Bennie's Chicken Brunswick Stew

Like Frogmore Stew, this more soupy traditional Southeastern dish has several different varieties depending upon regionally favorite meats and vegetables. Like many southern dishes the origins are unclear. Both Brunswick, Georgia and Brunswick County, Virginia claim to have coined the term but there are plenty of other names associated with the stew. Here in South Carolina a similar dish made with rice is called "purloo" (pronounced pur-LOW) while Kentucky and Tennessee refer to it as "burgoo" (similar pronunciation). Of course most folks will recognize the more famous name the Cajuns of Louisiana call it: gumbo.

Each version of the concoction though has a two common ingredients: a tomato chicken broth liquid base creating a vegetable soup with meat added into it. Most recipes use shredded chicken as the primary meat source. Other meats I've read about in similar recipes include salt pork, pulled pork, hamburger, deer, duck, rabbit, fish, shrimp, crawfish, and even alligator. Our family prefers a less complicated version of the stew.

Ingredients:
Frozen gumbo vegetables (substitute soup vegies if you don't like okra)
1 to 2 cups shredded chicken (we generally use leftovers from a baked or rotisserie bird)
2 cups chicken broth
1 can whole peeled tomatoes (do not drain!)
1 cup water
Cajun seasoning (Zatarrain's is THE best)
celery salt
1 clove minced garlic
1 small onion chopped
1 to 2 cups sliced or diced cooked potatoes (drained)

Combine all the ingredients except the potatoes in a medium pot. Bring to a boil for three minutes on medium high heat. After adding the potatoes reduce heat to simmer for one hour. Serve with fresh cornbread for dipping!

For gumbo:
Substitute cooked rice (2 to 3 cups depending on how thick you want your mixture) for the potatoes. Also substitute diced tomotoes for the whole peeled ones. You can also add ground red pepper or your favorite hot sauce for an extra kick.

Frogmore Stew
(Low Country Boil)

The folks over at PKSKids.net are putting together a cookbook as a fund raiser. Basically members of the organization have been asked to submit some of their family recipes. Yeah, I know. You've heard of this concept before. well this one should be a bit different given that we have PKS families located all over the world! I'm kind of excited to here how one prepares shrimp on the barbie in the Land Down Under. Now a recipe for haggis? Not so much.

Anyway, I thought I'd share one of my submissions with you today. With all this cold weather affecting just about everyone from Miami to Minneapolis I thought I'd try to warm your heart with a recipe traditionally served during warmer months here in the south.

There are several variations of this recipe that originated along the southeastern coast of the United States. Basically the difference in each region’s boil is the native seafood found in each southern state’s coastal waters. But several ingredients are always found in every boil: water, sweet corn, sausage, and Old Bay Seasoning!

For the record there are no frogs in Frogmore Stew. The funny name comes from the tiny Frogmore community on St. Helena Island near Beaufort, South Carolina. In fact some locals actually call it Beaufort Stew. The high brow folks in Charleston call it Low Country Boil. It really doesn’t matter what you call it other than delicious.

I have fond memories of eating Frogmore Stew almost every July 4th at my grandparents’ house in the mountains of northwestern South Carolina. My dad, grandfather, & uncles prepared our dinner next to the small lake on their property. This feast was the exclamation mark on a day filled with swimming, fishing, and fireworks. And let it be known that homemade ice cream sits well on a tummy filled with our native stew.

BASIC INGREDIENTS:
¾ to 1 cup of Old Bay Seasoning per 6 quarts of water
1 can of beer (your favorite)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or minced
2 or 3 onions, quartered
Several lemons, halved
Redskin potatoes (depending on size, 3 or more per person)
Spicy smoked sausage, cut into 1 to 2-inch slices (¼ pound per person)
Fresh corn, broken into halves or thirds (1 ½ ears per person)
Shrimp (½ pound per person)
Melted butter
Cocktail sauce

ALTERNATIVE INGREDIENTS:
Crab, still in the shell but broken into pieces – we like Stone Crab claws
Scallops – we prefer the smaller bay scallops that have a sweeter taste
Clams – nothing better than the littleneck variety (cook in the shell)
Grouper or other hearty white fish.
My brother in Louisiana adds crawfish to his boil and friends in Florida add rock lobster tails to theirs.

PREPARATION:
Fill a large steamer pot halfway with water. Add Old Bay Seasoning (or more to taste) and the garlic. Squeeze the juice out of several lemon halves and throw them in. Pour in the can of beer. If cooking indoor use medium to medium high.

When the seasoned water comes to a boil, add redskin potatoes and boil for 15 to 20 minutes (don’t let them get too tender yet). Then add the sausage. Boil for 5 minutes. Now add the corn and boil another 5 minutes (Begin timing immediately! Do not wait for it to boil again). If you’re cooking crab or lobster you’ll add them in at this time as well.

Now add the shrimp and any other seafood. Cook for 3 minutes. If you added clams you’ll know it’s done when they open up. Drain the liquid before serving.

