A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (25 page)

So dull he couldn’t cut butter with a knife.

—
OLD SOUTHERN SAYING

CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS

MAKES
6
SERVINGS

My Yankee mother’s dumplings were always soft and fluffy—the dumplings she dropped into chicken stew, the dumplings she cooked with garden peas and cream. The reason, of course, was that she made them out of biscuit dough. The first time I ordered chicken and dumplings down south, I was surprised to see that the dumplings were noodle-flat and slick. I have since queried countless southern friends about the dumplings their mothers made and nearly all say that the dumplings they knew as a child were flat. Certainly the dumpling recipes I’ve found in my collection of southern community cookbooks are of the noodle variety. Some are heavily seasoned, usually with bacon drippings and poultry seasoning. Others are perfectly plain and these, I think, are better because they complement rather than overpower the chicken. Note:
For this recipe, you’ll need 5 to 5
½
cups of slightly-larger-than-bite-size pieces of cooked chicken and 8 cups (2 quarts) of chicken stock (see Stewed Chicken, Chapter 3)
.

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1½ teaspoons salt, or to taste

¹
/
₃
cup firmly packed lard or vegetable shortening

¹
/
₃
cup milk (about)

8 cups (2 quarts) chicken stock or broth

1 chicken bouillon cube, if needed to boost the flavor of the stock

½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

½ teaspoon rubbed sage

½ teaspoon dried leaf thyme, crumbled

5 to 5½ cups slightly-larger-than-bite-size pieces of cooked chicken meat (see Note at left)

¼ cup coarsely chopped parsley

• 1.
  Combine the flour, baking powder, and ½ teaspoon of the salt in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut in the lard until the texture of coarse meal. Whisking hard with a fork, drizzle in just enough milk to form a soft but manageable dough. Scoop onto a lightly floured surface, shape into a ball, cover, and let rest for about 10 minutes.
  
• 2.
  Meanwhile, place the chicken stock, bouillon cube, if needed, the remaining 1 teaspoon salt, the pepper, sage, and thyme in a large Dutch oven or stockpot and set over low heat.
  
• 3.
  Roll the dumpling dough as thin as pie crust on a lightly floured surface, and cut into 1½-inch squares. Gather any scraps, reroll, and cut.
  
• 4.
  Add the chicken to the Dutch oven, bring quickly to a boil, then ease in the dumplings, a few at a time. Adjust the heat so the stock barely bubbles, cover, and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes or until the dumplings are done, stirring gently now and then.
  
• 5.
  Add the parsley, taste for salt and pepper, and adjust as needed. Ladle into heated soup bowls and serve.
  

CHICKEN BOG

MAKES
8
SERVINGS

In
The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection
(1992), food historian Karen Hess suggests that chicken bog may have descended from
la soupe courte
of Provence, “an ancient festival dish, calling for mutton,
petit salé
or other cured pork, onions, aromatics, saffron, and rice.” It is, she continues, “not a soup but a very thick stew or a rather wet pilau.” Her theory is that with the deletion of saffron and substitution of chicken for mutton, a new dish emerged. “Several sources,” Hess writes, “including Amelia Wallace Vernon, formerly of Florence County, South Carolina, have described what sounds like a similar dish using chicken instead of the mutton of Provence; it is called
chicken bog
and is made outdoors in wash tubs to serve large crowds.” A particular favorite on the lower reaches of the Pee Dee River, chicken bog is not only “fixed right regular” in school cafeterias but also served at countless family reunions, church suppers, and political fund-raisers. There’s even an annual Bog-Off in the little town of Loris, South Carolina, just thirty minutes northwest of Myrtle Beach. There are dozens of recipes for chicken bog, some of them strangely complicated; the point of the dish is that it’s an easy way to feed an army. As for the recipe’s unusual name, some say that “bog” comes from the fact that rice is grown in bogs, others that the chicken is “bogged down” in the rice, and still others that the dish is just a “soggy, boggy mess.” Note:
Some modern cooks shortcut chicken bog by using chicken parts and canned broth. The recipe here is fairly classic.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 pound spicy country sausage links or chorizo, sliced ½ inch thick

1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped

1 large green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped

2½ cups converted rice

6 cups rich chicken stock or broth

5 cups large-ish chunks of cooked chicken plus the coarsely chopped cooked giblets (see Stewed Chicken, Chapter 3)

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

• 1.
  Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over moderately high heat for 2 minutes. Add the sausage and cook for 5 minutes or until nicely browned. Using a slotted spoon, lift the browned sausage to a plate and reserve.
  
