary over it all. Garnish with lime and red bell pepper.
FROZEN BERRIES
1 pint blueberries
1 pint raspberries
1 bunch green seedless grapes
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Pick the grapes off the stems. Arrange the fruits on a freezer proof plate. Sprinkle with the sugar. Freeze. When it’s time to eat just place the plate on the table and munch along as the sun goes down on your perfect Georgia day with friends by the grill. And that, all together, is the way to live to eat.

GRILLING MY LIFE AWAY
Sometimes a warm summer night is all we need
To see how beloved this Southern life can be,
For me it’s how I cherish, how I care and prepare,
For others it’s just the way the day crawls by,
How we sit and chat and watch the flowers in the breeze,
And any way you slice it there’s no other way to live
Than passing the time on a porch in Georgia in late August.

proletaria

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garden ponderings

𝓡. 𝓐. 𝓓𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓵𝓪𝓼

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RhYmOpeDia

Immature poet imitate...but the mature one steal from the depth of the heart

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IN MEMORY EVERYTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN TO MUSIC - Tennessee Williams

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Lordess

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Discobar Bizar

Welkom op de blog van Discobar Bizar. Druk gerust wat op de andere knoppen ook, of lees het aangrijpende verhaal van Harry nu je hier bent. Welcome to the Discobar Bizar blog, feel free to push some of the other buttons, or to read the gripping story of Harry whilst you are here!

the poet's billow

a resource for moving poetry

MY TROUBLED MIND

confessions are self-serving

D.H. Glass

Author. Poet.

Sketches from Berlin (& Parts Beyond)

Poetry, Fiction, Essays & Art by M.P. Powers

proletaria

politics philosophy phenomena

Poems for Warriors

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Ps 147:3

LUNA

Pen to paper

Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha

Musings and books from a grunty overthinker

Confessions of a Readaholic

Eclipsed Words

Aspire To Inspire

Art at the push of a button

Photography

Tiger Blog

susansflowers

garden ponderings

𝓡. 𝓐. 𝓓𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓵𝓪𝓼

Poetry, blogs and more.

Claudia Hernandez

RhYmOpeDia

Immature poet imitate...but the mature one steal from the depth of the heart

hotfox63

IN MEMORY EVERYTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN TO MUSIC - Tennessee Williams

errinspelling

Lordess

Welcome to my world.

Discobar Bizar

Welkom op de blog van Discobar Bizar. Druk gerust wat op de andere knoppen ook, of lees het aangrijpende verhaal van Harry nu je hier bent. Welcome to the Discobar Bizar blog, feel free to push some of the other buttons, or to read the gripping story of Harry whilst you are here!

the poet's billow

a resource for moving poetry

MY TROUBLED MIND

confessions are self-serving

D.H. Glass

Author. Poet.

Sketches from Berlin (& Parts Beyond)

Poetry, Fiction, Essays & Art by M.P. Powers

proletaria

politics philosophy phenomena

Poems for Warriors

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Ps 147:3

LUNA

Pen to paper

Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha

Musings and books from a grunty overthinker

Confessions of a Readaholic

Eclipsed Words

Aspire To Inspire

Art at the push of a button

Photography

Tiger Blog

susansflowers

garden ponderings

𝓡. 𝓐. 𝓓𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓵𝓪𝓼

Poetry, blogs and more.

Claudia Hernandez

RhYmOpeDia

Immature poet imitate...but the mature one steal from the depth of the heart

hotfox63

IN MEMORY EVERYTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN TO MUSIC - Tennessee Williams

errinspelling

Lordess

Welcome to my world.

Discobar Bizar

Welkom op de blog van Discobar Bizar. Druk gerust wat op de andere knoppen ook, of lees het aangrijpende verhaal van Harry nu je hier bent. Welcome to the Discobar Bizar blog, feel free to push some of the other buttons, or to read the gripping story of Harry whilst you are here!

the poet's billow

a resource for moving poetry

MY TROUBLED MIND

confessions are self-serving

D.H. Glass

Author. Poet.

Sketches from Berlin (& Parts Beyond)

Poetry, Fiction, Essays & Art by M.P. Powers