Buttermilk

The confusing world of buttermilk and its history.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2012/05/history_of_buttermilk_what_s_the_difference_between_cultured_buttermilk_and_traditional_buttermilk_.single.html


No one in my family had an affinity to buttermilk. I didn't really even know it except as an adjective when describing biscuits from a can or pancakes from a mix when I was younger. This was a pretty enlightening article.

A rant about cooking and food and other slightly related things

I have talked with far too many people, women in particular, that mention their shortcomings in cooking.  And I'm not trying to be sexist saying, "they aren't cooking for their husbands and food should be on the table at 6pm sharp, and dessert better be involved."  I'm just kind of shocked by what seems to be a lack of cooking happening in homes.  I also mentioned to a friend that I was stoked about making biscuits for my wife's birthday earlier this month; her response, "You know those come in a can, right?"  I will say she wasn't from the South and may not fully understand the taste, mouth feel and satisfaction a homemade buttermilk biscuit means to a Southerner but come on!  I love cooking dang near anything and I just happen to have a great biscuit recipe that gives me a sense of accomplishment every time I pull a batch out of the oven.

Food is just too easy.  We have everything served to us as we ask for it nowadays.  Fast food, television, music, nearly everything we used to have to go out and buy that took time and effort to prepare for is now ready for us to consume, throw out or toss aside.  If my dad wanted music he had to go to a record store.  Not only that but he had to go into town for it!  If you want fried chicken KFC can have a bucket ready for you in minutes.  No need to marinate, batter or fry your own.

Am I the pot calling the kettle black?  Yes, I am but I also make a conscious effort to do more cooking from scratch and learn the way things were done.  I'm the kind of guy that watches food shows and wants to attempt cooking it rather than watching it for the food porn others do.  You don't have to wish you could make that from scratch, you can!  The recipes are on the internet waiting for you to dive in a tackle them!

The Great (cheap) Bourbon Discovery

I'm cheap and I like bourbon, and I was out to find the bourbon that gave me the best bang for the buck.

Jim Beam 750mL - $14.99
Jim Beam is the old standby; currently the most popular bourbon in the U.S.  For smoothness and all around flexibility Jim beam is pretty awesome, but I was interested in how some cheaper alternatives tasted.



Evan Williams (Black Label) 750mL - $11.99
Evan Williams was just a little to harsh for me.  Something didn't hit me right, it would probably work well as a mixer.

Old Grand Dad 750mL - $11.49
Old Grand Dad had some kind of interesting character that I couldn't put my finger on, but it wasn't a good kind of interesting.  It reminded me of amaretto or some other kind of nutty liqueur.  I say pass.

Old Crow 1 Liter - $10.29
For my money Old Crow is the winner.  It's a little harsh if you drink it straight (I still do it after adding a touch of water) but it is awesome when mixing with coke and probably even with Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale (I'll have to try that combo soon).  It was once the most popular bourbon in the U.S.



Bourbon facts from Wikipedia:

• Bourbon must be made of a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn (maize).^[1]
• Bourbon must be distilled to no more than 160 (U.S.) proof (80% alcohol by volume).
• Neither coloring nor flavoring may be added.
• Bourbon must be aged in new, charred oak barrels. ^[1]
• Bourbon must be entered into the barrel at no more than 125 proof (62.5% alcohol by volume).
• Bourbon, like other whiskeys, may be bottled at not less than 80 proof (40% alcohol by volume.)
• Bourbon that meets the above requirements and has been aged for a minimum of two years may (but is not required to) be called Straight Bourbon.^[2]
• Straight Bourbon aged for a period less than four years must be labeled with the duration of its aging.
• If an age is stated on the label, it must be the age of the youngest whiskey in the bottle.
• Only whiskey produced in the United States can be called bourbon.^[3]

All whiskeys reviewed above are legally bourbon.


*All prices are from the Alabama Beverage Control Board PDF.

Bacon!!!

The internet has some new found obsession with bacon, I think the bacon explosion may have given the movement momentum.  Neatorama even has a bacon section in their store! 

In the South it's always an obsession.  We use it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  We even use it for our vegetables and the bacon grease is as valuable as the bacon itself. 

The other day on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives I saw two things I love melded into one.  Bacon infused bourbon.  Oh yes, tis true....it exists.  Not only that but you can make your own!

Basically you cook 4 or 5 strips of bacon and drain the fat off to cool to near room temperature.  Then take a 750ml bottle of bourbon, pour the bacon grease in and let it sit.  I've seen times for as little as a few hours and as much as 48, so you make the call.  Then you put it in an ice bath or in the freezer to let the fat rise to the top and solidify.  Strain off the fat and viola, Bacon-Boubon.  Wow!

Here's an article from New York Magazine which includes the recipe from PDT. 


What's your favorite thing to do with bacon or some other smoked/cured meat?  Do you have recipes to share?  Post any and all in the comments!

Poke Salad

For those who don't know poke salad is not something you grow in a garden but a poisonous wild weed that is picked for its young leaves (before they get a red hue) then boiled at least twice to get the toxins out of it.  One scientist says that no part of the plant should be eaten no matter how many times it is boiled.

