The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern_ Knockout Dishes With Down-Home Flavor - Matt Lee [10]
VARIATIONS
pj martini Pour 6 ounces of strained PJ into a cocktail shaker half full of cracked ice, and shake it for 15 seconds. Strain into 2 martini glasses.
pj smooth Stem and pit all the cherries, peel and segment the orange and grapefruit, and after steeping the mixture overnight, puree all the ingredients in a blender. This will increase the yield (and the fiber content). Serve on the rocks in tall glasses.
budget campari In developing our PJ recipe, we found that a near approximation of the flavor of the popular Italian aperitivo could be obtained with these same ingredients by making just a few changes to amplify the bitterness: do not peel the citrus before slicing, and use 1 whole grapefruit, instead of a half. Steep the ingredients for a full 24 hours in the fridge before straining. Unlike Campari, this brew must be kept refrigerated.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: RADISH BUTTER, LEE BROS. SHRIMP PÂTÉ, AND BUTTERMILK FRESH CHEESE
Set a platter of smoked peel-and-eat shrimp down in front of a screen—whether it’s Super Bowl Sunday and you’ve gathered neighbors from a ten-house radius, or you’re viewing a movie on your laptop with your loved one—and watch attention wander toward the food.
This chapter is all about luscious, showstopping grazing foods: Garlic-Chile Crabs, Sweet Potato and Okra Fritters, Salt-and-Pepper Shrimp. We also include impressive dishes to roll out on any occasion, like Clams with Sweet Potato, Smoked Sausage, and Watercress, or Squid with Watermelon and Basil, or Skillet-Roasted Quail with Wilted Spinach. These are dishes you could just as easily turn into a weeknight main course, too, simply by dialing up the quantity.
You’ll also find in this chapter a gathering of easy pickle recipes. We always keep an assortment in the fridge, for impromptu cocktail-hour pickle-and-ham plates, and because they so easily become the spark that ignites all kinds of meals, from the tartar sauce, made with chopped pickles, that spins your mind fish-wise to the Fried Green Tomato and Onion Pickles that are great as a snack, on sandwiches, or scattered on salads.
The South has always been a great grazing culture—this is well established; witness our way with pimento cheese, boiled peanuts, and fried pork rinds. We think the recipes in this chapter fit into that tradition of easy-to-love edibles with the potential to expand the empire of southern food worldwide.
RECIPES
Garlic-Chile Crabs
Skillet-Roasted Quail with Wilted Spinach
West Indies Salad
Clams with Sweet Potato, Smoked Sausage, and Watercress
Cheese Relish
Lee Bros. Shrimp Pâté
Jade Shrimp Cocktail
8 Simple Fresh Pickles
Oyster Cocktails
Radish Butter
Salt-and-Pepper Shrimp
Sweet Potato and Okra Fritters with Garlic Buttermilk Dip
Squid with Watermelon and Basil
Cocktail Eggs with Pimentos and Country Ham
Buttermilk Fresh Cheese and 11 Delicious Things to Do with It
Smoked Shrimp with 3 Dipping Sauces
GARLIC-CHILE CRABS
serves 4, messily • TIME: 25 minutes
Freddie’s Crab Shack & Soul Food was a restaurant on Meeting Street in Charleston, opposite the Interstate 26 on-ramp, that closed, much to our dismay, in 2008. You couldn’t miss the hand-painted signs at the edge of the parking lot that read, “Fried Crab,” “Garlic Crab,” and, when muscadine grapes were in season, “Bull Grape.”
Freddie’s fried crab was a bit of a marvel—whole hard-shell blue crabs battered and dropped in a fryer. As you picked and ate the crabs, you simply sucked the spiced breading off the shells. Just as messily impressive, we think, and yet more winning was Freddie’s garlic crab: whole blue crabs tossed in a garlic powder hot sauce.
In our riff on Freddie’s recipe, we take a few liberties: we clean and split the crabs so they’re easier to serve and eat; we use fresh minced garlic in our chile sauce; and we serve them over a bed of watercress. Set