Date I made this recipe:
January 19, 2015
Colorful Louisiana
Published by: Pelican
Publishing Company
© 1988; Third printing
July 1990
Purchased at Bonnie Slotnick's Cookbooks, NYC
Recipes: Shortnin' Bread (B) – p. 19 and Turkey
This is one of my more unique cookbooks and entirely fitting
for Martin Luther King Day as it combines recipes of two women, one black and
one white. Bibby Tate (whose recipes are
denoted with a "W" for white), was a descendent of a Louisiana plantation
family who owned slaves. Ethel Dixon
(whose recipes are denoted with a "B" for black), descended from
slaves. Together, they published this
book, filled with tons of recipes that will make you hungry. Really hungry.
The timing for me using this book could not be better as one
of the big films of the year – and an Oscar contender for Best Picture – is
"Selma," that tells the
story of how Martin Luther King, Jr. organized a march from Montgomery, AL to
Selma, AL, 50 years ago this year, in an attempt to secure voting rights for
all blacks in the state of Louisiana and beyond. And although the vast majority of marchers
were black, many from the white community risked life and limb to join in the
fight for equality.
Normally, I limit myself to one recipe per cookbook but
seeing as how people of all color joined the march, I thought I would make two
dishes, one of Ethel's and one of Bibby's.
Although a few recipes in this book gave me pause ("Smothered
Sqirrel???"), there are 338 pages of glorious recipes sure to please.
And so there I was, all of 19 pages in, when I found my
first recipe: Shortnin' Bread. Many of you
who are my age might remember singing that song, Shortnin' Bread as kids, but the real reason I had to make this
recipe – just had to – was all because of one woman and one woman only: "Ethel Mae Potter (We Never Forgot
Her)."
Ethel Mae Potter was TV character Ethel Mertz's maiden name
on the show, I Love Lucy. Actually, Ethel was given a couple of
different middle names and maiden names over the course of the show but this
one was most memorable.
In season four, Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel motored to LA so
that Ricky could be in a movie. Along
the way, they stopped in Albuquerque ,
NM Albuquerque ,"
Ethel's husband Fred, always the fast one with the quip said "She's big
everywhere!" Love me that Fred
Mertz.
So of course, with Ethel Mae now back home (in triumph), she
was asked to perform as the headliner for a variety show. And one of the two numbers she sang is – wait
for it – "Shortnin' Bread."
And this is how I came to select one of today's
recipes. Thank you, Ethel Mae!
I don't know as I've ever had shortnin' bread so I wasn't
sure what to expect when I made this recipe but what you get is a rather dense
cake that doesn't rise much (and it wouldn't since it doesn't contain baking
powder) and is not very sweet. It
reminded me of cornbread which, unless you add sugar to it, is pretty bland (in
my northern opinion). Not in a bad way
"bland," just bland!
Since there are only two of us, I decided to make just half
a recipe which was fine and I somehow knew that the baking time needed to be
adjusted from 60 minutes to about 30.
But I lost track of time and so the bread ended up being a little bit
more golden than I would have liked.
Still good, but very golden. The
instructions say to serve with jam or jelly but I used honey instead to combat
the aforementioned "blandness."
(It's the word of the day.)
Turning our attention to turkey...for the first time ever, I
happened to have a turkey breast carcass in the refrigerator, left over from my
New Year's Eve dinner. So last week, I
made up the gumbo base, sans the shrimp, and put it in my freezer. I can promise you that this combination of
"recipe calling for turkey carcass" + my having a carcass on hand =
not likely to be seen again until asteroids pound the earth, destroying
civilization. Well, maybe.
But lo, though I had the main ingredient, once again the
making of this gumbo was fraught with peril.
As you will see, this recipe doesn't give ingredient amounts, leaving me
to guess at the right combinations.
There are several other gumbo recipes in this book but each one is so
different, using different ingredients, and that made it hard for me to
determine whether or not I could "borrow" ingredient amounts and
instructions. Further, a bona fide roux
usually involves fat, flour and liquid but this instruction said to use flour
and liquid only. Soooo...fat, no
fat? I decided to use the flour and
liquid as directed and hope for the best.
As to the spices, I started with ¼ teaspoon of each, then
tasted, then added another ¼ teaspoon more.
And I added the entire can of Rotel tomatoes without draining them - in other words, I was living life on the
edge!
All in all, this recipe turned out okay and the flavors were
good and yet, this recipe also tasted a little bland. You can adjust that by just adding a bit of
salt and pepper to taste before serving.
The bigger problem though, was that I thought this was a bit
watery and the only way to solve that – I think – was to either add more okra
(which is often used as a thickener), which I did not have on hand, or to add
more roux. But since I didn't know what
to do with my roux in the first place, I'm not sure adding more would have made
a difference. Hopefully, some great
southern cook is reading this and will let me know just where this thing went
south, pun intended. It was a tasty dish
but I felt it was missing a little je ne sais quoi.
As suggested, I added shrimp and the shrimp was okay
(actually, some of it was freezer-burned even though I had just purchased it
the day before) but I think it would have been even better with pieces of
leftover turkey. Next time.
1 turkey carcass
Flour (Ann's Note:
about 1 tablespoon)
1 chopped bell pepper
1 can Rotel [tomatoes – traditional mixture]
Basil (Ann's Note:
about ½ teaspoon or more)
Thyme (Ann's Note:
about ½ teaspoon or more)
Rosemary (Ann's Note:
about ½ teaspoon or more)
Okra (Ann's Note:
amount not given, instructions not given so I used 4 small diced okra)
Salt and pepper to taste
Ann's Note: As I
explained in my narrative above, exact amounts were not given so season this
mixture to taste. As to the Rotel, all
the recipe said was "Rotel" and like many things, there are several
varieties of these canned tomatoes. Use
the "traditional" mix. I also
added the can without draining it and have no idea if that is correct or not!
This bears repeating:
Unclear instructions annoy me!
Put whole carcass in big stewing pot and boil in water with
chopped onion until meat falls off bones.
(Ann's Note: I almost boiled away
my broth so keep an eye on this pot. I
think I reduced my stock to about half and that actually seemed about right but
again, who knows?)
Remove the bones and make a roux by taking some of your
seasoned water and mixing with flour, or use one of the prepared roux like
"Iron Pot." (Ann's Notes: Okay, folks, traditional roux is fat + flour
+ liquid but do you see a mention of fat here?
No, you do not.) So I followed the directions and mixed flour and liquid
until I felt the mixture looked like a roux; not that I know what a roux looks
like.
Return mixture to the pot and add chopped bell pepper, a can
of Rotel, chopped basil, thyme, okra, rosemary, salt and pepper. Cover and let simmer at least an hour. Add crab meat, fresh or frozen, and shrimp
that has not been cooked before. You may
also add gumbo, crabs, and oysters. Cook
till shrimp are done and serve over rice.
Shortnin' Bread –
makes a 9 x 12 loaf pan
2 cups flour
2 ½ tsps baking soda
1 pinch salt
1 stick butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sweet milk
Cream eggs and butter.
Add remaining ingredients. Oil
and flour a 9 x 12 loaf pan. Pour batter
in pan. Bake in 350 oven for about 1
hour. Let cook. Cut and serve with jam or jelly.
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