Black Horizons; 3303; S is for Soul Food II

Now, as good as Chef Vernon's dishes look and smell, as promised, Chris and I have a couple of tasty tricks up our own sleeves. Chris, you want to tell us about your dish, my soul, Pisano? Well, you know, I mean, that's the funny thing, because I learned about soul food cooking from my Sicilian grandmother. I know that sounds a little strange. Not at all. Sicily's not there for the North Coast, not there absolutely. But I mean, the principles of soul food cooking are, number one, that you take the less expensive things and you elevate them through the labor of your hands to something really tasty. And they always say, the Romans use every part of the pig except the squeal. And that's also what I've heard about the South, you know, there was a lot of the southern parts. That's what you used to say there, every part, but the part that goes away. That's right. And so what I'm going to make is a pork chop dish, but I'm not going to use those really expensive loin, center cut, whatever. That's the point, the part everybody wants. That's the part everybody wants. That's how on the hog. Well, we're going to go a little lower on the hog. To

sirloin, these are pieces of pork sirloin, they call them sirloin steaks or sirloin chops. And the meat's a little darker, but we're going to flavor them up. I have a little bit of seasoning mixture, which is just a mixture of paprika and cayenne and salt and pepper, a little garlic, a little thyme, a little sage. And that's a mixture that you can use for flavoring up your dishes. If you have one of those spices that you don't like, you don't have to put that in, you could substitute something else. You think it'll liberally ice. Oh, yeah. No, no, you've got to taste it. And you also have to make sure this flavor on both sides so that you don't say that going, well, it was okay, but it was only half good. You really want to get this on there. And then I like to cook this in a skillet. I have a couple of really nice cast iron skillets, which. I love cast iron. Yeah, I do too. And of course, since my nickname here at the station is stick a butter, I figured it won't hurt. If I put just a little bit of butter in here and get the heat

cranked up, I want to make sure that that melts. And while that's melting and getting hot, I'm also going to heat up this pan over here. We've got a couple of things going. But the other thing about this dish is it's called pork chops with smothered in onions. And you've got to really, you've got to do a lot of onions, you've got to have a lot of onions. That's a big onion, yeah. Well, I don't, I don't use small onions anymore with my eyesight and, you know, my, as, as I get older, I use bigger and bigger onions. I don't know what that means. It almost sounds obscene. I'm going to leave it alone. I know. But I like to use these big onions. These are the sweet Spanish onions. They add a special flavor to that. You could really taste the sweet and so on. There's also the del ya onions. There's a couple of varieties of sweet onions, but these are a little sweeter than the typical yellow onions. This is what's, well, I want to make sure I don't, yeah, yeah, there you go. Stick a butter. You've got to wait till the, it stops foaming actually, that's when you know the pan is hot enough to start putting

meat in there. I'm just going to finally slice these. It's really easy to do this because you don't have to chop them and, you know, worry about the size of them. If some of them are a little bit larger than others, don't worry about it. And this is after all, home -style cooking, you know, I just have to make sure I end up with five fingers on each hand. And I don't know about, I just try to be safe. Okay. That's the big thing. You've got to start with a sharp knife and then you just have to keep your fingers curled under so that the knife actually goes against your knuckles as a guide and if your fingers are underneath that point, then they shouldn't actually get in the way of the knife. Chef Vernon or some other chef? Oh, we know, I've learned it because we've had so many good cooks here on QED Cooks and also from watching cooking shows. That's where I learned an awful lot about it. I've noticed that they do have the knuckles turned out like that. All right. Now, I'm going to put these chops in here just to get them a little brown on them

and my little skillet and put this out of the way. This is not to cook them, actually. This is really... I just want to see them a little bit. Get a little color onto them and sort of lock the season again. It also puts a flavor in the bottom of the pan. So you want to get... That's important for the cast iron. That's why I like cast iron pan. Whatever else you put into the pan now, after this, it's going to have a little bit of that, you know, a little bit in the bottom of the pan as my grandmother would say. And... Oh, when she would make up our tomato sauce on Sunday, she'd put her sausage in a pan like this and fry it and put the sausage into the... Yeah. And then, I would take a little bit of the sauce and put it back into the pan that she fried the... Sausages in. Yeah. We're going to let it soften. That's that way. Well, you know, this is one of those secret chefs' pleasures, you know, just softening up the bottom of that

