A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson Read Free Book Online

place.) To taste the town’s famous meat pies, I headed straight to Lasyone’s Meat Pie Kitchen on Second Street (yes, some of the movie folk did stop by). Here I learned that fried meat pies were originally out-the-backdoor or street food sold by the few who knew how to make them. I won’t pretend they’re easy. The local recipes I picked up were vague and faulty: too much flour in the filling, too much lard in the pastry. Even with major adjustments the pastry was so short the pies fell apart when fried in deep fat. What to do? Abandon tradition and bake the pies instead. They are equally delicious and a tad less caloric.
    Pastry
    2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
    ½ teaspoon baking powder
    ½ teaspoon salt
    ½ cup firmly packed lard or vegetable shortening
    3 tablespoons cold milk beaten with 1 large egg
    Filling
    ¼ pound ground beef chuck
    ¼ pound ground pork
    2 medium scallions, trimmed and coarsely chopped (include some green tops)
    ¼ teaspoon salt
    ¼ teaspoon black pepper
    1 / 8 to ¼ teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne)
    1 / 8 teaspoon ground allspice
    1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
    ¼ cup water
1. For the pastry: Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Add the lard and using a pastry blender, cut in until the texture of coarse meal. Quickly fork in the milk-egg mixture and as soon as the pastry holds together, shape into a ball. Place on a large sheet of plastic food wrap, flatten, then wrap and refrigerate until ready to proceed.
2. For the filling: Cook the beef, pork, scallions, salt, black and red pepper, and allspice in a medium-size heavy skillet over moderate heat, breaking up the clumps of meat, for about 5 minutes or until no traces of pink remain. Sprinkle in the flour, then, stirring all the while, add the water. Cook, stirring now and then, for about 5 minutes or until lightly thickened and no raw floury taste remains. Cool to room temperature.
3. Preheat the oven to 375° F. Remove the pastry from the refrigerator and roll as thin as pie crust on a lightly floured pastry cloth. Cut into rounds with a 2¾-to 3-inch biscuit cutter, then drop 1½ to 2 teaspoons of the filling onto the lower half of each round, leaving a margin of at least ¼ inch. Reroll the scraps and cut additional circles. Moisten the edges of the pastry circles all around, fold in half to enclose the filling, and crimp the edges firmly with the tines of a fork to seal. Also prick the top of each round with the fork to allow steam to escape.
4. Arrange the rounds about 2 inches apart on an ungreased large baking sheet, slide onto the middle oven shelf, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the edges are brown.
5. Serve hot with cocktails.
    Variation
    Main-Dish Meat Pies: Prepare the pastry and filling according to the recipe. After rolling the pastry as directed in Step 3, cut into 4½-inch rounds using a pan lid as a template. Note: Some cooks use an empty coffee can as a cutter and if you have one that’s about 4 ½ inches in diameter, by all means use it. Reroll the scraps and cut additional rounds. Divide the meat filling evenly among the pastry rounds, spooning it onto the lower half of each. Fold, seal, and bake the pies as directed. Makes 8 servings.
    HEAVENLY CHICKEN LIVER MOUSSE
    MAKES 10 TO 12 SERVINGS
    Chicken livers have long been popular down south—perhaps because chicken farming is big business. Most old-timey southern cooks simply dredge chicken livers lightly in flour (or, better yet, in self-rising flour, which gives them a supremely crisp coating), and fry them. But Scott Howell, chef-proprietor of Nana’s, a classy restaurant in Durham, North Carolina, has turned them into an ethereal mousse. This is my adaptation of the restaurant recipe, which appeared a few years ago in my Food & Wine profile of Howell.
    There are a couple of caveats: First, all ingredients must be at room temperature, otherwise the mousse may separate. Second, the softened butter must be added one