Serge's Southern Chicken Salad

If you haven't read him, read Tim Dorsey. NOW! This recipe is what happens when I'm reading, have taken my sleep pill and cooking a salad that was originated by a fictitious serial killer with a purpose.

Here goes my version:

Left over chicken from KFC. Chop all chicken including the 'fry'. I had a biscuit so i crumbled that in as well. Chop one APPLE, 1/2 cup SALT AND PEPPR CASHEWS, one handful of VARIOUS HERBS. Add 1/2 cup LITE MAYO and a table spoon of BALSAMIC VINEGAR. Mix well.

I took 1 cup of mixed greens and drizzled them with basil olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste. Add Serge's chicken salad. awesome!

Happy Val-um-times!

Dinner for my sweetie tonight. It's kind of a tradition for me to cook dinner for my darlin on Valentine's Day. I did have to work tonight for awhile, so I wanted to have a quick but elegant dinner. I stopped by Paul Anthony's in Jackson and picked up a few things including some AWESOME fresh scallops. Here's what we had tonight:

Start out a pot of boiling, salted water and add some thick linguini. Surprisingly, this took longer than anything else. Finely dice one SHALLOT. Add about a tablespoon of OLIVE OIL to a pan and then the shallots. Cook for about 1 minute until shallots are translucent. Add 1 cup of SEAFOOD STOCK, 1 cup of WHITE WINE of your choice, 1/2 cup of LEMON JUICE. Allow this to reduce until it's nearly dry. (called au sec for you nerds that need to know.) Add about 1 stick of BUTTER one small pat at a time. I'd wait until the very end to add the butter and whisk whisk whisk! Make sure the butter is cold. I used some cultured butter that I found at Paul Anthony's and it was fab. OK, on your Viking Griddle (or your lame-o skillet) spray with a non stick spray and place SCALLOPS. Let these begin to sear and form a brown caramel crust. After there's some color on both sides, add 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cups of lemon juice. Salt and pepper the scallops.

Place 4 or 5 cups of SPINACH in your colander and pour your pasta over the spinach. The heat from the water will wilt your spinach and not overcook it so it will be fresh and delicious. Add the pasta and spinach into the lemon burre blanc sauce. (yup, that's what it's called.) Add some salt and pepper as needed. I finished with some really good lemon infused olive oil.

I kept saying that this was very pure, very bright flavored. (Modest huh?)

Ireland, Mississippi Delta, it's all the same

The summer after Heath finished medical school we went to Ireland with some of Heath's family. What a place. We wound around country roads, we stopped to look at water or trees or the beach or the ruins of a keep. We roamed the Burren. We saw Druid burial sites. On one of our best days we visited the Allwee Caves (http://www.aillweecave.ie/). At the center of the road leading to the caves there is a cheese shop. The cheese shop housed a bakery as well. We enjoyed a sunny picnic lunch of baps and wine. (A bap is a sandwich made from homemade rolls, homemade cheese and homemade chutney.) As I sat there drinking wine, eating fresh cheese and taking in new sights I was fairly sure that there is nothing at home anywhere close. I maintained that thought until today.

My mom had surgery on her ankle last week and has been homebound. Today she felt like getting out and I talked my family into doing a baloney run. We left Yazoo City and headed down the levee in Panther Swamp. We stopped and threw some rocks into the channel, we saw a weir, we listened to some of my dad's Mississippi Folklore. We wound around levees and dirt roads and forgotten highways until we got to Holly Bluff. At Mike's Grocery in Holly Bluff dad, Heath and Jacob went in and got us a snack. We had saltine crackers, hoop cheese and baloney. As we sat in the middle of that little Delta town I realized that maybe there are some universal truths:

Home is just as pretty as far away if you remember to look at it.

If you forget to look for a long time, sometimes home is the prettiest place in the world.

Hoop cheese, baloney, crackers and mustard make a damn good delta bap.

Oh sweet mother...fried mac and cheese!

Yes, today I created food porn. We're always looking for something new and exciting and different. Lots of my restaurant customers are there a couple of times a week. My customers in the restaurant are my best audience. I've got a few who are also my best guinea pigs. (you know who you are, Tony!)

Today in my ever enduring quest to find the perfect food...I may have found the most delightfully unhealthy, most delicious combo in the world.

How, you may say, could you make macaroni and cheese even less healthy? by frying it of course. Here is what I did to make my Mac and Cheese Fritters.

Make your favorite Mac and Cheese or use your left overs. Dont be ashamed if your left overs are from the boxed kind. (I can't really live in a world where there is left over mac and cheese...but we'll assume) To cold or cooled Mac and Cheese, lets say about 4 cups of mac and cheese, add 2 EGGS, 1/2 cup FLOUR, 1 table spoon SEASON T' UP, and EVEN MORE CHEESE! I'd add 1 cup of SHREDDED CHEESE. Make sure that your mixture is pretty thick, if it's not, add more flour. Roll about 2 tablespoons of your mixture into a ball and then roll in seasoned flour. Drop into 350* oil. They will be golden brown. I'm pretty sure you could form into patties and fry in a shallow pan like you would a johnny cake.

These things were awesome.

Shank You Very Much!

