The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern_ Knockout Dishes With Down-Home Flavor - Matt Lee [60]
3 Drain the cooked butterbeans and transfer them to the bowl of a food processor. Add the mint, buttermilk, and reserved melted butter, and pulse until the mixture is a smooth, thick puree. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.
4 To serve, divide the puree among 4 dinner plates, patting it into a shallow round. Place 3 scallops on top of the puree on each plate, and divide the pan juices among the plates, pouring them over the scallops and the mash. Scatter a small quantity of lime zest over the plates, and serve immediately.
sea scallop shopping notes ••• Ask your fishmonger for “dry” sea scallops, a term that doesn’t refer to their appearance (they are plenty moist!), but refers to scallops that have not been treated with tripolyphosphate to make them hold their moisture and keep longer. Expect to pay a bit of a premium for dry scallops, but you’ll be delighted with the way they taste, and the way they sear readily in the skillet and yet remain moist. Tripolyphosphate-treated scallops are called “wet” scallops and they tend to be whiter in color and, yes, wetter. They might not sear as readily in the skillet, and you can expect them to release some moisture as they cook, but they are a great substitute if you can’t get the dry ones in your market.
Whether you buy wet or dry scallops, pat their flat surfaces with clean kitchen towels or paper towels just before cooking to encourage them to sear quickly and evenly in the hot pan.
GRAN’S FLANK STEAK
serves 4 • TIME: 1 hour marination, 6 minutes cooking, 10 minutes resting
Although our ninety-seven-year-old grandmother, Elizabeth Maxwell, stopped cooking more than a decade ago, she continues to be an inspiration in the kitchen. For more than 20 years, she hosted legendary parties in the small Charleston kitchen house she rented at 43½ Meeting Street. Gran loved her recipes—fresh button mushrooms marinated for a day in red wine vinegar, dried tarragon, and garlic; a cool, salsalike fresh tomato salad called “tomatoes émincé” that we devoured years before “salsa” became a household word. While not all of her recipes were successful—“Belmont Bisque,” a concoction made of a can of beer, a can of tomato soup, and a can of pea soup, was as disgusting as it sounds!—this flank steak is our hands-down favorite. Simply marinated in soy and bourbon, the beef takes on an enormous, incomparable flavor. It also never fails to conjure up memories of Gran’s parties, where silver-coiffed doyennes in furs mingled with College of Charleston music students in Metallica T-shirts.
This recipe is easy to memorize, easy to make, and easy to eat. There are rarely any leftovers, but in the event there are, the next day’s steak sandwiches are killer on toast with sliced tomatoes and mayo.
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup Kentucky bourbon or Tennessee whiskey
1¾ pounds beef flank steak
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons cane syrup or honey
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar, white wine vinegar, or red wine vinegar
1 Pour the soy sauce, bourbon, and ½ cup water into a broiler pan. Lay the steak in the pan and flip it a few times to agitate and mix the marinade and to coat the steak in the liquid. Let stand, covered, for 1 hour, turning it once at the half-hour mark.
2 Remove the steak from the marinade, pat it dry with two changes of paper towels, and then season it with the salt and black pepper. Reserve ½ cup of the marinade.
3 Turn the broiler on and position the broiler pan 4 inches beneath the heat source. Wait until a drop of water dropped into the pan sizzles, and then add the steak. Cook for 3 minutes on the first side. Then flip it and cook for 2 minutes on the second side for rare, 3 minutes for medium-rare. Transfer the steak to a cutting board, tent it with foil, and let it rest for 10 minutes.
4 While the steak rests, pour the reserved marinade into the broiler pan and