• 2.
  Add the onion and bell pepper to the sausage drippings and stir-fry for 8 to 10 minutes or until limp and lightly browned.
  
• 3.
  Add the rice and cook and stir for 1 minute. Add the chicken stock, chicken, giblets, reserved sausage, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat so the mixture bubbles gently, cover, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring often, or just until the rice is tender. If the bog seems soupy, cook, uncovered, for 5 to 10 minutes more. It should be about the consistency of a soft risotto. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed.
  
• 4.
  Ladle into big soup bowls, and serve with butter beans, red-ripe tomatoes, and Jerusalem Artichoke Pickle Relish.
  

CHICKEN PIE

MAKES
6
SERVINGS

Breathes there a southern cook who doesn’t have a pet recipe for chicken pie? My own favorite is my attempt to re-create the chicken pie served at the Salem Tavern in Old Salem, a restored Moravian village in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I order it whenever I lunch there. Unlike so many chicken pies, this one contains no carrots, no peas—just chicken and well-seasoned gravy. Note:
I find the chicken more succulent if I roast it, strip the meat from the carcass while the bird is still warm, and make the pie straightaway (it takes a 4
½-
to 5-pound chicken and 1 to 1
¼
hours in a 400° F. oven). If you’d prefer to use Stewed Chicken, follow the recipe on Chapter 3. Needless to add, turkey can be substituted for chicken; it’s a splendid way to use up the big bird.

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 medium celery rib, trimmed, halved lengthwise, then each half thinly sliced

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon rubbed sage

¼ teaspoon dried leaf thyme, crumbled

¼ teaspoon black pepper

2½ cups hot chicken broth

5½ to 6 cups bite-size pieces cooked chicken or turkey (see Note above)

Pastry for a 9-inch, 2-crust pie (see About Pie Crusts, frontmatter)

• 1.
  Place a heavy-duty baking sheet on the middle oven shelf and preheat the oven to 425° F.
  Note:
  Setting the unbaked pie on a hot baking sheet cooks the bottom crust faster and reduces the risk of its becoming soggy.
  
• 2.
  Melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet over moderate heat, add the onion and celery, and cook, stirring often, for 6 to 8 minutes or until limp and lightly browned.
  
• 3.
  Blend in the flour, salt, sage, thyme, and pepper, then, whisking hard, pour in the hot broth. Cook, whisking all the while, for about 5 minutes or until thickened. Set the skillet off the heat, cool for 15 minutes, then fold in the chicken.
  
• 4.
  Scoop the chicken mixture into an unbaked 9-inch pie shell, then ease the top crust into place. Trim the crust so it overhangs the pie about one inch all round, then roll the top and bottom crusts under so that they rest upon the rim. Crimp to seal, making a high fluted edge, and cut decorative steam vents in the top crust.
  
• 5.
  Slide the pie onto the preheated baking sheet and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until richly browned.
  
• 6.
  Cool the pie for 20 minutes, then, using a sharp serrated knife, cut into wedges and serve.
  

Slow as molasses in January.

—
OLD SOUTHERN SAYING

BAKED CHICKEN SALAD

MAKES
6
SERVINGS

I have no idea what southern cook decided to bake a chicken salad, but it was an inspired idea and variations on the theme now appear in scores of community cookbooks. I remember my first taste of baked chicken salad at a home demonstration club potluck luncheon in the North Carolina mountain town of Boone. I complimented the woman who’d made it on her “chicken casserole” only to be abruptly corrected: “Chicken casserole, you call it? This ain’t no casserole! This is baked chicken salad!” And so it was—all the makings of chicken salad bubbling underneath a crunchy crumb crust. Here’s my version of that old Watauga County recipe with a bit of garlic added. “Land sakes!” I can hear that feisty farm woman saying. “Garlic!” Back then, few good southern cooks ever used garlic—even garlic powder or salt. How things have changed! Note:
This recipe is also an excellent way to recycle turkey leftovers.

3 tablespoons bacon drippings or vegetable oil

1 large yellow onion, moderately coarsely chopped

2 large celery ribs, trimmed and moderately coarsely chopped

1 medium garlic clove, finely chopped

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

One 12-ounce can evaporated milk (use “light,” if you like)

1 cup chicken broth

¹
/
₃
cup firmly packed mayonnaise-relish sandwich spread

4 cups bite-size pieces cooked chicken or turkey

¹
/
₃
cup coarsely chopped parsley