Ham

When it comes to good luck, Southerners don’t take any chances. Each year on New Year’s Day, we hedge our bets by eating hoppin’ John, a rustic mix of rice, black-eyed peas, bacon, and onion that is thought to bring good fortune in the year to come. (Literally—the peas in the dish represent coins, and the stewed collards that are usually served on the side are the rich green of dollar bills.) For extra good luck, serve with Mess o’ Greens (page 245).

Long-simmering red beans practically cook themselves, a fact that didn’t escape the many generations of hardworking Louisiana Creole women who supposedly made this dish every Monday, on laundry day. Even now, many Creole restaurants serve red beans and rice as a lunch special on Mondays.

Thick and saucy, this country ham and summer vegetable–strewn rice dish is my Southern version of risotto. Like risotto, it gets its full-bodied, creamy texture from the starch released by the rice as it cooks.

This is my go-to grits dish, the first one I think to make and the one to which I keep returning over the years. I love how the roasted tomatoes, flavored by the country ham, form a rich, saucy sort of gravy for the creamy cheese grits. Cracklings add big flavor. If they aren’t available, substitute crispy pieces of thick-cut bacon.

The two-step cooking process here yields perfectly moist and flavorful results: First, you put a nice sear on the chicken in a skillet. Next, you finish it off in the oven, slow-cooking it in a wonderful pot likker of seasonal vegetables and country ham. That’s it. Once you get the hang of this basic method, you can use it to make endless variations.

Red-eye gravy—which for most Southerners is the only acceptable sauce for country ham—is a savory and slightly bitter mixture of black coffee and the pan drippings left behind from frying country ham. I’m not sure how the coffee first made its way into the pan, but I like to imagine it was one of those happy accidents born of necessity. It rings true, anyway, because Southerners love gravy so much that they will find a way to eke some out of a greasy pan no matter what. I lighten my version of this quintessentially Southern dish with a bright shock of fresh, green asparagus, which plays perfectly off the saltiness of the red-eye gravy and the richness of the runny egg yolks.

A good hash is like soup: you can toss together all the odds and ends from your fridge and pantry and end up with something rustic and hearty that is much more than the sum of its parts.

My sister used to make these rich rolls for her husband and kids when they went duck hunting. She would prepare them the night before, wrap them in foil, and refrigerate. Then, when Pat and the kids got up to go hunting—sometimes as early as four in the morning—they would just pop the rolls in the oven to melt the cheese and hit the road. The way everything melds together on the soft, steamed rolls is so irresistible, I’m pretty sure the rolls never made it to the duck camp, or even out of the driveway. For nonhunters like me, these rolls, served warm or at room temperature, are great for tailgating, picnics, and road trips.

A few years ago, at Easter, in addition to the usual spread of ham and sides, I made a gratin of white beans, country ham, and collards from Frank Stitt’s very fine Southern Table cookbook. That dish, which everyone raved about, and the leftover ham bone—a prized ingredient that should never, ever be put to waste—inspired this low-on-the-hog soup.

Like many Southerners, I have a fig tree—huge, old, gnarled, and prized—that bears bucketfuls of plump, grassy-sweet figs each summer. So sweet, in fact, that they draw not only the usual birds and squirrels, but also a certain stealthy neighbor who must surely keep as close a watch on the fruits’ ripening as we do. Shake it up with a SAZERAC (see page 28)

Think of fresh deviled ham as pork’s answer to chicken salad. Creamy and savory, it makes a great dip for crackers or crostini. For a light lunch, try scooping it into cups of butter lettuce with sliced tomatoes.

