Southern Soups & Stews

This Christmas present was from Ann because she likes soup. Usually, when she comes for Christmas, I make up 4 or 5 batches of soup and freeze them so she can leave with a cooler of soup. Little did she know that Southern Soups & Stews was written by one of our favorites, Nancie McDermott.

(Now I am going to digress and tell you what I hate about most cookbooks as a way of pointing out what is really great in McDermott's book. Many cookbook authors act like they invented cooking. Like no one before them ever thought of putting macaroni and cheese together in a casserole dish! How about putting bits of chocolate into cookies?  And then one day, I dropped my chicken in a big vat of hot oil and it was delicious. I admit it, my cornbread recipes is the same one my Mother used and she got it from her aunt, who got it from her grandmother and it is the same cornbread recipe that 90% of Southerner's use and frankly, I don't know who thought it up...but it does have a history, even if it is just my history.)

Sitting alone in the kitchen with Southern Soups & Stews you will find that not only is Nancie McDermott there with you, but the kitchen is jam packed with other people who have helped build a culinary legacy, and a damn fine cookbook.  McDermott always gives credit where credit is due. In doing that, she takes the reader and cook on mad romp through the history of Southern cooking.

You will find Rufus Estes who published what as probably the first cookbook by an African-American chef. There is Nathalie Dupree, who was promoting Southern cooking on PBS before "Southern" cooking was the new big thing.  There is a chicken bog that in some form or another, graces my table every Sunday. The Crab Soup from Buster Holmes that brought back memories of 721 Burgundy.  When I was kid, I used to venture back in the French Quarter to Buster Holmes. I was often the only white face in there and I could never afford crab soup, but the red beans and rice were transcendent.

This shrimp is McDermott's own.  Drawn from years and years of French Arcadian cooking in Louisiana an etouffée comes from the French word étouffer to smother or braise.  Cajun and Creole cooks for generations have smothered the local shrimp and crawfish in a thick roux with peppers, onions, and celery. 

Shrimp Etouffée

1 1/2 pounds head-on medium shrimp, or 1 pound medium shrimp, unshelled

1 1/2 cups shrimp stock, chicken stock, or water

1 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon paprika

3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

 Rice, for serving

1. Remove the shrimp shells, tails and heads if you have them, and place them in a medium saucepan. Cover and refrigerate the shrimp. Pour the stock over the shrimp shells and place the saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring it to a rolling boil, and then lower the heat to maintain a lively simmer. Cook for 20 minutes and then remove from the heat.

2. While the stock is simmering, stir the thyme, salt, pepper, cayenne, and paprika together in a small bowl, using a fork to combine them. When the stock is ready, pour it through a wire-mesh strainer into a measuring cup. Add a little water if needed to make 1 1/2 cups.

3. Place a large heavy skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add the butter. Swirl to coat the pan as the butter melts. When a pinch of flour blooms on the surface when added to the butter, scatter in the flour and stir quickly and thoroughly, combining the butter and flour evenly into a thick, smooth roux. Continue cooking, stirring often, as the roux turns from white to golden-brown, about 2 minutes. Add the spice mixture, onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic and stir quickly, mixing the vegetables into the roux. Cook until everything is fragrant and softened, 1 to 2 minutes more. 
4. Slowly add the stock, stirring and scraping to mix it in evenly. When the sauce is bubbling and boiling gently, lower the heat and cook, stirring now and then, until the sauce is thickened and smooth, about 15 minutes.

5. Scatter in the shrimp and let them cook undisturbed until the sides are turning visibly orange or pink, about 1 minute. Toss well and continue cooking, stirring often, until the shrimp are pink, firm, and cooked through and nicely flavored by the sauce. Add the green onions and parsley and stir well. Transfer the etouffée to a serving dish and serve it hot or warm over the rice. 

At Cookbook Of The Day, we are always stressing that cookbooks are really just history books with food interspersed within them.   Nancie McDermott is one of those authors who never disappoints. The book is filled with histories, famous chefs, infamous cooks, family, friends, memories,  and a whole bunch of delicious recipes. There is even a bibliography -- a must for a modern cookbook. This is the perfect book for cooks and for historians alike, so grab yourself a copy of Southern Soups & Stews.