I don't eat poke salad, and I don't know anyone who does anymore, but I do remember going with a friends parents, grandparents and their aunt and uncle to go look for poke salad.  One of my other friends had a school bus driver that occasionally stopped if she saw some "good poke salad."

Many of you have heard the Tony Joe White song Poke Salad Annie which was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama (they've been known for a song or two) in 1969 and peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.



Do you have a poke salad story?  Share with us in the comments section and don't forget to follow @okracola on Twitter!

Pear Salad

And no I don't mean a fancy pear and pecan salad or any other fancy, foodie-type salad with pears.  I'm talking about the pear salad we had in the lunch room growing up in a Walker County, Alabama elementary school.  The one my father-in-law still has with his dinner sometimes.  Here it is:

I had to borrow that photo from FarmHouse Style because I know of only one person who eats eat regularly, and therefore only one person who prepares it regularly so I didn't have a chance to take a photo of it.  I never took to it but usually ate it when it was on my plate in the cafeteria. 

It is literally half of a canned pear, a dollop of mayo in the middle then sprinkled with shredded cheddar cheese.  This photo makes it look way fancier because of the lettuce leaf and the cherry.  Has any non-Southerner heard of this salad?  Anybody love it?  Hate it?  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Hot Sauce

I love hot sauce.  I put it on a lot of things especially steak fries at BBQ joints and leftover (warm) pizza.  I love chicken wings and plan on making my own sauce one day.  A basic wing sauce would be hot sauce and butter/margerine to taste to coat the fried wings.  One place I know smokes the wings then fries them until crispy, then tosses with the sauce.  Moore's makes a really good wing sauce as well as Frank's Red Hot.

I also want to make a BBQ sauce one day since I love my rub, and just don't wan to go through the trial and error on that yet, but I'm sure it will include Tabasco which is my brand of choice.

Found this via Lifehacker.com
I especially like:

15. Melt with butter and douse over your movie popcorn--yum!
20. Add to chutney for a little pep to the sweetness.
 5. Put a dash of heat/smokiness into ribs.
18. Dollop on raw oysters for fresh-out-of-the-sea heat.

There are 3 entries in the comments to add them to your grits with regular cheese and/or parmesan.
They list other everyday uses for hot sauce for nail biters and keeping squirrels out.  So what's your favorite hot sauce?  What do you use it on?

Here's the link at SeriousEats.com

Happy New Year!!!

It's 2010!  Can you believe it?

In the South you have certain things you have to eat on New Year's day: black eyed peas and greens.  It is said if you do you'll have luck throughout the next year.  I usually soak my black eyed peas the night before because the quick soak which is boiling them fast for a while then letting them soak for an hour breaks them up too much and they aren't as good in my opinion.  After the soak drain and rinse them then recover them with water and add your pork (bacon, ham bone, fatback, jowl or any pork you have handy), bring to a boil and simmer until they're as tender as you'd like.

Eating greens is another Southern tradition and I'm told eating them will bring money in the new year.  My family never has eaten many greens, but we do eat something green with our peas.  I hardly ever see collard greens at the store in the produce section, but saw a boatload this past week because of this tradition. 

As you can see there is a new look for the site and now I own OkraCola.com!  My goal was to have it up by the new year and I'm amazed that I actually did.  If you have suggestions or comments please send them to drew [at] okracola.com.

Happy 2010 y'all!

Southern Word of the Week - Sweet Milk

Sweet Milk
(n.) Hey Jeanie, could you get me some more sweet milk at the store when you go out?

Butter milk is butter milk, goats milk is goats milk and sweet milk is, well . . . milk.  Plain old, run-of-the-mill, fresh-out-the-carton/jug whole, 1%, 2% or skim milk.  I do now people that call anything but whole milk, milk colored water, but either way as long as its plain milk you're talking about then it is also sweet milk.

By the way, if you need butter milk and all you have is sweet milk you can add one tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice to a one cup measure then add milk to the one cup line.  Stir and let stand for 5 minutes then use as you would butter milk.

Tomato Sandwiches

You can call them tomato sandwiches, 'mater sammiches, whatever; I'll just call them delicious. It is literally slices of tomato on bread and I think most people add mayo and a little bit of salt and pepper. I can't believe this a foreign concept to some folks!

I think the best tomato sandwich is one with homemade sourdough bread and a fresh tomato from your garden or patio that's still warm from the sun. Buying or planting tomatoes in the spring are one of my highlights for the year. I love being able to pull a few off for salads, sandwiches or just on a plate with a little salt.

This may be a little highfalutin' but sometimes I combine the humble tomato sandwich with a Tyler Florence recipe for a grilled cheese. Sourdough bread with pesto sauce (I buy mine, but have made it before with walnuts, easier to find and cheaper than pine nuts) and thick slices of mozzerella and tomato, on a panini press, or if you don't have a panini press, in a cast iron grill pan pressed with a foil covered brick. Yummy!!!

How do you like your 'mater sandwiches and which varieties of tomato do you like to use for sandwiches, salads, sauce etc.?  Let us know in the comments!

