A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [7]
When I was old enough to drink, the BYO (Bring Your Own) party was fashionable, but the booze had to be hidden in a brown bag in both car and restaurant. We’d order setups, sneak our brown-bagged bottles from underneath the table, then add as much bourbon, Jack Daniel’s, or Southern Comfort as we wanted.
Does this explain why southern appetizers run to rib-sticking meats, cheeses, and eggs? I’ve always thought so; they helped “line the stomach” and sop up the booze. With no opened liquor allowed in cars, people would polish off their bottles before driving back home.
Today mixed drinks can be bought in nearly every southern town, but the Southerner’s fondness for substantial appetizers persists.
What follow are such perennial favorites as barbecued meatballs, pickled shrimp, candied bacon, and boiled peanuts plus some of the truly innovative new appetizers I’ve enjoyed on recent travels about the South.
Burn off your infested cotton! Plant Peanuts!
—GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER
BROILED OYSTERS WITH TOASTED PECAN PESTO
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
A few years ago Gourmet magazine sent me south to profile “Little-Known Louisiana.” I’d visited New Orleans several times, also parts of Cajun Country, but I’d never spent time in the central and northern parishes (counties). Driving over from Mississippi, I entered the Felicianas or “English Louisiana.” First stop: St. Francisville, high on a bluff above the great river with antebellum mansions scattered about. At The Myrtles, said to be America’s “most haunted house,” I encountered no ghosts. But I did discover a fine little restaurant called Kean’s Carriage House. Among chef Tyler Kean’s spins on southern cooking was this imaginative appetizer.
Coarse or kosher salt for anchoring the oyster shells
¼ cup lightly toasted pecans (10 to 12 minutes in a 350° F. oven)
2 small garlic cloves
3 cups firmly packed fresh basil leaves
2½ tablespoons coarse dry bread crumbs
2½ tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
2½ tablespoons water
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 2
½ tablespoons butter, at room temperature
2½ tablespoons fruity olive oil
16 oysters on the half shell
2 tablespoons finely julienned fresh basil leaves (optional garnish)
1. Preheat the broiler. Spread enough coarse salt in a large shallow roasting pan for a layer about ½ inch thick; set aside.
2. Whiz the pecans, garlic, basil leaves, bread crumbs, Parmesan, water, and lemon juice in a food processor or an electric blender at high speed until reduced to paste. Add the butter and olive oil and churn until smooth. Set the pecan pesto aside.
3. Carefully remove the oysters from their shells and reserve. Wash and dry the shells, then bed in the pan of salt.
4. Return the oysters to their shells, set in the broiler 3 inches from the heat, and broil for 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the broiler and spoon the reserved pesto over the oysters, dividing the total amount evenly. Return to the broiler and broil for 4 to 5 minutes or until bubbling and lightly browned.
5. Arrange four oysters on each of four heated small plates; garnish, if you like, with a little of the julienned basil, and serve hot as a first course.
PICKLED OYSTERS
MAKES 6 TO 8 SERVINGS
Pickled oysters are a cocktail favorite wherever oysters are fresh, plump, and flavorful, meaning most of the South. The hostesses I know like to mound them in small crystal bowls, top them off with a little of the pickling liquid, and pass with toothpicks so that guests can “go spear-fishing.” Though the red serranos add color, I suggest sprigging the bowl with fresh dill umbels or sprigs of Italian parsley. Come to think of it, small fennel umbels would also be attractive and appropriate. Note: Because cooking clouds the oyster liquid, I pour it through a coffee filter–lined sieve directly onto the oysters and spices. Makes for a prettier presentation at serving time.
2 dozen shucked oysters of uniform size (not too large) in their liquid (about 1 quart or 2 pounds)
Two 1¾-inch