Low Country Cuisine

Hey, y'all. I'm just out here in the backyard enjoying this beautiful view, this wonderful

Turner's Creek that I live on. And you know what? I have to travel a lot nowadays. I find

myself home less and less. But when I do get to come home, I forget. I forget just how

good that low country cooking is. And that's what today's show is about. It's a tribute

to low country cuisine. I want to invite you in the kitchen with me because I'm cooking

up a sure is good seafood dip, a quick crab stew, dirty rice, and last but not least, we've got to

have a sweet ending to this meal. I'm going to share a recipe with you for a Low Country cookie

So y'all come on in the house. It's all about a tribute to the Low Country

I'm so glad to see that y'all came into the kitchen with me today because as I said earlier

today's show is all about low country cuisine. And you know, the plentiful harvest of the sea

that we have here is the basis of low country cooking. So I really think you're going to like

this first recipe that I'm going to share with you. It is called Shore is Good Seafood Dip

That's S-H-O-R-E. I'm going to take about a cup full of shrimp that have been coarsely chopped

I'm gonna take a small can, which is about a cup, of claw crab meat

Now, you can use claw meat or you can use lump that you can find in your seafood department at your grocery store

I love the claw meat because it's got a real good flavor

Claw meat is a lot less expensive than your lump meat. All right, now to our meats, I'm going to add a half a can of cream of shrimp soup

Now, I have dipped off the top half of that soup and put it to the side to use in something else

The reason I'm using the bottom half of that can is because the shrimp sunk to the bottom

and that's the part I really want. So I'm adding the bottom half of a can of cream of shrimp soup

To our ingredients now, I'm gonna add a half a teaspoon of ground white pepper

But first, I've thrown a couple of tablespoons of butter into our skillet, and I'm gonna saute

two ribs of celery that's been diced fairly fine, one green bell pepper that's been diced

one onion. Going to turn this up a little bit and we're going to let that saute for a

few minutes while I'm mixing up the rest of our dip. Alright, to our ingredients now we're

going to add a cup of mayonnaise and I recommend that you do use a good premium mayonnaise

And I'm going to add just a little salt. It's not going to take much because everything

else is just naturally salty. And to this, I'm going to add two cups of grated Parmesan

cheese. Now you can fresh grate your Parmesan cheese, or you can bite in the container already

grated at the grocery store. So we're just going to fold that over and let's come check

on our vegetables. So these are sauteed just kind of tender. And I'm going to take them

Nothing smells like an onion cooking, you know? All right. We'll finish mixing this together

All right, I've got everything mixed together. Now I'm just going to dump this into a pre-sprayed pan

and it's going in the oven at 325. If you're having a cocktail party

I promise you it would be a big hit at the table

Just gonna kinda flatten that out. All right, so we're gonna put this in the oven

Remember at 325, a little less than we normally cook on. And we're gonna let this bake for about 25 minutes

until it's nice and bubbly brown. And you know I've got one ready

Look at this. Oh, ooh. Smells fabulous And it hot as a firecracker And now to serve along with my seafood dip

I'm going to put out a rich buttery cracker, and then I'm going to put out some toast points

that are just super crisp. And I mean, this is so, so hot

Can you see the shrimp in it? And the crab? It smells so very good, but it's really, really hot

Mmm. Your family's going to love this one. It's truly delicious, and I think you're going to love it

When we come back, we're going to get down and dirty with some more Low Country Cuisine

So I'll see y'all back here in the kitchen in just a second. Mmm, sure is good

Today is all about low country cuisine. And on this segment, we are fixing to get down and dirty

We're going to get dirty with some rice, and we're going to get down with a quick and simple crab stew

I'm going to start with two tablespoons of butter, All right, so we're going to heat up our butter, and we're going to add to that one small onion that's been diced fairly fine

And we're just going to let that saute until the flavor kind of comes out of that onion

Now, in my bowl right here, I have one pound of crab claw meat

Now, I've already picked through this and made sure it was free of cartilage and the shell

All right, I'm going to come over here and get our other skillet going, and I'm going to spray this because it's not a nonstick pan

So I'm going to let that heat up a minute. Come back over here and check on the onions, and they are looking good

So I'm going to add my one can of potato soup, And that is cream of potato

And then I'm going to add one can of cream of celery

My grandmother, Paul, used to use a lot, lot of canned cream of celery soup in casseroles

because it just made it thicker and richer, just gave it a wonderful flavor

All right, I'm going to add one can of half and half

If you don't have any half and half, heavy cream will do fine

And then I'm going to add one can of just regular whole milk

Unbelievably easy how just that quick we have crab stew. Now I'm going to take my crab and pour it into my stock

And I'm gonna let this come to almost a ball, but not quite

All right, our stew is all together. Now let's quickly move over here, because I've got a hot pan waiting on us

Now we're adding one pound of ground sausage to our pan. And I've sprayed this hopefully so it won't stick

Now, the term dirty for this rice dish got its name dirty from the chicken livers

The chicken livers are going to turn our rice a dirty brown

The secret to cooking livers is by taking your fork and stabbing them and putting holes in them

and they won't pop nearly as badly on you. All right. All right, now to this, I'm going to add one onion that's been diced, a half a cup of diced

bell pepper, and a half a cup of diced celery. Now we're just going to cook this off, and I've got a fourth of a cup of fresh parsley

sitting right here, and after all the meat and the vegetables are done, then I'm going

throw our fresh parsley in. Okay, our meat and our vegetables are ready. Our stew is

just before bubbling, so I'm going to go ahead and add to it a quarter of a cup of sherry. Don't use

cooking cherries or things like that. Use the good stuff that you like to drink. Now I have cooked

two cups of raw rice in four cups of water, and I have cooked just the long grain white rice