Books and My Food

Books and My Food.  Is there a title that more accurately describes my life?  This little gem from 1906 was compiled by Elisabeth Luther Cary and Annie M. Jones.  The premise is simple: every day of the year is marked with a quotation from a book and a recipe.  The Misses Cary and Jones were greatly enamored of the English novel and drew most of their quotes from them.  There is Shakespeare and Thackeray.  Some Charles'  Lamb and Dickens.  And they are especially fond of Charlotte Bronté. 

As with most very early cookbooks from the 20th century, there is little direction for cooking, so you are kind of on your own.  Still, it is a cute mix of the culinary and the literary in one place.  Not to mention you have food and literature for every day of the year.

If you were following the cookbook who you be reading today?  A selection from William Makepeace Thackeray's "The Ballad of Bouillabaisse."   Today's meal, it would follow, will be a fine bouillabaisse.  Well, it would be a fine fish stew.  The author's feel that there is really no reason to put all that extraneous stuff Thackeray mentions in the poem. 

April 1st

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is --
  A sort of soup or broth, or brew,
Or hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes,
  That Greenwich never could outdo:
Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron,
  Soles, onions, garlic, roach and dace:
All these you'll eat at Terré's tavern
  In that one dish of bouillabaisse.


The famous bouillabaisse is indeed as Thackeray describes it, a sort of fish chowder, but it is seldom contains all the ingredients he mentions.  It may be made with four pounds of fresh cod, two onions, a clove of garlic, one peppercorn, two stalks of celery, a quart of white potatoes cut in small pieces, salt, pepper, and a quarter of a pound of salt pork, cut in slices. Put all the ingredients together in a granite kettle and stew slowly in water enough to cover them for three to four hours. Just before serving add 1 quart of hot milk.

I wonder what cod would look like after being cooked for four hours?  After four hours that cod and potatoes would probably be cooked down to a soup, more of a broth or slurry than a stew one might imagine.  It might be more productive to read the entire Thackeray poem and seek out a different bouillabaisse recipe.  Or simply cook the salt pork for and hour or two and add the veggies and fish during the last half hour of cooking.  You are more inclined to have a fish stew that way.

The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook

It's Football Saturday. Alabama is tromping South Carolina and what a better day than this to feature the The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook. While neither of them ever went to South Carolina, they do live there when not living in New York City. this is a big wonderful book filled with great old and new recipes. They have taken a lot of (fill in the excrement word here) for adding sugar to their cornbread and I, too, was appalled at this transgression, but I have learned to love them, again and chalk it up to all that Yankee, elite Northeastern scoolin' they were subjected to.

Still it is a fine book and I am looking forward to their new book. (fill in a big hint, hint, here)

Here is a South Carolina tradition and a great game day stew. It won't save the Gamecocks from an ass-whoopin' but at the very least they will have a fine dinner.

Frogmore Stew

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, peanut oil, or canola oil
1 1/2 pounds smoked pork sausage, Cajun andouille, or kielbasa, cut on the bias into 1 1/4-inch-thick pieces
2 serrano, Thai, or other dried red chiles, trimmed, slit down their sides, seeded, and flattened
1 cup chopped celery (about 2 stalks)
2 cups chopped yellow onion (about 2 large onions)
2 quarts (8 cups) Sunday Shrimp Broth
1 teaspoon Lee Bros. Shrimp Boil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 bay leaves
6 live blue crabs or 1/2 pound lump crabmeat
1 1/2 pounds peeled Yukon Gold or other waxy potatoes (about 3 large potatoes), cut into 1-inch dice
3 ears fresh corn, cut into 6 pieces
6 whole canned plum tomatoes, drained and crushed
2 pounds large headless shrimp (26 - 30 per pound), shells on
1 medium lemon, thinly sliced, for garnish


1. Heat the oil in an 8-quart stockpot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the sausage. (Don't overcrowd the pot; if you have a narrow-bottomed stockpot, cook the sausage in batches.) Sear until golden brown along the sides, then turn and brown on another side, about 6 minutes total. Remove with tongs and reserve in a medium bowl. Add the chiles and gently toast in the oil and sausage fat until they discolor and release some of their fragrance, about 30 seconds on each side. Add the celery and onion and cook until softened, about 6 minutes.

