Southern US Feast

Last night our lovely neighbours came over for dinner.  We had a week's notice they were coming, so earlier in the week my husband handed me his copy of Maeve O'Meara's Food Safari recipe book and told me I'd better start picking my menu.  I hugely recommend both the TV Series and the book itself - Maeve's enthusiasm for her topic is absolutely infectious.

Flicking through the pages I found myself stuck on the USA section.  Three recipes caught my eye - barbecue ribs, southern fried chicken and corn bread muffins.  Between my husband and I we settled on adding two extra sides to our dishes - a homemade coleslaw and corn cooked on the bbq with the ribs and an entree of buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce.  We also decided on homemade cherry ice cream for dessert - more on that later.

The idea of cooking an entire dinner party was incredibly daunting!  And I will admit, my husband gave me LOTS of help, so this Wannabe Cook didn't do EVERYTHING.  At 2pm yesterday afternoon, I read through my recipes and made a start.  We expected our guests at 5pm, and wanted to eat at 7pm, so the idea of teeing everything up at the same time seemed impossible until I got rolling.  I'm going to post piccies in order of entree, main and dessert, but bear in mind that we prepared things simultaneously, and I had all my dry ingredients for the chicken and the muffins done and sitting sealed and waiting well before cooking.

The Buffalo Wings

We got the recipe for the wings off taste.com.au.  Hubby loves this website and uses it regularly - more often than he uses the cook books we have!

First step was to get the wings cut up and ready:-

 Next, I mixed the marinade - it was mostly butter, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne powder, peri peri sauce and paprika.

 All but about a quarter of the marinade was put in a plastic bag with the chicken pieces.  I wrapped it up tight and put it in the fridge til we needed it - about three hours in the end.

The chicken pieces went under the grill, on a high heat, about ten minutes each side.  

On the plate, coated in the rest of the marinade.  Hubby made the blue cheese sauce to accompany it, which was mostly sour cream, blue cheese and lemon juice.

These tasted absolutely amazing.  Any spicier and I would have struggled, but they were just right.  I highly recommend giving them a go.

The Cornbread Muffins

These muffins turned out AMAZING.  The recipe was from Food Safari, and actually made 12 standard muffins... but I only had a 6 muffin tin, and our neighbour only had a tin for mini muffins.  The end result?  6 regular cornbread muffins and masses of teeny tiny ones!

This is the dry mix - it's self raising flour, polenta and lots of caster sugar and a little salt.  I added creamed corn, 3 eggs, milk and butter to make the batter.

I baked them for about 15 minutes  - and this is how they turned out.  Yummy, light and fluffy.  And a little spicy because I added some sliced up bbq'ed chilli.

Muffin success!

Southern Fried Chicken

One of the main events (alongside the ribs).  To my amazement, it turned out looking EXACTLY how I thought it would, and I loved it. Hubby gave me a crash course on cutting up a whole chicken into pieces, but there's no reason why we couldn't use pre-cut pieces if we make it again.  Having said that, there's something very nice about having started from scratch and wielding a knife....

After cutting up the chicken, I put the pieces in a dish and covered them with buttermilk, then popped the whole lot in the fridge.  The recipe advised to leave it overnight, but we only had three hours (it was the first thing I did).  Apparently soaking the chicken in buttermilk tenderises the meat.

While I was waiting, I put my dry ingredients together - plain flour, tarragon, garlic powder, onion powder, dill, paprika and cayenne powder made up most of the mix.

 While my fry pan full of oil heated up, I drained off the buttermilk, dipped the pieces in beaten egg and then coated it liberally in the flour and spice mix, then let it rest for 15 minutes.

Next step?  Pop all the pieces into the hot oil and let it sizzle away for about ten minutes, or until the chicken is a beautiful golden brown, then turn over for same time.  I was absolutely stunned when I turned the pieces over, that they looked EXACTLY like I wanted them to.  Clearly waiting for the oil to get SUPER HOT was a good idea.

My finished southern fried chicken pieces!  They looked amazing, and tasted great too, although Hubby recommended more salt in the flour mix :)  They won't be a regular (given the deep frying), but I WILL be making them again.

KFC EAT YOUR HEART OUT!

BARBECUE RIBS

This dish was definitely the most difficult and time consuming (in my humble opinion).  Both Hubby and I spent time working on this one. 

Step One was making the spice rub for the ribs.  I combined an amazing list of spices, including garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, paprika, cayenne powder, cajun seasoning and a few other herbs and spices.

After I rubbed the spice mix into the ribs, I poured a bottle of dark beer over the whole lot and popped it in the fridge for three hours.

 

While it was marinating, I made a start on the bbq sauce to go with it.  I sauteed off some butter, onions and chilli, then added brown sugar and golden syrup (you're supposed to use molasses, but I couldn't get any).  

I took it off the heat, added chopped garlic and a tin of pureed tomatoes and blended it with a stick blender until it was as smooth as I could get it.  Then I put it back on a medium heat, added tabasco sauce, Worcester sauce and tabasco sauce.  Once it came to the boil, I turned the heat right down, and left it to simmer and thicken up until I needed it.

After the ribs had marinated for a couple of hours, Hubby drained off the beer, wrapped them in aluminum foil and popped them in the oven for two hours.  After that, he took off the foil, doused the ribs in my bbq sauce and put them on the bbq for about 15 minutes.

This is the end result.  The BBQ sauce was a total success (really, it's amazing!), but the ribs did end up a bit dry (although still very tasty).  Possibly we should have poured some of the beer into the aluminum foil package to keep the ribs moist in the oven.

The Feast

 

This is our end result!  Hubby made the coleslaw and did the corn on the bbq, so all up we had a very tasty, very meat-based feast!

 

YUMMO!

Dessert

Hubby made the dessert (I helped by whisking eggs and sugar together).  He made a syrup with a heap of fresh cherries, then made a vanilla custard which he put in the fridge to chill.  Then it all went in our ice cream maker for half an hour.  After that, Hubby popped it in the freezer for two hours to finish off.  I loved it, but Hubby was disappointed that he burnt the cherry syrup.  I thought it gave it a sort of... burnt sugar flavour (which I actually like).

Final Thoughts

I am still amazed, 24 hours later, by how well this feast went.  Most of the dishes turned out amazing, even if we did identify a few issues (like the ribs being too dry).  Most amazing of all, I think, was that I spent half a day in the kitchen, and yet I never lost my patience and I can honestly say, for the first time ever, that I enjoyed every minute.  Clearly Hubby's love of cooking is rubbing off, or maybe I'm just feeling a little more comfortable wearing the apron?