pan and she'd get mad at me because she meant to put it back into the sauce, you know. It's too late, Grandma. I'm going to put a couple of cherry peppers in here. You could use serrano peppers or... I like the flavor of hot pepper with pork chops, but I just put them in whole. I don't break them open, so the seeds are where you get that real wild heat and I don't want that. It's just a... You can't have flavor, I guess. Yeah, it's just a flavor a little bit. Okay. Now, look at the nice color that you get on these chops. Oh, look beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, just because you heat the pan up enough and also the spices that I put on it with that little bit of paprika. Okay. You got a half lane going there, too, right? Yeah. I got it... I really cranked up. I want to cook it fast at first because I don't want to toughen the meat up and then it's going to slow cook. And you could slow cook this on the stove or you could slow cook it in the oven, but we're going to get that going.

Now, I don't know how we should stage this, you know, because we've got a lot of things to show folks. What I'm going to do is just after these are browned enough, and maybe that's enough, at least for us. I'm going to put them in a little bowl. Okay. Can I still one of these more? Absolutely. In real time, I might let these sit a little bit longer, okay? But because I really want them to get a nice brown on both sides, but they don't have to cook through. That's the important part. And with a high heat like this, they wouldn't. They will cook later, but they will cover them. Exactly. So now, and I leave the peppers in there, now I'm going to slide these... Oh, boy. Well... There's something about the smell of onions, frying, they're just so inviting to my stomach. Yeah. It sure gets people coming in the kitchen going, what are you making? And it's just onions and some spices, usually. Yeah. So I'm just going to let this cook down. And in the meantime, I want to show how to make okra. Okra. Okra.

Which is a vegetable that was not common to my childhood, but it is very common in soul food cooking and southern cooking. It's an ingredient often used in making stews and gumbos and whatnot. And people say, what is an okra? This okra is an okra. And the reason why some people don't like okra, they claim, is because it gets slimy. I don't know how close you can see. It's sort of stickiness on the outside. Now, I've removed some of that stickiness by boiling these just for two minutes. It's just two minutes worth of a quick boil. And now, I'm going to take another step. And that is, I'm going to season some flour. And rest of your seasoning, right. Ok. In fact, I'm going to put it all in there. Make sure that this is fairly well distributed. And now, I'm going to

put these into the flour. There's no other way around this. I've never seen flour in Okra now. Oh, yes. You're seeing it today, isn't it? You're seeing it today. Because we used to make artichoke hearts. You know, as I say, I've come just a slightly different background of Sicilian. And so we didn't have Okra, but we had artichoke hearts. And a lot of people said, I don't like artichoke hearts. And my grandmother would say, wait a while, I'll fix them, just let me fix them up. And she would boil them with a little lemon, actually. And then she would coat them like this. And she actually baked them, but I'm going to deep fry them, since this is soul food and the salt and all of that stuff. And I'm going to put them back into the strainer, and I'll tell you why. We don't want too much of that flour on there. And I'm going to do like they do with a seafood fry. I'm going to take this back out here and just shake them down. Now you'll see that they have a nice even coating and no

stickiness. See, no sticky. They won't slide down. They won't slide down. And they won't cause the problems that people associate with Okra. All right, so there's that, let me wipe down. And let me just mix these around. Now you see these? You can smell the pepper, too, in the pepper region. Oh yeah. This looks like a lot of onions. And this, you won't believe how this cooks down. These onions just sort of melt in the pan. And it'll be just enough for those chops that are there. All right, I'm going to stir those down. I'm going to check my oil, which I've got going here. That's oil in the big pot. Yeah. Okay. Just going to stick one of these. Oh yeah. It's ready. It's ready. Oh, look at that. I'm going to put these in here. Actually, this is a nice big pan,

so I can probably, you know, I just have to make sure, yeah, I can put them all in there. You wouldn't, I would do it in batches if it were a smaller pan, because you want them to really separate as they fry. They might stick together. Right. They're like too many French fries in here. All right. Now, Chris, you told me you're going to make something. What's the matter with that? I haven't seen you in the kitchen, so believe it or not, I do get into the kitchen every once in a while. And I'm going to make for you my mother's homemade rolls. And it really starts out pretty easily. All you need is some basic ingredients, a little oil, a couple of pans, a little salt, a little flavor, and you need a saucepan. Here's a saucepan. And you turn on an eye, and you put most of your ingredients in there together. Well, that stuff gets pretty loud there, doesn't it? We got