BACON!

Bacon is all the rage right now and you all know I prefer to do it in a cast iron skillet but our friend Alton Brown has another, very interesting idea for no turn, no shrink bacon.  Cooking our beloved cured pork belly in a waffle iron.

The link below is to the Lifehacker page that has embedded video that skips right to the hot bacony action.

link via Lifehacker.com

Biscuits

Biscuits down here are like dinner rolls, they are versitle and can but stuffed with or covered with almost anything. Bacon, egg and cheese biscuits, biscuits and gravy, fried chicken and biscuits; biscuits with sorghum syrup, jelly, preserves or even red eye gravy.

I spent while looking for a good recipe, believing Alton Brown's was a bit too specific I used the one on the White Lily package, which was good, until I made my mother-in-law's recipe. 

1 pkg. dry yeast
¼ c. warm water
2 c. buttermilk
1 tsp. baking soda
5 c. self-rising flour
1 c. shortening
2 tsp. sugar

Put yeast in warm water to dissolve.  Add buttermilk and soda to yeast mixture.  Mix flour and shortening and sugar together until coarse.  Add milk mixture.  Roll and cut into biscuits.

Bake in hot oven 450 – 475 degrees, approximately 10-12 minutes.
May be stored in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

The secret as I was taught by a co-worker is to cut in the shortening by hand, until it looks like meal, then press it together in your palm. If it holds its shape, then crumbles when tapped it's good to go. Enjoy!

Note:
I have no idea what the yeast is supposed to do. It doesn't spend any time rising, but I guess with the heat the yeast does get to work a bit before being killed by the very hot oven. Also I use instant yeast (bread machine yeast) and it doesn't have to be activated with the warm water, so I go without the water and add the yeast directly to the dough. I also add a largish pinch of kosher salt. I've wanted to omit the yeast and check the results, but I'm sacred it'll be a waste of a large amount of flour.

Got a better recipe? Have another recipe that involves biscuits? Got a biscuit fact? Put them in the comments.

Squirrel

This past weekend we had my daughter baptized and had friends and family gathered for the event. A few Yankee transplants, one being the Godmother, were discussing squirrel and the eating thereof. They were speaking in disbelief that one would eat them. Knowing my grandmother-in-law and her culinary background I grabbed her to explain how to cook squirrel.

She explained that you boil it until it falls off the bone, then pick it apart and serve it with dumplings like you would chicken and dumplings. At that point they knew that eating squirrel was for real.  Nannie also mentioned you could serve it with gravy possibly over rice or biscuits.

Got a squirrel recipe or story?  Share them in the comments.

Fried Chicken

I love fried chicken, but I didn't know that anyone actually made it from scratch until I was a senior in high school (yes over 10 years ago) when I met my future Mother-in-Law and her fried chicken.  I did lose a piece of dental bonding because of it, but that wasn't her fault.  So people do still fry chicken and it doesn't just don't come from a bucket contrary to popular belief.

Fried Chicken is kinda like barbecue (more on that another day) because it seems like somebody's Mee-Maw's chicken is the best and you haven't had fried chicken until you have tried hers.  It's also versatile, it can be dinner one night but a leg straight out of the fridge the next morning is equally satisfying.  Lot's of people even pack cold fried chicken for picnics along with 'tater salad and chips. 

I've never done my own but I have found fellow southerner Alton Brown of Food TV's Good Eats and his recipe looks pretty darn good.  It involves a cast iron skillet, buttermilk and shortening.  You could put a soul food spin on it by maybe dipping a piece in hot sauce after frying and serving it over a waffle, and yes, he even adds syrup! 

Next you need to make biscuits and I think I've been cleared by the family to publish the super secret biscuit recipe.  Look for that in the coming weeks.

Cast Iron Skillets

People the world over use cast iron skillets. Bacon tastes better cooked in them, pineapple upside down cakes call for 'em and they're good to have around when bad guys break into your house. Well a few years ago they did not come pre-seasoned and I really had no idea how to season one I got as a wedding present. So I used the directions which had something about coating it with vegetable oil and put it in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever. That method my friends does not work. So I scoured the inter-webs for a solution and here's what I came up with.

You have to have a fair amount of fat which will stick to every part of the pan and you need a lot of heat. So I lubed up the pan with shortening (you gotta have it for biscuits anyway) and set my gas grill to high and left it alone for about 10 minutes or so. INSTANT CAST IRON BLACKNESS! It looked like it had been owned by my Maw Maw! I was stoked and now I hardly use anything else on the stove. I have a skillet, a grill pan, a griddle and a cast iron, enameled dutch oven, all made by Lodge Cookware. It now all comes pre-seasoned, but sometimes you have to re-season it.  

Never wash it with soap and water! You may wash it out with water alone, but make sure you let it dry thoroughly, or put it on low for a little while to evaporate all the water. If I have some schmutz on it I usually get it warm or mostly hot then put a small amount of cold water in it to loosen up the gunk, then it wipes pretty clean with a paper towel. I've also used kosher salt to soak up some the grease then use a paper towel to do a mild scouring with the salt.

Put your cast iron tips in the comments!