A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [5]
Sour cream is measured tightly packed in a dry measuring cup unless recipes direct otherwise. Here’s how to do it: Scoop up a tablespoon of sour cream, drop it into the dry measure (see Flour, above, for a description of these measuring cups), then, using the bowl of the spoon, pack it in; repeat until the cup is full, then level off the top with the broad side of a small thin-blade spatula.
Note: Mayonnaise, lard, and vegetable shortening are measured the same way, and jam and peanut butter often are as well. Recipes are specific about how each should be measured.
Light and dark brown sugars are measured tightly packed in a dry measuring cup unless a recipe directs otherwise.
Molasses, honey, corn syrup, and other sticky liquids will slide out of measuring cups and spoons more easily if these have been well spritzed with nonstick cooking spray.
All citrus juices (lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit) are freshly squeezed. The one exception: Key lime juice. The bottled may be used if fresh Key limes are unavailable. (See Sources, backmatter.)
Vanilla is pure vanilla extract, never imitation. Ditto almond, orange, lemon, and rum extracts. I find artificially flavored extracts unpleasantly perfume-y. They can ruin a good cake.
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese is Parmigiano-Reggiano if you can afford it. Otherwise, use a Wisconsin or Argentine Parmesan and grate it yourself. Thirty seconds or so in the food processor and the job is done.
Black pepper is freshly ground.
Salt is uniodized table salt because it’s best for baked goods. You can of course substitute coarse or kosher salt in soups, salads, sides, and main dishes but increase amounts as needed to taste.
About Pork and Chicken
Pork: Today’s lean pork has had so much flavor and succulence bred out of it that I now use only a “boutique” brand like Niman Ranch. I suggest that you do the same when preparing the pork recipes in this book. You’ll be happier with the results.
Chicken: Chicken breasts have grown so large that a friend of mine said they’d “feed a family of four.” I call them D cups. If you’re roasting a chicken, the size of the breast doesn’t matter. But it definitely does if you’re frying chicken. I find that frying-size chickens (about 3 pounds) are now a special order.
Here’s a tip: If your supermarket or butcher has no fryers, go to the rotisserie department and sweet-talk the man in charge into selling you a raw rotisserie chicken weighing 2½ to 3 pounds. If he won’t disjoint it for you, perhaps the butcher will. That’s what I was forced to do when testing the fried chicken recipes in this book.
About Pasteurized Eggs
Many old southern recipes call for raw eggs or ones that are not sufficiently cooked to destroy the salmonella bacteria that may (or may not) be present. It’s said that only one in 10,000 eggs may be infected; still, using raw eggs is rather like playing Russian roulette. I’d rather be safe than sorry. So whenever I think it advisable to use pasteurized eggs in a particular recipe, I say so. Fortunately, you can now buy pasteurized eggs at some supermarkets and specialty groceries (Davidson is the brand my markets carry). Pasteurized eggs can be used in place of raw eggs in any recipe; their whites are slightly cloudy and take longer to whip to stiff peaks than raw egg whites. Otherwise, I see no difference between the two. If pasteurized eggs are unavailable, I’d suggest buying eggs from a small local source, perhaps some trusted vendor at your farmer’s market.
As for Meringues
The time it takes to brown a meringue-topped pie may not render it safe, so use pasteurized egg whites or consider one of these other options: pasteurized egg whites sold in both powdered form (Just Whites) and in liquid (the Whole Foods grocery chain now stocks little cartons of liquid pasteurized whites).