Okra spitting out of the kettle here. Here's my measuring cup. This is the only thing I really have a measure, Chris, and that's the liquid ingredients, and you want about a couple of milk, so it's right into that saucepan, just like that. Excuse me, Chris. I'm going to get out of there. Mm -hmm. Those are ready already. They go in and just come pop right out. That's it, because that little boiling beforehand gets them ready. They don't have to cook very much. Mm -hmm. And in this recipe, you put some sugar, just like that. I never measure it, I just figured. That's enough. We put that around like that. And you have to have salt. You know, Chef Vernon said, salt binds, I wondered about it, because I tried to cut down on salt, and my mother's recipe really calls for a tablespoon of salt, but I put about a half a tablespoon of salt, and since he told me baking was chemistry, I started

to understand this a little bit better. Also, you need just a little bit of oil here, and I never measure that either. She calls for, we can give it to you when you call in for the recipe. She calls for six tablespoons of oil, but I just sort of kind of pour some in there to it looks right, because I've done it so many times. And when the mixture heats up the salt, and believe it or not, the milk and the oil sort of mix all together in there, and you get it to the right temperature, and then you need your yeast. And you know, I found that rapid rise yeast does just as well, if you don't want to wait two hours, because rolls are a long -term dish to do. Yeah. And so you can use some rapid yeast if you want to. So you get it mixed up nice in there, and you can almost feel it from the end of this wooden spoon when all the granules are just about to melt down in there. And my father and my mother, my father was a cook also. In fact, he told my mother that when they got married, she didn't know how to boil water without burning the pot,

and he taught her everything she knew. And I saw a lifelong discussion to the kitchen about that, who taught whom how to cook. But this is the way they both cook rolls. But there was one thing that my mother did, that my father didn't do in making the rolls. So I call this my mother's recipe, and that was she would always take two eggs and beat them. Want a little egg beater? No, I have a fork here. It'll be fine. Very fine. I didn't crack that one more enough. Come on, are you? All right. Well, that one didn't come out. Now I'll get a shell all in it. There you go. I got it. And this fork. And she would always beat the eggs before she added that to the mixture. You took that over there separately. And that seems just about hot

enough. Those onions are starting to look really good. It smells good, too. They caramelize, and the natural sugars that come out and turn brown in the pan. That's what that is. Well, that's what that is. I thought that was the paprika turn in the colors. No, no. That's the natural sugars turn in that. Okay. Now that's hot enough to get my yeast going right there. And so what I'm going to do is turn that flame off. And then I'll find some yeast over here somewhere. I know I have it. I put it aside. It was yeast tier when I looked. It was yeast tier when I looked. So I'm going to look at that bag over there and see if there's any yeast in there for me. Oh, there's yeast. Success. I don't know what happened to the one. And as I said, I have started using the rapid rise because it takes half the time. Normal time for this is about two hours when you were doing it. And you just sprinkle it lightly over that mixture. And it's just warm enough. You can't have it too hot where it

kills the yeast. Most of the good bakers probably know that. And so you just sprinkle the yeast on it and just let that moist mixture get to it and dampen that yeast. And you'll be fine. And it just sits there for a while and you get your eggs beaten up good. And now my mother says you let this sit for about four minutes before you actually put the eggs in it. But once those eggs are beaten up nicely, then you just pour those eggs right in that mixture just like that. Wow. And you sort of stir it around. And that yeast gets activated and starts going there. And pretty soon you can just pour it over in a big pan and start adding your flour. Now I never measure the flour because if you stir it with a big wooden spoon, you can always get the consistency just like you want it. Right. But I've got some over here that I prepared a little while ago. And it is risen and looks very nice. And would you turn that skillet with the butter

in on it for me please? On hot. Yeah, just just low to get it a little warmed up there. And of course you always had to put flour. Now Chef Verna said you never put your meat here because you didn't want it to get in there. But you put a little flour on that and you take that dough and just knock it down like that. Look at that. And it falls right out. A little bit more flour here on the top so I can handle it and it doesn't get all stuck to my hands. And I never measured as I said any of this stuff but just like that. While you're doing that Chris, I'm going to put my pork chops back in to the pan with the onions. And I'm going to bury them down in there. Take some of the onions and put them on top and stick these pork chops in there. Put those peppers right around it. Ooh, it smells good. Oh, I can't. I feel the dinner coming on here. And whatever juice is accumulated, I put that in there too. Oh, look at that.

