A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [50]
3. Half fill a large kettle with cold water and bring to a boil over moderate heat. Add the mustard greens and collards and boil uncovered for 5 minutes. Drain the greens and plunge into ice water to set the color.
4. In the same large kettle, heat the bacon drippings over moderately high heat for 1 minute. Add the ham and brown for 3 to 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to moderate, add the onion, carrots, celery, and garlic and sauté for 8 to 10 minutes or until limp.
5. Add the broth, bay leaf, salt, pepper, and the reserved black-eyed peas and greens, and bring to a boil. Adjust the heat so the mixture simmers gently and cook uncovered for 15 minutes or until the flavors meld. Discard the bay leaf; also taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed.
6. Ladle into heated soup bowls and serve with chunks of fresh-baked corn bread.
Everybody has the right to think whose food is the most gorgeous, and I nominate Georgia’s.
—OGDEN NASH
GALLEGOS HOUSE BEEF, BEAN, AND CABBAGE SOUP
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
Florida cooking owes much of its flamboyance to the Spaniards who settled there long before Jamestown, long before Plymouth. I took my first taste of Spanish Florida in St. Augustine, founded in 1565 by Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. Still in my teens and touring the Sunshine State with my parents, I entered St. Augustine’s historic quarter, then slipped inside the Gallegos House just beyond the old town gates. A simple flat-roofed, two-room structure, it was a dark, cool haven from the down-beating sun. But it was a lesson in history, too, a way to portray the life of a Spanish Colonial family in the early 1700s. My favorite room in this museum house was the kitchen, where costumed women scurried about preparing old Spanish recipes. This peppery soup, a Gallegos House specialty back then, originated, the busy cooks told me, in Galicia on the northwest coast of Spain. Note: Around Ybor City, Tampa’s old Cuban but now multiethnic quarter, collards are often used in place of cabbage.
1 cup dried garbanzo beans (chickpeas), washed and sorted
8 cups (2 quarts) cold water
¼ cup olive oil
1 pound boneless beef chuck, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 large Spanish onion, coarsely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, finely minced
1 large green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
½ to 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (depending on how “hot” you like things)
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
¼ teaspoon crushed cumin seeds
1 small cabbage (about 2 pounds), quartered, cored, and thinly sliced OR 2 pounds collards, trimmed, heavy veins removed, and leaves thinly sliced (see Note at left)
1. Soak the beans overnight in 2 cups of the cold water; drain and reserve.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy soup kettle over moderately high heat for 2 minutes or until ripples appear on the pan bottom.
3. Add the beef and brown, stirring often, for about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to moderate, add the onion, garlic, bell pepper, and red pepper flakes, and cook, stirring now and then, for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned.
4. Add the beans, the remaining 6 cups of water, the salt, and cumin, and bring to a boil. Adjust the heat so the mixture bubbles gently, cover, and simmer for about 1½ hours or until the beef and beans are both very tender.
5. Add the cabbage, pushing down into the liquid, cover, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until the cabbage is crisp-tender. Stir the soup well, taste for salt, and adjust as needed.
6. To serve, ladle into heated soup bowls and accompany with crusty chunks of bread.
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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
1782
Baltimore’s Lexington Market opens in a pasture. Still in the same location and busier than ever, the market now sprawls over two city-center blocks and is the place to go for live blue crabs, artisanal breads, homemade sausages, and farm-fresh produce.
1783
England declares an end to the