So I'm rereading the Harry Potters again and in light of our recent CCCCOLD weather I have been wanting some of Hogwart's 'warming soups and stews.' What's more British than lamb? Well probably lots. But this was extra good on a cold, wet Mississippi night.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of OLIVE OIL. When hot, put in 2 lamb shanks. Brown on all sides. In fact, brown more than you think. Pull shanks out and add 1 sliced ONION and 1 cup of sliced MUSHROOMS. Brown until nearly caramelized. Add 1 large can of DICED TOMATO. de-glaze the pan with tomato's juice. Add 3 cans of beef broth. Add ROSEMARY, GARLIC, SALT PEPPER, SEASON'TUP. add lamb shanks back into the stew. Allow to stew for as long as you can. I stewed for 3 hours. Remove the shanks and pull the meat and add back into stew. I served over red skin mashed potatoes.

Alright, this is pretty reminiscent of osso bucco. We had some amazing veal osso bucco back at Christmas that was prepared by my super cool neice, Meghan. Meg cooked dinner for the Scotts after her mom was in a car accident...at her mother's insistence. This recipe was something off the top of my head, but after eating and thinking I was sooo original I remembered Meghan's yummy veal osso buco. So much for originality. Oh yeah and this was mostly braised lamb in espagnole sauce. So much for originality! I'm pretty sure this would work with ox tails too. I may try that next time.

Trout Stack from Beeve

He cooks a mean hog...but this is one of my new favorites. Here's Beeve's Trout Stack. He left out that this can be served on toasted french bread for a very involved but delish bruschetta. PS I love some of Brian's words. He's so cool:


This is a very involved deal, but it is worth it.


Trout stack

For the casserole:

2 fairly large onions
1 green bell diced
1 red bell diced
10 - 12 speckled trout fillets (if you don't have this, try catfish or
whatever, but it must be a white fish).
Flour
Seas'n up
Butter
Olive oil
Italian bread crumbs
Dill
4 way cheese (or whatever)
Heavy cream (or 1/2 and 1/2).

Julienne the onions and start these at a slow sauté with butter and
olive oil. You want these to be very caramelized (not onion soup
caramelized, but fairly dark). About 10 minutes before it looks like the
onions are going to be done, add the diced green peppers. When these get
soft, turn the pan off and add the red bell peppers (you want these to
stay crunchy). Stir this around and set off to the side to cool.

Dry the trout fillets very well. Sprinkle these with Seas'n up. Salt
and pepper your flour. Dredge the trout fillets in the flour and brown
in butter and olive oil. DO NOT COOK ALL THE WAY, just get them
brown. When you've browned all of the fillets, assemble your casserole.

Get a small but deep casserole dish. You want something that looks
like it will hold the fillets if you stack them at least 2 deep.
Put enough fillets in the bottom of the casserole to cover it up.
Sprinkle with dill.
Cover with onion/bell pepper mixture.
Cover with 4 cheese.
Cover with bread crumbs.
Repeat.
Pour enough cream in until it looks like there is about 1 inch in the
bottom. (Or until it looks like enough, I don't know).
Put in a 350 oven covered for 20 minutes. Uncover and cook another 10
(or broil for 5, whatever). After this, take it out and let it cool
for at least 10 minutes. This keeps it from getting runny.

This is really good over cracker crusted eggplant (my favorite) or
fried green tomatoes (your Daddy's favorite).

Eggplant.

Choose a good round, long eggplant. Cut into 3/4 " to 1" slices on a
90 degree (Like a tomato. You want round pieces). Kosher and cracked
black on both sides.

Take a sleeve or 2 of Ritz crackers and beat the hell out of them (or
if you want to be fancy, use a food processor).

Set up a 3 compartment breading station with:

Flour (the same stuff you used on the fish). 1st
Egg wash. 2nd
The previously beaten the hell out of Ritz crackers. 3rd.

Fry in olive oil and butter. DO NOT use the same stuff you used on the
fish, it will turn too dark.

To assemble:

Set one or two eggplant rounds on a plate, depends on how hungry you
are.
Spatula out a portion of trout stack and set it on the eggplant (Kind
of like you do for lasagna, you want it to stay in layers. That is why
you let it cool).


Eat it. With a salad. And French bread. And a Daddy pop. Or a glass
of Chardonnay.


If you don't have eggplant or a green tomato, try a car bumper. It's
almost just as good.

Not my daddy's pork

I just got back from NYC. There is something about the city that just makes me feel alive and well. I had dinner at my favorite place, Minetta Tavern, and I got my favorite lamb. I saw their veal and wished I'd made that my choice. So I decided to bastarize it for dinner tonight. Of course there's no veal in Yazoo City, in fact, I didn't find any in the regular grocery in Jackson. My version:

PORK LOIN CHOPS pounded until fairly flat. Dip into and EGG WASH and dredge in seasoned FLOUR. Pan fry in 3 tbsp OLIVE OIL. Put into a warm oven. Chop 1 cup of FLAT ITALIAN PARSLEY and 1 small TOMATO. Add 2 tbsp of OLIVE OIL (I used citron olive oil), 1/4 cup LEMON JUICE, salt and pepper. Spoon on top of PORK CHOPS.


I paired this with:

Cooked PASTA. I used the fresh linguini. Melt 1 cup BUTTER. Let the butter cook until it starts to turn brown. Add fresh SAGE LEAVES, salt and pepper. Stir to keep butter from burning. Add the pasta and toss.

I've got to tell you....this was awesome. Try it. it took less than 20 minutes and I'm proud!