A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [82]
4. Spoon the remaining 1 tablespoon oil into the skillet and set over moderate heat for 1 minute. Add the onions, green and red bell peppers, garlic, and curry powder and sauté for about 10 minutes or until limp and golden, stirring often; do not brown. Add the tomatoes and their liquid, the currants, parsley, thyme, mace, and remaining ½ teaspoon salt, and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes, breaking up large clumps of tomato.
5. Arrange the chicken breasts one layer deep in an ungreased shallow 3-quart casserole, spoon the hot skillet mixture over all, and cover with aluminum foil.
6. Bake the casserole on the middle oven shelf for 45 to 50 minutes or until the chicken is fork-tender.
7. To serve, bed the rice on a heated large, deep platter, arrange the chicken on top, pour the tomato sauce over and around the chicken, then sprinkle with the toasted almonds.
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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
1882
Tennessee traveling salesman Joel Cheek perfects a fragrant new coffee blend. Ten years later it’s known as Maxwell House, taking the name of the Nashville hotel where it’s served. (See box, Chapter 6.)
J. Allen Smith and his partner J. A. Walker acquire the down-and-out Knoxville City Mills and in that Tennessee town begin grinding the soft winter wheat flours southern cooks favor.
An open-air farmer’s market comes to downtown Roanoke. It is Virginia’s first and it is still there.
1883
A Southern Exposition is held in Louisville to showcase the best of the “New South.” Lighting the after-dark events are 4,600 Edison electric lights (Thomas Edison had once lived in Louisville). The fair is so popular it reopens every year for the next four years.
1884–85
A World’s Fair comes to New Orleans. Though called the World Cotton Centennial, many of the agricultural and horticultural exhibits have nothing to do with cotton.
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CHICKEN JAMBALAYA
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
I’ve spent considerable time in Louisiana, most of it in Cajun Country west of New Orleans or in the lesser-known parishes to the north and west. Driving over one spring from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, I paused for several days in St. Francisville. Once called the town “two miles long and two yards wide,” St. Francisville is blessed with a remarkable number of historic landmarks and outlying plantations, among them Oakley, where John J. Audubon lived and worked in 1821. Located in “British Louisiana,” St. Francisville fronts the Mississippi—the dividing line between the Anglo parishes lying east of the great river and “French Louisiana” to the south and west. This is not to say that the cooking of “British Louisiana” is bland; this jambalaya easily proves otherwise. It’s adapted from a recipe that appears in Plantation Country, a fund-raiser published by the Women’s Service League of St. Francisville. As for the origin of the word jambalaya, see The Language of Southern Food.
3 to 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
One 3¼-to 3½-pound broiler-fryer, cut up for frying
¾ teaspoon salt, or to taste
½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste 6 ounces andouille sausage or chorizo, diced
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
2 large celery ribs, coarsely chopped
1 large green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1½ cups converted rice
2½ to 3 cups chicken stock or broth (about)
1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large, heavy kettle over moderately high heat for 2 minutes or until ripples appear on the kettle bottom. Brown the chicken in two or three batches, allowing 3 to 5 minutes per batch, seasoning with salt and pepper as the pieces brown, and adding another tablespoon of oil if needed. Drain the browned chicken on paper toweling.
2. Add the remaining oil to the kettle along with the andouille and brown for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the onion, celery,