The Pat Conroy Cookbook (32 page)
Read The Pat Conroy Cookbook Online
Authors: Pat Conroy
CORN BREAD
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MAKES TWO 10-INCH LOAVES
3 cups white cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 cups well-shaken buttermilk
12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1. Heat two well-seasoned 10-inch cast-iron skillets in the upper and lower thirds of the oven while preheating it to 450° F.
2. Whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the eggs, buttermilk, and 1 cup melted butter, then quickly stir together.
3. Remove the hot skillets from the oven. Divide the remaining ½ cup melted butter between them, then divide the batter between pans. Bake in the upper and lower thirds of oven, switching positions of pans halfway through, until golden and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes total.
SPICY SLAW
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SERVES 12
1½ cups Homemade Mayonnaise (page 57)
½ cup cider vinegar
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce
2 teaspoons coarse or kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 pounds mixed cabbages, such as green, red, and savoy, thinly sliced
3 cups halved cherry tomatoes
1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
3 cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 small red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into thin strips
1 small yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into thin strips
Whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, Tabasco, salt, and pepper until the sugar is dissolved, then toss with the vegetables.
The slaw may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered
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APPLE COBBLER
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SERVES 12
FOR THE APPLE FILLING
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
8 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and each cut into 8 wedges
1½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest
½ cup apricot preserves
⅓ cup brandy
FOR THE BISCUIT TOPPING
3¾ cups self-rising flour (preferably White Lily)
6 tablespoons plus ¼ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons chilled heavy cream
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream (not chilled)
1. To make the filling: Divide the butter between two wide, heavy 5- to 6-quart pots. Heat over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then sauté the apples with the sugar and zest, dividing them evenly between the pots and stirring, until apples are slightly softened, about 5 minutes.
2. Transfer the apples with a slotted spoon to two 2½- to 3-quart buttered shallow baking dishes.
3. Transfer all apple juices to one pot. Stir in the preserves and brandy and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Divide the mixture and pour it over the apples. (This may be made to this point 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring the apple filling to room temperature before proceeding.)
4. To make the biscuit topping: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Place rack in middle of oven.
5. Pulse the flour, 6 tablespoons sugar, and salt in a food processor just until blended. Add the butter and pulse just until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Transfer to a large bowl and add the chilled cream, stirring gently with a rubber spatula to form a dough. (The dough will be sticky at first, but it will stiffen slightly as the flour absorbs the cream.)
6. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface four to six times with floured hands (do not overwork dough, or biscuits will be tough). Roll out the dough ¾ inch thick, flouring the surface as needed, and cut out 12 to 14 rounds with a cookie cutter, rerolling scraps as necessary. Arrange the rounds on top of the apples, about ½inch apart.
7. Stir together the yolk and unchilled cream and brush on the biscuits. Sprinkle the ¼ cup sugar generously over the biscuits.
8. Bake until biscuits are golden and cooked through (lift one to check if the underside is cooked), 35 to 45 minutes. Serve warm.
The cobbler can be baked 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. To reheat, put the chilled cobbler, uncovered, in a cold oven, then bake at 375°F until the apples are bubbling, 25 to 30 minutes
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I
t was William B. “King Tut” Harper who not only sold me my first car but also taught me the joys of grilling steaks on a well-laid fire. In everything he did, King Tut was a craftsman who sneered at imprecision, indecisiveness, or anything he considered second-rate. “If you’re going to do something, boy, learn to do it right. If not, let someone else do it.”
Each Sunday afternoon at six, he rose from his recliner, walked out to his back porch overlooking Factory Creek in Beaufort, South Carolina, and lifted up a large bag of charcoal. With great care, he distributed the coals evenly in the pan of his grill. With a master’s touch, he arranged the charcoal in a cone-shaped mound, then drenched each briquet with just the right amount of lighter fluid, that amount being a secret to all but him. For five minutes, the charcoal marinated as King Tut looked out toward the setting sun, which had begun to ignite the creek with soft gold.
“Got to give the lighter fluid time to soak the charcoal, boy,” King Tut said to me.
Taking a blue box of kitchen matches, he lit a single match, held it straight up for a moment, and then tossed it with a priestlike flick of his hand toward the charcoal, which ignited in a satisfying but muffled
explosion. “We’ll give it a spell. Then we’ll check to see if the fire’s right.”
“How will we know it’s right?” I asked.
“Because we’re men,” King Tut said, scoffing. “Men just know these kinds of things. It’ll look right. That’s how we’ll know.”