The fragrant, filling, dripping-with-oil muffuletta is New Orleans’s beloved version of a hero or hoagie. The sandwich originated at Central Grocery in 1906, and people still line up out the door to buy them there. In a traditional muffuletta, a sesame seed-speckled round loaf of crusty Italian bread is stuffed with slices of provolone, salami, mortadella, and a pungent olive salad (which ranks alongside hot sauce and beignet mix as the best souvenirs from the Quarter). A muffuletta is a cousin to one of the great street foods of Nice, the niçoise-salad-on-a-roll known as pan bagnat. The sandwich, which literally translates as “bathed bread,” is so named because the crusty bread is “bathed” in the rich oils from olives and tuna. With this preparation in mind, I created a tuna-driven version of the classic New Orleans sandwich. I think it’s a happy combination.

This recipe is an adaptation of a dish from the Troisgros Brothers, a famous restaurant in Lyon. The “gâteau” is a stack of delicate crêpes layered with creamy béchamel sauce, Gruyère or Comté cheese, ham, and prosciutto. There are countless variations to this elegant dish. You can use plain crêpes or herbed, as I do here. I sometimes make a more “locally flavored” version by folding crayfish and spinach into the béchamel (and omitting the hams). The key is cooking the assembled gâteau until it’s bubbly and brown. I like to serve this with a deeply flavored Smoked-Tomato Butter (p. 63), but this dish is great on its own. For a quick assembly, make the sauce and the crêpes a day or two in advance. Wrap the crêpes in plastic wrap and freeze until needed.

If you’re not from Crescent City, this dish might seem like an unlikely trio of ingredients, but it’s my twist on a much-loved Louisiana combination. In New Orleans, we tend to serve oysters with just about anything—especially if there is beer and hot sauce involved. When I’m traveling, or asked to bring New Orleans-style food to other parts of the world, tasso is one of the things I smuggle. Tasso is another Cajun staple—cured, smoked pork (usually the shoulder), seasoned with red pepper, garlic, and various spices and herbs. Tasso is typically vacuum-packed, so it doesn’t spoil easily. Since the flavor is intense, it’s used more as a seasoning. In other words, 3 pounds of tasso provide the same mileage as 10 pounds of andouille—which I’m not willing to schlep. (So far I’ve managed to infiltrate France, Thailand, and England with tasso discreetly nestled in my luggage—and the authorities were none the wiser.) I’m an eggplant freak, and I can eat it any way, anytime. I have yet to find an eggplant dish that I don’t like—unless it’s one that’s undercooked. Eggplant is a great flavor carrier that stands up well to other ingredients. But you can also make this recipe by substituting sautéed spinach or fennel for the eggplant. A gratin is a nifty appetizer because it can be assembled in advance and requires very little last-minute prep.

Saltimbocca, a classic Roman dish, provided the inspiration for this recipe. In our variation we replaced the traditional veal cutlets with chicken.

This is one of the quickest and most satisfying pasta recipes you can make. Prosciutto is easier to slice when it’s cold; stack slices, and cut crosswise with a sharp knife.

Inspired by the popular Cuban sandwich known as the Cubano, these quesadillas contain many of its signature ingredients—sliced pork, pickles, ham, and cheese.

In Italy, prosciutto and melon are combined in a traditional first course. Here, cool, silky bocconcini and torn mint leaves are added to make a refreshing salad—just the thing to begin a meal on a warm summer night.

This is an egg sandwich I could eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Tangy sourdough bread is grilled to crusty perfection and topped with a meaty slice of griddled country ham, blistered sweet tomatoes, and a perfectly fried egg. A lightly dressed mound of slightly bitter, feathery frisée crowns this fork-and-knife sandwich.

Eggs Benedict is the quintessential dish of the New York Sunday brunch. I like to put a southern spin on the classic, starting with a fluffy buttermilk biscuit. A Cajun blend of seasonings gives a kick to the luscious hollandaise sauce, which is right at home with New Orleans’ beloved tasso ham. Tasso is cured and hotsmoked pork shoulder crusted with a spicy blend of flavorings such as garlic and cayenne pepper. (If you can’t find tasso, you can try substituting slices of Italian capicola, which is prepared similarly.) Griddled tomatoes are an addition to, not a substitution in, the original Benedict, but I like the slightly sweet, fresh balance they bring to the richness of the other components.