Southern Lite
By Becky Billingsley
Originally published in Coastal Carolina Dining magazine, Summer 2006
While it’s still easy to find unabashedly rich fried okra, green beans simmered with ham hocks, or squash and onions cooked with bacon grease, many Southern chefs and home cooks are making tasty old favorites with healthier appeal.
Low-calorie stocks are replacing fatty meats as flavoring, there’s less butter and more spices, and many frying oils are easier on the arteries than lard.
And, thanks to companies like Walter P. Rawl & Sons in Pelion, S.C., Southern-grown vegetables in our grocery stores are more convenient to use. Donna Bundrick is a Lexington, S.C. native and is the company’s coordinator of marketing and promotions. She loves the evolution she sees in Southern vegetable dishes.
“I always loved the collards when I was growing up,” she says. “But we fixed them not as healthy as I would recommend today. Now I cook them in low sodium bouillon, and use leaner cuts of meat such a lean ham. I loved collards steamed in chicken bouillon, then stir-fried with garlic and red bell pepper.”
And now making such dishes takes hardly any effort with time-saving vegetable products like what Walter P. Rawl supplies. They have kale and collard greens sold washed, chopped and bagged, and even a sliced onion and bell pepper mix that makes for quick salads or speedy fajitas.
But while Bundrick thinks such convenience and a trend toward healthier recipes is the natural progression of Southern fare, she loves some vegetables cooked in a traditional way.
“I love sweet potatoes. That’s my favorite food. I love to bake them, and when I bake them I bake a whole oven full, let them cool and freeze them. Then I have a head start on dinner. I will even have them just as a treat, but my genes say I’ve got to put a little brown sugar in there, and a little butter.”
Ed Harris, founding partner of Sharky’s in Ocean Isle Beach, understands the craving for traditional recipes. He’s one of six siblings who grew up in Darlington eating the fresh vegetables prepared by their mother, Vi Harris.
“She made squash casseroles, green bean casserole, corn soufflés…Those recipes handed down from generation to generation are the ones I enjoy, and we employ a lot of the home cooking at Sharky’s.”
Some recipes served at Sharky’s come straight from Vi’s kitchen, such as her Pearl of the Pee Dee Squash Casserole. Vi says she often makes the casserole ahead of time and puts it in the refrigerator, then takes it out an hour before she’s ready to bake it.
Vi’s favorite vegetable is butterbeans, and likes her tomatoes cooked with a pinch of sugar to cut the acidity. When she was a girl, she says she ate rice every day, and often fed her six children a summer meal of steamed rice topped with peeled and chopped tomatoes, onions, celery and a little sugar stewed together.
That’s certainly a healthy meal, but some of her recipes, such as the squash casserole, are hybrids. She steams the squash without fatback or bacon grease, but the dish contains plenty of melted butter and cheese.
Trevor Gore, chef/partner at the now-closed Soul Food Express on Main Street in Myrtle Beach, makes his Southern vegetables the way his parents, Louis and Clarice Gore, taught him. Some are healthy, like his collards cut “real thin” and simmered with water, vinegar, salt, pepper, seasoning salt and sugar.
Other recipes are not so high on the low fat scale, like candied yams with brown sugar, white sugar, nutmeg and butter. But such comfort food is a delicious treat, like Gore’s fried okra that is possibly the best version to ever sit beside some cornbread. His secret is to double-dip the okra in egg batter before deep-frying it to create lacy, delicate, crispy nuggets.
The most cutting-edge wave on the Southern vegetable evolutionary journey is the creations of executive chefs such as Robbie Nicolaisen of the Blue Room Café at Baywatch Resort and Darren Smith of Rivertown Bistro in Conway. They may use old favorites such as fried green tomatoes, but they inject new flavors and preparation methods.
For example, both Nicolaisen and Smith use fried green tomatoes as a traditional base for more modern dishes. Patrons of Blue Room Café are treated to the crispy tomatoes topped with an intriguing salad of lump crab flavored with lemon, garlic and saffron. At Rivertown Bistro creamy fired-roasted pimiento cheese is sandwiched by a pair of fried green tomatoes, and the dish is finished with black pepper bacon gravy.
Throughout the bistro’s menu, Smith’s love of Southern-inspired vegetables is evident. He serves Crawfish au Gratin with fried zucchini fingers and roasted red pepper cream; Lump Crab Cakes with sautéed spinach and sherried vegetable chowder; and Crispy Eggplant and Tomato Stack with feta, pesto and tomato caper sauce.
Two new Lowcountry cookbooks published within the past month also illustrate the trend to give Southern vegetable dishes new flair.