When the flames died down and the coals were molten and the same color as the sun-fired creek, King Tut placed three large T-bone steaks on the grill with the deftness of a card dealer. He was the first cook I had ever known who held religious beliefs against cooking beef until it was well done.
“I’d rather feed it to my beagle,” he said. “You don’t overcook a good steak. That’s a sacrilege.”
“Who taught you how to cook, King Tut?” I asked.
“Hush, boy. I’m grilling,” he said, his voice carrying both softness and scorn. “Grilling’s serious business. Go in and tell Maw I’ll be bringing the steaks in sixteen minutes. Git, now!”
The air was filling up with smoke, and the smell of beef hitting the fire brought the beagle out of the doghouse and teased the palates of fishermen returning to the boat landing a mile down the creek. King Tut turned the meat once and once only, and the steaks were uniformly striped by the lines of the grill. Those Sunday night steak dinners at the Harper house remain some of the finest and most hospitable meals I have enjoyed on the planet. The thought of those beautiful cuts of meat laid over a fire with such ritual and devotion are among the most mouthwatering memories of my boyhood.
Later King Tut taught me to wrap Vidalia onions and Idaho potatoes in foil and cook them in the glowing coals before putting on the steaks. He introduced me to the glories of garlic salt, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, sour cream, and a dozen other condiments. Cutting through blackened foil and catching that first aromatic explosion of steam from the grilled onions was the first experience I had of the pure sensuousness of cooking. Watching King Tut eat what he had cooked was one of the great pleasures of dining at his table. He ate with utter concentration, savoring every bite of his perfectly seasoned meal. On Sunday nights during
my high school and college years, I hated not being at the Harper house. Because my own father could not boil an egg, I had never seen a man cook anything until I came to King Tut’s grill and learned of the rapture of the lucky men who step outside to light the fires that feed their families the best meals of their lives. Whenever I recall King Tut hunched over his grill, I think of fire and meat and small talk and getting things right and the coming of nightfall and the smell of the in-running tide. What King Tut was passing on to me was ancient, and he let me love him freely because he knew the responsibilities of being a father. Without knowing it, he prepared me for a lifetime of cooking for family.
When I was moving my family from Atlanta to Rome in 1981, a group of men I had cooked dinner for once a month planned a party in honor of my imminent departure. The novelist Terry Kay came up with the idea of barbecuing an entire pig in the woodsy backyard of Cliff Graubart, who lived on three acres of land a couple of miles from Grant Park. Terry Kay, the author of
To Dance with the White Dog
, loves playing “redneck” more than any white Southerner I have ever been around, and he can talk for longer than anyone has any reason to listen on such arcane topics as the proper way to plow a cotton furrow or the burial of a good mule. I find such conversation tedious in the extreme, and I do all I can to keep Terry’s mind from drifting back to those far-off days of his childhood when he and twelve siblings grew poorer and poorer with each passing year. It’s my belief that by the time I reach the age of seventy, Terry Kay will not even have managed to survive his hookworm-ridden childhood. In spite of all that, we let him cook the pig.
Terry dug the pit in Cliff’s backyard and stacked up concrete blocks three feet high. He then fashioned a makeshift grill using strong hay wire and rebar, weaving the wire through the rebar, so it did not collapse under the weight of the pig. When I arrived late Friday afternoon, Terry had already started a fire in the fire barrel using several cords of dried hickory, whose smell can induce Proust-like reveries in Southerners everywhere. Terry stacked wood on a grate in the fire barrel, and once the fire was raging, he shoveled out the red-hot ashes that dropped to the bottom
of the barrel. Those burning coals, spread evenly about the pit, would cook the pig. It was a continuous process that would go on all through the night.
“Where’s the pig?” I asked as I walked up to the fire.
“It’s in Cliff’s bathtub,” Terry replied.
“Cliff’s Jewish,” I said.
“So?”
“It is my experience that Jews and Muslims are funny about finding pork in their bathtub,” I said.
“It wouldn’t fit in the refrigerator,” Terry explained.
We watched as Cliff drove up with Bernie Schein and Frank Smith, and they walked into Cliff’s house carrying wine and groceries. A moment later, we heard a scream that was both primal and terrified.
“Cliff found the pig,” Terry said.
“Hey, Kay!” Cliff shouted from the back porch. “There’s a pig in my bathroom.”
“I know, Graubart,” Terry said.
“Did you see the one in your bed?” I asked.
“Do you know that I shower in this tub, Kay?” Cliff said. “Tell me the truth. In that hokey poverty-stricken, chicken-growing, cotton-picking, country-song-singing, grits-eating childhood of yours, did you ever put a pig in your parents’ bathtub? Or were you too poor to have a bathtub in North Georgia?”