2. Add 2 cups broth to the pot. Using a wooden spoon, stir in tight circles, scraping up any caramelized brown bits from the bottom. Bring the broth to a boil and boil until reduced by one quarter, about 6 minutes. Pour the remaining 6 cups broth into the pot, add the shrimp boil, salt, and bay leaves, and cover. When the broth simmers, turn the heat to medium-low, uncover, and simmer vigorously while you clean the crabs.

3. Using tongs, drop 2 live crabs at a time into the simmering broth and cook until their shells turn bright orange, about 2 minutes. Transfer the crabs to a colander set in the sink and run cold water over them. Add the next 2 live crabs to the pot and repeat until all the crabs have been cooked. As each cooked crab becomes cool enough to handle, remove the face (the strip on the front that encompasses the eyes and the mouth) with kitchen scissors. Then slip your thumb in the gap created between the top and bottom shells and pull off the top shell, exposing the feathery gills. Discard the top shell and the gills. Turn the crab over and slide the tip of a knife beneath where the cape of shell tapers to a point; lift the bottom shell off and discard. (If you find any orange crab roe, add it to the pot.) With a cleaver (or with your hands), split each crab down the middle and drop both halves in the stew. Repeat until all the crabs have been returned to the pot.

4. Add the potatoes and continue to cook until they have softened a bit but are not yet fork-tender, about 10 minutes. Add the corn, tomatoes, and reserved sausage, along with any juices it may have released, cover, and increase the heat to medium-high. When the stew comes to a vigorous simmer, reduce the heat to low, uncover, and continue to simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the tine of a fork easily pierces the potatoes. Add the crabmeat, if using, and the shrimp, stir to distribute them throughout the stew, and simmer about 3 minutes more, or until the shrimp are pink and cooked through.

5. For optimal flavor, refrigerate for 24 hours, then reheat the stew gradually, over medium-low heat, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Serve in large bowls, garnished with the lemon slices.

For a stripped down version of of Frogmore Stew, check out this recipe for Frog More-or-Less Stew at Lucindaville.

Today, I'm making Brunswick stew for the game. No squirrel but a bit of venison. Roll Tide.

The New Cookbook for Poor Poets

Ann Rogers wrote A Cookbook for Poor Poets in 1969 and thirteen years later revised and enlarged it as The New Cookbook for Poor Poets. Her original premise featured an ideal called a nickel dinner. As a child of the Depression, Rogers went on Sundays with the father to buy the weeks wine. There was always bread and wine whether there was anything else on the tables. By 1969, there was no such thing as a nickel dinner, certainly not in 1976, and definitely not today. Today a $5 dinner is hard to find. While the financial argument is a bit specious, Rogers rules for dinning are spot on.

Rules for a poor poet’s basic dinner:

1. Always have fresh bread
2. Always use butter
3. Always serve wine
4. Always have a candle on the table

A gala dinner gives hope. The three rule here are:

1. Always have something outrageously expensive
2. Always serve it in the grandest manner
3. Always serve butter

In her revised edition the rules change slightly:

1. Meat is not the only protein
2. Throw out the salt
3. Hide the sugar
4. Cut down on convenience and processed food

Last week after tons of company, I needed to make dinner and I had only bits and pieces of leftover items from my visitors. There were a few potatoes, half a head of cabbage, and one thick Carolina sausage. I was thinking of a modified Bubble and Squeak but that usually works best with cooked leftovers. Since I was starting from scratch, this recipe fit my ingredients perfectly.

Jager Kohl

1/2 pound bacon or sausage
2 or 3 large potatoes
1 small head of cabbage
2 tablespoons flour
salt, cracked pepper, and cider vinegar to taste
1/2 pint sour cream

Fry the bacon in a frying pan with a lid. Drain off most of the fat and add thick slices of peeled potatoes and cabbage. Sprinkle flour over the vegetables, add water to barely cover, along with salt and a dash of vinegar. Cover and cook slowly 45 minutes to an hour. Serve along with a bowl of sour cream, cracked pepper, and a little cruet of vinegar for those who like a sharper flavor.

The rules make this one of my favorite cookbooks. The initial rules are true for a poor poet, a poor philosopher or a well-to-do cook. It can be a simple salad, or a can of beans but serve fresh bread, creamy butter and a nice wine, and dinner will be a triumph.