One Big Happy Table

While at the MOPs Convention, I took a Hot Topics course in Food Family Style by Leigh Vickery.  She has a new blog that I began following as well and this most recent post was so charming and sweet.  Plus if I don't make every one of those recipes soon, I might die of my cravings.  Stop by her blog at One Big Happy Table.

The South’s Odd Couple

August 10, 2011  |  All, Good Books, Good People, Recipes, Writings

Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock. Photo by Christopher Hirscheimer.

I knew him first by his fried chicken, which was enough for me to know Scott Peacock had to be a good man.

What I didn’t know for some time was where he learned to make this fried chicken, the one that begins with two brine and buttermilk soaks and ends in a skillet of hot lard, butter and bits of country ham. At his former Decatur, Ga., restaurant, Watershed, this glorious chicken left me with no doubt God is a chef, and He is definitely from the South. Praise the Lard.

Like so many of us, Peacock developed his gift of Southern cooking by following someone around the kitchen. His muse was the extraordinary Edna Lewis.

Miss Lewis, as he called her until the day she died, was the granddaughter of freed slaves. She was born in 1916 in Freetown, Va., escaping the Depression and her dead-end world when she was 15 to try and find work in New York City. She was fired from
her first job – ironing – in three hours.

But somehow she survived, cooking for her friends for fun while trying to make a living as a seamstress and window dresser.

It didn’t take long for the Big Apple to realize that the roast chicken and caramel cake Miss Lewis made was something they had been missing their whole lives. In 1948, antique dealer John Nicholson announced to Miss Lewis that he was opening a restaurant, and she would be his partner.

Café Nicholson was an instant success, drawing New Yorkers and Southern transplants such as Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner and Truman Capote to its tables night after night. There was no menu; Miss Lewis wowed them with what her hands knew by heart – classic Southern cooking.

As the years passed and Miss Lewis moved on from the café, her fame spread back home. It was on one of these trips back to the South to cook for others that she met Peacock, who begged her to let him help make some pies for an Atlanta food event.

And so their friendship began.

Peacock is a white man from Alabama. Miss Lewis was a black woman from Virginia. But their relationship was not one you could pull from the pages of “The Help,” Kathryn Stockett’s fascinating look into mid—1960s Mississippi and the layers of racism that wasted the lives of many good people, both black and white.

Peacock and Miss Lewis were simply friends, drawn together through a common passion for cooking. She taught him that creativity often meant stripping away the excess in cooking, allowing the strong flavors of the South to stand on their own. The two of them joined to write the beautiful book, “The Gift of Southern Cooking,” a volume every Southern cook would do well to own.

Eventually, the two became family to each other, with Miss Lewis helping Peacock figure out who he was as a person through some tough times. And in the end, it was Peacock who took Miss Lewis in and cared for her from 1999 until she passed away in 2006.

Somehow, over talks about shrimp and grits, turtle soup and bourbon-pecan pie, two people discovered that the only skin worth talking about was the one on the chicken in the cast-iron skillet.

If you can find 20 minutes, I think you’ll enjoy “Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie,” a short documentary about Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock. After the video, I’ve included their famous recipe, “Southern Pan-Fried Chicken,” as well as a few more favorites perfect for supper before opening night of “The Help.” The runaway best-seller hits the big screens today.

Southern Pan-Fried Chicken

One 3-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces, brined* for 8 to 12 hours

1 quart buttermilk

1 pound lard

l stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup country-ham pieces, or 1 thick slice country ham cut into 1/2 inch strips

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To prepare the chicken for frying: Drain the brined chicken and rinse out the bowl it was brined in. Return the chicken to the bowl, and pour the buttermilk over. Cover and refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours. Drain the chicken on a wire rack, discarding the
buttermilk.

Meanwhile, prepare the fat for frying by putting the lard, butter, and country ham into a heavy skillet or frying pan. Cook over low heat for 30 to 45 minutes, skimming as needed, until the butter ceases to throw off foam and the country ham is
browned. Use a slotted spoon to remove the ham carefully from the fat. (The ham pieces can be saved and used to make Smoked Pork Stock) Just before frying, increase the temperature to medium-high and heat the fat to 335°F (170°C).

Prepare the dredge by blending together the flour, cornstarch, salt and pepper in a shallow bowl or on wax paper. Dredge the drained chicken pieces thoroughly in the flour mixture, then pat well to remove all excess flour.

Slip some of the chicken pieces, skin side down, into the heated fat. (Do not overcrowd the pan, and fry in batches if necessary.) Cook for 8 to 10 minutes on each side, until the chicken is golden brown and cooked through. Drain thoroughly on a wire rack or
on crumpled paper towels, and serve.

Fried chicken is delicious eaten hot, warm, at room temperature, or cold. *Brining, that is, soaking it in a saltwater solution before cooking, serves a twofold purpose: it helps the flesh retain moisture and seasons it all the way through. To make the
brine, stir kosher salt into cold water until dissolved, in the proportion of 1/4 cup salt to 1 quart of water. (Don’t use table salt in this formula, by the way; it will be too salty). Mix enough brine to cover the poultry or meat completely in a (non-reactive) bowl or pot. Store refrigerated 8 to 12 hours for poultry.

Scott Peacock’s Buttermilk Biscuits

5 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour (measured after sifting)

1 tablespoon plus 1 ½ teaspoons homemade baking powder or purchased baking powder

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed lard or butter, chilled

2 cups chilled buttermilk

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Heat oven to 500°F. In a large bowl whisk together flour, homemade baking powder, and kosher salt. Add lard, coating in flour. Working quickly, rub lard between fingertips until roughly half the lard is coarsely blended and half remains in large pieces, about ¾ inch.

Make a well in center of flour mixture. Add buttermilk all at once. With a large spoon stir mixture quickly, just until it is blende and begins to mass and form a sticky dough. (If dough appears dry, add 1 to 2 tablespoons additional buttermilk.)

Immediately turn dough onto generously floured surface. Using floured hands, knead briskly 8 to 10 times until cohesive ball of dough forms. Gently flatten dough with hands to even thickness. Using floured rolling pin, lightly roll dough to ¾-inch thickness.

Using a dinner fork dipped in flour, pierce dough completely through at ½-inch intervals. Flour a 2 ½- or 3-inch biscuit cutter. Stamp out rounds and arrange on heavy parchment-lined baking sheet. Add dough pieces, as-is, to baking sheet.

Place on rack in upper third of oven. Bake 8 to 12 minutes until crusty and golden brown. Remove. Brush with melted butter. Serve hot.

Makes 12 to 16 biscuits.

Demetrie’s Chocolate Pie

Courtesy:
Kathryn Stockett, author of “The Help”

1-2/3 cups water

5 tablespoons sweetened cocoa powder, such as Ghirardelli

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

3 egg yolks, beaten

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 9-inch pie shell, prebaked plain or graham cracker

Whipped cream (or if it’s not too humid, you can top with meringue)

Shaved chocolate to sprinkle on top, for looks

In a medium sized, cool saucepan, mix water, cocoa, and cornstarch with a whisk until all the lumps are gone, making a paste. Stir in condensed milk and egg yolks. Heat to just under a boil and stir until it’s thick. Reduce heat to low and stir in butter. Add in your good vanilla, and keep stirring well. Turn off the heat and let it cool some. Pour into a prebaked pie shell, store-bought if that’s how you do things.

Let the pie set-up in a cool spot, like a plug-in refrigerator, covering with wax paper so you don’t get a skin.
Dollop cream on top or top with meringue. Yield: 1 9 inch pie, 6-8 servings