A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (55 page)

…the day started out without a fuss and the pantry shelves laid out with rows of jelly glasses…and white stone-china jars with blue whirligigs and words painted on them: coffee, tea, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, allspice.

—
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
,
THE JILTING OF GRANNY WEATHERALL

PEANUT BUTTER ICE CREAM WITH WARM CHOCOLATE SAUCE

MAKES
6
TO
8
SERVINGS

Shortly before Hurricane Hugo ravaged Charleston back in 1989,
Food & Wine
sent me there to write an article on the Lowcountry, which also included Beaufort, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. At the time, Charleston was just emerging as a restaurant town and a new arrival that I particularly liked was Morton’s on the first floor of a boutique bed-and-break-fast called the Vendue Inn. Everything I ordered was first-rate but nothing more so than this ice cream, which arrived on a plate elaborately painted with raspberry coulis, crème anglaise, and chocolate sauce. I dispense with the art work and serve the ice cream under simple ladlings of chocolate sauce. Though battered by Hugo’s 135-mile-an-hour winds and swamped by tidal surges, the Vendue Inn is back and better than ever. Morton’s is gone, however, replaced by a rooftop bar and restaurant with a gull’s-eye view of Charleston harbor. Note:
Raw egg yolks go into this ice cream, so use pasteurized eggs (see About Pasteurized Eggs, frontmatter).

1 cup firmly packed creamy-style peanut butter

4 cups (1 quart) milk

8 large pasteurized egg yolks (see Note above)

¾ cup sugar

Warm Chocolate Sauce (recipe follows)

• 1.
  Place the peanut butter and milk in a medium-size heavy saucepan, set over moderately low heat, and cook, whisking constantly, for 3 to 5 minutes or until the peanut butter melts and the mixture is completely smooth. Set off the heat, cover, and keep warm.
  
• 2.
  Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a large electric mixer bowl at high speed for 8 to 10 minutes until the color and consistency of mayonnaise. With the mixer at low speed, slowly add the warm peanut butter mixture. Put through a fine sieve and quick-chill in an ice bath, whisking often.
  
• 3.
  Pour the ice cream mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions.
  
• 4.
  Scoop the ice cream onto dessert plates and top with Warm Chocolate Sauce.
  

WARM CHOCOLATE SAUCE

MAKES ABOUT
2½
CUPS

Serve with the homemade Peanut Butter Ice Cream that precedes or with commercial vanilla, hazelnut, butter pecan, dulce de leche, or chocolate ice cream. Note:
For clarified butter, melt 1 cup (2 sticks) butter in a small, heavy saucepan over low heat, then set aside until the milk solids settle to the bottom. Strain the liquid butter through a fine sieve lined with several thicknesses of cheesecloth. Or even easier, skim the froth from the melted butter, then very slowly pour it into a measuring cup, leaving the milk solids behind.

1 pound bittersweet chocolate, coarsely grated

¾ cup clarified butter (see Note at left)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1.
  Place the chocolate and clarified butter in the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, and cook over low heat, stirring often, for 3 to 4 minutes or until absolutely smooth. Set off the heat and blend in the vanilla.
  
• 2.
  Serve warm over ice cream. Good, too, over pound cake.
  

MISSISSIPPI FRESH FIG ICE CREAM

MAKES
6
SERVINGS

This recipe comes from my friend Moreton Neal, who grew up in Mississippi but now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She says that every summer when figs hung heavy on the bush, her grandmother would make this ice cream “for the family gatherings of my childhood.” Later Moreton served her grandmother’s fig ice cream at La Résidence, the restaurant she and former husband Bill Neal opened at Fearrington Village, then relocated to downtown Chapel Hill. The fig ice cream was so popular, she adds, “that several of our patrons asked to be called as soon as it appeared on the menu. We served it drizzled with a good ruby port.” Note:
Moreton’s grandmother mashed the figs for her ice cream, but I purée them in a food processor. If you prefer a slightly coarser texture,
pulse the figs only until moderately finely chopped.
Tip:
Turn the egg whites into angel food cake; it’s perfect with fresh fig ice cream.