I going to add a couple of tablespoons of butter and in goes our rice

Now when you're cooking rice, it's very important that you salt that water, because if you don't

cook your rice or your grits in salted water, it's like you can never ever get it salty

I'm going to sprinkle in my fresh parsley, and in a second you'll see those chicken livers

start to turn that pretty white rice dirty. I'm gonna come in here and add some fresh ground pepper to it

You'll wanna really season up this dirty rice. Mmm. Mmm

It's delicious, and I really got it hot with that pepper, y'all

And I'll just bet you a dollar to a donut when I serve this to Michael

He'll reach over for the hot sauce bottle, and he'll add even more heat to it

And our crab stew just looks fabulous. Mmm. You're gonna love it

And I think you're really gonna like preparing this and serving this to yourself and your family

And when we come back, what you think about a cookie that's not cooked

I'm gonna show you how in just a couple of minutes. Welcome back, y'all

I'm in here in the kitchen getting this next recipe ready to share with you

Now, this is called a low country cookie. Probably one of those favorite cookies that we eat down here in this area of the country

It's delicious, and you know what? We're not even going to cook it

I've started by melting a stick and a half of butter, and I've cut off the eye

I'm going to add one cup of sugar, and I have one egg

and I'm gonna beat the egg up and I'm gonna add it to our sugar and our butter

And I'm gonna just cook this for a couple of minutes. A lot of people are frightened of raw eggs in their food

so I'm gonna just make sure that egg is not gonna be raw in our dish

But you'll wanna make sure that your sugar and your butter is not too hot

because if it is, you're going to wind up with a scrambled egg

and you don't want that. And I just looked over here and realized, y'all, I screwed up just a little bit already on this recipe

I was supposed to beat a half a cup of milk in with our egg

and I forgot to do it. So I'm just going to go ahead and add it in now

But that's the glory of cooking, y'all. You know, probably some wonderful dishes

came out of mistakes that we made. So we're going to let that come to a bowl

Now we're going to come back over to our 13 by 9 by 2 dish, and I'm going to line it with graham crackers

And this is going to be the base to our cookie. And see how those just fit perfectly in there

Now these I'll have to break apart and stick those in there just like that

Now I'm going to take about 8 of these graham crackers, and I'm going to put them in our food processor

and I'm going to turn those into crumbs. All right, so our graham crackers are done

and you can see that our sugar mixture has come to a boil

So I'm just going to take that off and to this I'm going to add one cup of sweetened flaked coconut

and I love coconut, y'all. And then I'm going to add a cup of chopped pecans

Now there again, use any nut that you have. And then we're going to take our crumbs

and we're going to add them to our mixture. Make sure we get every one of those out

All right, now I'm going to pour this over our graham crackers

Mmm, and it smells so good, y'all. All right, so we're just going to spread that out

If it looks good and it smells good, it must be good

All right, now I'm going to come down here, and we're going to make an icing

I've got two cups of powdered sugar. Now I'm going to add four tablespoons of softened butter

I'm going to add a half a teaspoon of vanilla. And I going to add three tablespoons of milk

All right. Our icing is ready. So now I'm going to get the rest of our graham crackers on top of our mixture

Alright, now we're going to just dollop our icing. This is wonderful for the kids to come into the kitchen and help you make

Now I'm just going to use this offset spatula that works real good for frosting things

All right, so I've got it frosted and that just goes in the refrigerator

We're gonna chill it until it's cold enough for me to cut. And you know I've got one here in the refrigerator ready

Cold, ice cold, and ready to cut for me to tasting. Now these are kind of rich

You know, don't be over ambitious because they're very rich. They'll go a long way taking care of that sweet tooth

So look at that. Mmm. I love the coconut

I love the nuts. This is one of those that you're gonna wanna keep in your file forever and pass it on down

When we come back, I'm gonna show you a very, very elegant way to serve

the Low Country's number one seafood food. So go only as far as the potty

and I'll meet you back here in a minute. or you can get you something to drink. Now, I want to show you how to serve up

in a very elegant but casual way to serve those shrimp. So I'm using just a plastic margarita glass

I've lined it with fancy lettuce, and I chopped some ice up in the food processor

and chopped ice works so well at keeping your foods cold. And all I'm going to do is hang our shrimp around our glass

and I'm going to take whatever sauce I decide to serve with it

I'm going to put it in a shot glass and nestle it down in that ice

See how pretty that is? It's just beautiful. It's appetizing. It's quick and it's beautiful

Now let's quickly talk about sauces. A traditional cocktail sauce is always in order

That's strictly ketchup, horseradish, a little Worcestershire, and lemon juice. And you've got it together

Another sauce that I've made is a fresh basil aioli, which is just fresh basil, mayonnaise, and a little garlic

And it's delicious with the shrimp. But there's one that Michael and I especially love that I want to share with you

and it's very quick and easy. Cup of mayonnaise. A couple of tablespoons of a sweet pickle relish

Couple of dashes of hot sauce. All right, now what's gonna make this tartar sauce so good

In fact, the name of it is wasabi tartar. I'm gonna add some wasabi paste

And I'm going to add probably about a tablespoon. And just that easy, our sauce is together

And it's delicious. Served with shrimp or oysters. I want to thank y'all so much for tuning in with me today

I always enjoy and love the time that I spend with y'all

And I'm so glad that you caught me on Low Country Cuisine Day

I think you're gonna love the down and dirty rice, and the shore is good seafood dip

and the crab stew will be a quick lifesaver for you when you're in a crunch for a meal

And the low country cookies are so delicious. And if you've got some nice fresh shrimp around

don't forget about the tips for serving those. I hope that y'all have enjoyed all the low country recipes

that I've shared with you today. So until next time, just remember, I always send you love and best dishes from my kitchen to yours