SERVING:
The “proper” way to serve Frogmore Stew is to have a picnic table covered with craft paper. Newspaper will do but it can get pretty messy. Pour the stew out onto the covered table and enjoy the feast! Be sure to have plenty of butter, cocktail sauce, more lemons, and plenty of paper towels.

Now some folks (mostly in Charleston or Columbia) have been known to actually use plates at fancier occasions like weddings and baptisms but true Palmetto State residents treat the boil like a pig pickin’ and just grab what they want off the table. It’s easier to socialize that way.

One cooking tip is to use a turkey fryer with a basket to cook with. This makes it much easier to handle the food while the water drains back into the pot. Obviously this is only an outdoor method of cooking.

Recommended:
South Bound Mary

I'm thinking that whenever I'm in town on the weekends (which is rare) that I'll use my Sunday morning post to introduce some culinary delight that the Wahs occasionally enjoy. I'll have to admit that I enjoy this little recipe whenever I'm at an art show with The Bomb Squad, so named because we tend to get "bombed" when we're all together. This group includes quite a few of those artists listed over to your left under that heading titled The Guild.

Generally speaking Christy Buchanan (soon to be famous via Southern Living) serves as bar tender. Christy is old school and would never lower herself to purchase all of her ingredients pre-mixed. And I wouldn't be surprised if she shows up with a blender at the Banner Elk show next month to show off her Margarita-making skills. But that's another story that seems to be a bit foggy at the moment.

South Bound Mary is the bloodiest Mary south of the Mason-Dixon line. It's a combination of Savannah-influenced presentation with a Texas-sized kick to the esophagus. If the Gates of Hell open up somewhere near Columbia, SC like most of us from South Carolina believe this is the drink you'll want to be sipping on while you're there to keep old Lucifer at a distance.

Here are the ingredients:

• Burnett's Lime-flavored Vodka - yeah, I know there are other fancier names out there but we're not sipping on Grey Goose straight up. We are about to mutilate Russia's equivalent to iced tea into something that could make a fine bug repellent.
• Finest Call Loaded Bloody Mary Mix - I used to be a Zing-Zang guy myself but I still had to add some of the stuff that Finest Call includes and they got it all. Real tomato juice (with the seeds), Jalapeño peppers, onion, garlic, horseradish, cracked black pepper, and lemon juice. I've been tempted to marinate some ground beef in this stuff, bake it, and name it Meat Loaf to Kill Your Ma-In-Law With.
• Tabasco Smoked Chipotle Pepper Sauce - as Jed Clampett used to say on The Beverley Hillbillies (one of the finest dramas to ever appear on television I might add), "EWE-EEEE-DOGGIES!" For chicken wing aficionados this is your ticket, right here. I peppered me some burgers last night and had to break out the Preparation H this morning.
• Worchestershire Sauce - and you thought we Southerners couldn't spell "wooster sheer sauce" (sauce is pronounced with two syllables).
• Pickled Okra
• Large Green Olives (optional)
• Small Dill Pickles (optional)
• Mild Banana Peppers (sliced) - you can choose hot; it's your digestive system so you can do anything to it that you want.

Preparation: it depends on how drunk you want to get but my suggestion is to use about two jiggers of vodka (equal to two shots of Jägermeister) for every 12 ounces of mix although I usually don't mix like this. I go by what it looks like as in, "this looks like it's gonna be a pretty shitty day so let's add more vodka" or, "I'll keep the vodka in the car and if it looks like your parents are gettin' on our nerves we'll add more."

Add a dash of "wooster-sheer-sauce-a" and a couple of dashes of Tabasco. Don't dash too much of the latter unless you want your family to move out for a week or so. Throw in the sliced banana peppers and shake. Don't stir it because it'll end up looking like a redneck parfait. If'n your spouse has some respectable chest ensembles then get him or her to do it for some added entertainment.

Now some folks like olives or celery as a garnish. We suggest use use the celery with the aforementioned chicken wings. You're gonna need it. I like the little dill pickles and olives just in case I need a weapon after Joan makes fun of my chest ensembles after shaking the mix. The pickled okra is not optional if you want a true Southern experience. This would be like not eating the worm at the bottom of a bottle of Mescal. Put your okra (pronounced "okree"), olives, and whatnot on a toothpick and shove it down into the mix. After your first drink bite the okra in half and return it to you glass before you refill it. Finish off the okra after it has soaked some more. Ewe-eee-doggies!

Now if you'll excuse me I'm headed out by the pool to enjoy my South Bound Mary while I read my new book, Weird Carolinas. This coming week you can look forward to a book report, a magazine review, and more cute pics of Ben. Hopefully next Sunday you can copy my recipe for my Dirty Old Man Martini...

Later on in the afternoon addendum: Please go visit Looky, Daddy today. He has something very funny and outstandingly (is that a word?) clever to share. It made my day!