Saturday, May 8, 2010

The South

This week we headed down south, for a good southern style barbeque. Most of the dishes that that are considered "southern dishes" were made during the civil war times, and by the slaves that were brought here from Africa. The menu was excellent, I could not wait to start. It consisted of grilled quail with spicy eggplant relish, tomato and bib lettuce salad, pecan encrusted catfish, slow-cooked greens, peanut brittle, pulled pork, Hoppin' John Salad (black eyed peas, green beans, field greens, and a vinaigrette), potato salad, onion tart, shrimp pilaf, and banana pudding.

The pecan crusted catfish was excellent. It was breaded with breadcrumbs, cornmeal, pecans, and parsley. Use the traditional breading process, then pan fry it until it's golden brown. Al did a great job with this it came out great. Had great color, and a great nutty flavor.

The quail sat in a brine for about an hour. Then we split it rubbed it down with olive oil and seasoned it with a little salt and pepper. Then it was grilled and plated on top of squash and zucchini cut in spaghetti like strips. We made a spicy eggplant relish to go with the quail which was delicious.

The greens were very good. Had nice kick to them but not overwhelming. Then we finished of the meal with the bib lettuce and tomato salad. Nice equalizer for this pretty spicy meal.

Now for the pulled pork! It was absolutely amazing. Chef Bill smoked it for hours the night before, so when I finally got to it, it was already falling apart. I created my own little dry rub and rubbed it on as best as I could. It was so tender it fell apart even more when I tried. So I ended up just sprinkling it on to the pork. I also made a BBQ sauce. It was the base of a North Carolina BBQ sauce (runny and vinegar base). I love the flavor, but I like my BBQ sauce to be thick. So I started out runny, added some molasses and ketchup to it to thicken it up. Now it had a great mix of sweet and sour. Right before pouring it on the pork I added a little pinch of cayenne to give it a nice hidden kick when you ate it. It turned out great!

The shrimp pilaf was a little bland but that's an easy fix, just a pinch more salt and pepper. Still delicious.

We were all a little hesitant when it came to the onion tart. I mean..."onion tart," just doesn't sound all to appealing. But we were wrong. It was made with Vidalia Onions, it was very sweet and surprisingly good. I had seconds.

Then we finished the night off with Banana Pudding. It had great flavor, the only thing I would change is...It needs 'Nila Wafers...not pound cake. It was still very delicious, but threw off the texture that I am used to.

No comments:

Post a Comment