3 cups half-and-half

8 large egg yolks

¹¹
/
₃
cups sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 cups puréed, peeled, dead-ripe figs (20 to 22 medium-size)

¾ cup good ruby port

• 1.
  Pour the half-and-half into a medium-size saucepan, set over moderate heat, and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally; this will take about 5 minutes. Moreton says that her grandmother just heated it until a “skin formed on the top.” If you stir the half-and-half as it heats, it won’t “skin.”
  
• 2.
  Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks lightly with
  ²
  /
  ₃
  cup of the sugar and the salt in a medium-size heatproof bowl, then continue whisking as you slowly add the scalded half-and-half.
  
• 3.
  Pour back into the saucepan and cook, whisking constantly, over moderately low heat for 8 to 10 minutes or just until the custard thickens; it should coat the back of a metal spoon. Do not allow the custard to boil; it will curdle.
  
• 4.
  Remove the custard from the heat, mix in the heavy cream and vanilla, then quick-chill in an ice bath for 15 to 20 minutes or until refrigerator-cold, stirring often.
  
• 5.
  Mix the remaining
  ²
  /
  ₃
  cup sugar and the lemon juice into the puréed figs, then combine with the cooled custard.
  
• 6.
  Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions.
  
• 7.
  To serve, scoop out the ice cream and spoon 2 tablespoons of the port over each portion.
  

BILL SMITH’S AMAZING HONEYSUCKLE SORBET

MAKES ABOUT
8
SERVINGS

I’ll never forget the midsummer night friends and I were dining in the garden at Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill. Suddenly chef Bill Smith arrived at our table with a bowl of sorbet. “Let me know what you think of this,” he said. “It’s a new recipe I’m working on.” We were blown away. Bill had captured the sensuous floral fragrance every Southerner knows so well—honeysuckle—and spun it into a silky sorbet (the recipe is in his new cookbook,
Seasoned in the South
).
In his headnote Bill says that Crook’s owner, Gene Hamer, had urged him to turn honeysuckle nectar into something edible. On steamy nights the heady scent of honeysuckle running amok just outside the restaurant was driving the staff nuts. Having read that Arabs in Spain and Sicily had made flower ices, Bill decided to give that a try. The trick was to capture the bouquet of the honeysuckle, not the bitter
ness. He succeeded. “The best flowers,” Bill writes, “seem to be the wild ones with the pinkish throats, although the regular ivory-colored ones are fine.” He nixes bland honeysuckle hybrids, also flowers picked by the side of the road, which have a sooty flavor. Finally, he stresses the importance of removing “all the leaves that invariably get mixed up in the flowers” lest the sorbet taste of chlorophyll. Apart from picking the honeysuckle blossoms (best done at night), Bill’s recipe is hardly labor-intensive.

4 cups (1 quart) freshly picked honeysuckle blossoms (measure tightly packed but avoid bruising the flowers)

⁶²
/
₃
cups cool water

2 cups sugar

½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice

A tiny pinch of ground cinnamon (Bill takes it up on the tip of a boning knife)

• 1.
  Pick over the honeysuckle blossoms carefully, removing all leaves and bits of stem. Place the flowers in a large, nonreactive bowl and pour in
  ⁵¹
  /
  ₃
  cups of the water. Place a heavy plate on top to keep the flowers submerged, and let stand on the counter overnight.
  
• 2.
  Next day, place the remaining
  ¹¹
  /
  ₃
  cups water in a small, heavy saucepan and mix in the sugar. Bring to a boil over moderate heat, then boil uncovered for 3 to 5 minutes or until about the consistency of light corn syrup. Remove from the heat, add the lemon juice (to keep the syrup from crystallizing), and cool to room temperature.
  
• 3.
  Meanwhile, strain the honeysuckle infusion, pressing the blossoms gently to extract every drop of nectar. Mix in the cooled syrup, then the cinnamon—“just a speck,” Bill cautions. “You don’t want to taste it but you can tell if it’s not there.”
  
• 4.
  Pour the honeysuckle mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions.
  Note:
  Stored tightly covered in the freezer, this sorbet will keep for about two weeks. Soften slightly before serving.
  

WATERMELON ICE

MAKES
8
SERVINGS

I dote upon watermelon as much as the next Southerner. But instead of devouring it by the slice, I churn it into this easy ice. Short of an A/C, it’s a fast way to take the sizzle out of summer.