A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [126]
2½ cups water mixed with ½ teaspoon salt (salted water)
2/3 cup quick-cooking grits
2 cups coarsely shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (about 8 ounces)
1 medium garlic clove, crushed
¼ cup light cream
1 tablespoon butter
1/8 to ¼ teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne), depending upon how “hot” you like things
1. Bring the salted water to a boil in a medium-size heavy saucepan over high heat. Slowly add the grits, whisking all the while.
2. When the mixture returns to a boil, reduce the heat to moderately low and cook uncovered, whisking often, for 8 to 10 minutes or until thick. Mix in the cheese and garlic along with all remaining ingredients and cook 1 to 2 minutes, whisking now and then, or just until the cheese melts.
3. Dish up and serve.
A respectable Georgia breakfast means fish roe and grits or at least eggs or maybe country sausage.
—CARSON MCCULLERS, ON HER GEORGIA CHILDHOOD
* * *
TO MAKE LYE HOMINY THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY
Take about a gallon of corn and 4 or 5 cups of wood ashes and boil until hulls and eyes will slip off. Wash in cold water until eyes, hulls, and ashes are removed. Boil until tender. Wash again and store until ready to use.
—Mrs. Mack Oliver, Iredell County, North Carolina
* * *
HOMINY SOUFFLÉ
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
Only a Southerner can understand the subtle semantics of grits and hominy and, to be perfectly honest, some Southerners are on shaky ground here. To me, hominy was always “big hominy,” whole corn kernels puffed in a lye bath (in Mexico and the Southwest, it’s known as posole). Yet in South Carolina, especially the Lowcountry, grits becomes hominy when cooked. This explains the recipe title above. My good friend Anne Mead, who grew up in Dillon, South Carolina, used to serve this lovely soufflé for Sunday brunch with fried country ham or sausage. I called it grits soufflé until Anne corrected me. “It’s hominy soufflé,” she said. “I cook the grits before I make the soufflé.” What follows is my spin on Anne’s recipe; it appears in Please Kiss the Cook, a little collection of family favorites that she printed some years ago. Note: For this recipe, I prefer coarse, stone-ground yellow grits, never quick-cooking (see Sources, backmatter). There’s an old-fashioned country mill one county over and that’s where I head whenever I’m out of stone-ground grits or cornmeal. I buy by the gunny sack and share with friends. Tip: My method of cooking grits is unorthodox, but it works for me. Instead of whisking the grits gradually into boiling water, I whisk a slow stream of boiling water into the grits.
¾ cup grits (see Note above)
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 cup boiling water mixed with ¾ teaspoon salt
2 cups milk or 1 cup each milk and half-and-half
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup coarsely grated sharp Cheddar cheese
4 large eggs, separated
1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Place the grits and pepper in the top of a medium-size double boiler and whisk in the boiling salted water. Set over simmering water and cook, whisking constantly, for about 5 minutes or until thick.
3. Remove from the heat and whisk in the milk. Set the double boiler top directly over moderately low heat and cook, whisking often, for 12 to 15 minutes or until the mixture is the consistency of thin porridge.
4. Transfer the grits mixture to a large bowl, add the butter and cheese, and whisk until both melt. Beat the egg yolks lightly, blend about 1 cup of the hot grits mixture into the eggs, then stir back into the bowl.
5. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks, fold about 1 cup of the beaten whites into the grits mixture to lighten it, then fold in the remaining whites gently but thoroughly until no streaks of white or yellow remain.
6. Pour the mixture into an ungreased 2½-quart soufflé dish, slide onto the middle oven shelf, and bake for 40 to