Nathalie Dupree of Charleston is a two-time James Beard Award winner and author of nine books. In her latest project with co-author Marion Sullivan called “Nathalie Dupree’s Shrimp & Grits Cookbook,” she extensively uses fresh tomatoes, turnips greens garlic, peppers, herbs and more to create dishes such as Gumbo and Grits, or Grits with Greens and Shrimp.
In chef Donald Barickman’s new cookbook, “Magnolias Authentic Southern Cuisine,” he illustrates how his Charleston restaurant called Magnolias offers dishes like nutritious Slow-Cooked Okra and Tomatoes; Crispy Collard and Cabbage Rolls; and Yellow Corn Relish.
But while lightening up the vegetable dishes of the Old South is a healthy trend, Ed Harris says his mother’s method is the healthiest method of all.
“She still makes them Southern,” he says, which means with lots of salt and pepper and TLC.”
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Southern lite
*Get rid of the bacon grease can on the back of the stove. Instead, experiment with infused olive oils.
*Replace the fat back or ham hocks in your vegetable recipes with lean ham or ham stock concentrate.
*Or, get rid of the meat entirely and add flavor with other fresh foods, such as adding chopped tomatoes to collards or garlic to green beans.
*Another way to add flavor to vegetables such as fresh green beans or squash is to simmer them in vegetable broth.
*Replace heavy cream with canned evaporated milk or low-fat milk in your creamed vegetable recipes.
*Use canola oil for frying and sautéing.
*Instead of relying on butter to add richness to recipes, use a butter-flavor spritz or spray and add other interesting flavors such as fresh herbs.
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Pearl of the Pee Dee Squash Casserole
Vi Harris, Darlington (served at Sharky’s, Ocean Isle Beach)
Ingredients: (Side dish, serves 4-6)
6-8 medium yellow squash, sliced in inch-wide discs
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cup mayonnaise
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 small onion, diced
1 small bell pepper, any color, chopped
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 stick melted butter
1 sleeve Ritz Crackers, crushed
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Steam squash until very soft. Drain, mash and let cool. Whip together eggs, mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Spread squash evenly in an 8”x11” casserole pan. Sprinkle diced onion and chopped pepper over squash. Spread egg mixture on top of onions and peppers. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Thoroughly mix melted butter and cracker crumbs; place on top of Parmesan cheese. Bake for 30 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Fried Okra
Chef Trevor Gore
Ingredients: (Side dish, makes 5 half-cup servings)
1 egg
1/4 cup milk (or a little more, if you need it to make batter thinner)
1 teaspoon each salt and ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
1 cup flour
Vegetable oil for frying
2 1/2 cups sliced fresh okra
Preparation:
Whisk egg. Add milk; whisk. Add salt and pepper, garlic powder and seasoning salt; whisk Add flour and incorporate well. Add more milk if necessary. Heat oil for deep frying. Dip the okra in the batter, half a cup at a time. Using a slotted spoon, remove the okra from the batter, let it rest about 15 seconds, then dip the okra again. Fry in oil 3-4 minutes, until golden brown and crispy.
Fried Green Tomatoes
with Jumbo Lump Crab and Lemon-saffron Aioli
Executive chef Robbie Nicolaisen, Blue Room Café at Baywatch Resort
Ingredients: (Appetizer, serves 4)
Salt and pepper
3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 cup cornmeal
2 large green tomatoes, cut in 8 thick slices
2 cups egg wash (equal parts eggs and milk)
2 cups canola oil
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Juice from 1 lemon
1 pinch saffron
1 teaspoon sugar
1 garlic clove, fine mince
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat
Pea shoots, for garnish
Preparation:
Add salt and pepper to 2 cups flour. Mix remaining 1 cup flour with cornmeal. Lightly dredge tomato slices in the 2 cups flour, then in egg wash, then in flour/cornmeal mixture. Fry in canola oil until golden brown. Mix together mayonnaise, lemon juice, saffron, sugar and garlic. Fold in crab, being careful to not break lumps. Place 2 tomato slices on each of 4 plates. Top each tomato slice with crab mixture. Garnish with pea shoots.
Rock Shrimp Succotash
with Parmesan Encrusted Triggerfish and Smoked Tomato Butter
Owner/chef Darren Smith, Rivertown Bistro
Ingredients: (Side dish, serves 4)
2 cups fresh corn, roasted and cut off cob
2 cups baby lima beans
1 cup Roma tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup sliced scallions
1/2 cup rock shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper, to taste
4 portions Parmesan Encrusted Triggerfish
4 portions Smoked Tomato Butter
Preparation:
Place corn, lima beans, tomatoes, scallions, rock shrimp and chicken stock in pan and sauté just until shrimp are cooked through. Divide between 4 dinner plates and top with fish and Smoked Tomato Butter.
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