Now you roll it out. You thought I was making pizza, didn't you? Actually, this works good for pizza dough also. And you have a glass in here anywhere. No glasses, you have a cookie cutter. You can see if there's a glass over in that bag too. Does that not put that up here? You could use it. There it is. Oh, okay. You got a glass. That's great. Thank you very much. And with the butter, which should be nice and warm. You thought you were the one that you stick a butter. You stick a butter, right? But my mother loved the butter. And she would just take a normal glass. And I know that some people who have cookie cutters or whatever, but mother being the necessity of adventure or something like that. She would just cut those out. And see, they come out right like that. And then she soaks them in that butter. That also takes the little edge of that flower off them. And then you fold them over just like that. And that butter is just right. Wow. And you put them in just like that. Now, a lot of people, I tell,

I do a lot of the bacon in my house don't believe me. But I do. And my wife is good for baking the pies and those kinds of things. But I really like to make the rolls. And I like fresh biscuits on Saturday morning. In fact, I've had to cut down on the bread. Because I love it so much. I just took the rest of those out of the fryer. I'm going to put a little salt on them now, because that's when they need it. You smell those? You smell ochre like that? That's a little hot. Woo! You better put that one down. That's going to be too hot to eat. I'll test it. Okay. I'll give it over here. I'll get to it. All right. Oh, look at that. So you just fold them over after you just fold them over. Now, my brother used to say, if you wanted to make those rolls sort of rolls, he'd just like to make them like this. And my mother did too. Sometimes they'd roll them up in the little balls and make three -pronged rolls or something like that. So you can use these rolls in different ways. Yeah, you can use it for almost anything. You can make a loaf of bread out of it if you wanted to. But

this is the way that my mother used to do it. And these rascals will rise right up. I'm telling you. And they will make great rolls. You get a pan of rolls going here, man. For Sunday dinner, you are talking then. And my wife has a sweet tooth. And she will... I think it's almost sacked in. But she will put jelly all on them, you know. Yeah. With dinner. But I like to eat them just like this. Plus, they already soaked in butter. And you don't need to add any butter to them when they're hot and they come out the oven. But you can if you want to. Wouldn't hurt them. No, it wouldn't hurt them. You got a perfect pan of rolls right there. And I thought, oh, there it is. This is inside of this one. Another pan. I'm going to put a little aluminum foil because I don't have it. Well, maybe this cover works on here. Ooh, just like it was made for it. Because you want to... Oh, look, that's the listen. Mm -hmm. You just have one of those okra things on. It comes down just enough to eat, I'm sorry. All right. We didn't know all

that. All right. Now, I'm going to put this one in the oven, Chris. OK. And it should cook at a slow temperature for... I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of two hours. I've cooked it longer. And I've cooked it shorter. And it's fit in there with it in there. So I'll have to put it in the bottom. OK. Here's an interesting trick. Everything's cool. Oh, man, this is starting to smell good. So you can't wait too long on these rolls though. No. You have to move fast on them. Otherwise, they start riding, especially when you put them in that warm butter. They start rising on you right away. And you don't want to handle the dough too much either. You got to handle them quick, fast, and in a hurry, and get them all in there. And then when you get the rest of it there, you just roll it up and cut out some more. And you've been in good shape. OK.

So we've got ready over there? I'm ready. I'm ready now. If I were, you know, Chef Vernon had started talking about cooking his potatoes first. Yeah. If I were cooking Sunday dinner, the rolls would have started long before now. Yeah. So we wouldn't have to deal with that. But I'm going to roll out this last pot, last pan here, and put this last pan together. And then we'll give the people a time to get their pencil and paper. Look how nice that dough is. It's really. Yeah. It's really nice. The last thing's starting to rise up. They're already starting to rise. They're already starting to rise. I think that's that rapid rise yeast, which I kind of favor now, simply because it takes some of the time out of it. And mom always just used a regular glass like that to put them all together. And simple as that, you put the coating in that butter, and throw them in that pan and let them rise for one more hour again. And then you throw them in the oven about 350 degrees. Mm -hmm. And in about 10 minutes or so, when they get nice and light brown, they are ready to go and just as delicious as they can be. And if you're really Mr. Butter, you'll put butter on them then.

Mm -hmm. How about that? Okay. Well, that's a little soul food. We're going to come back in just a second. And we'll have all this ready to go and bring Chef Vernon back. And we're going to have a lot of fun. And this sounds like a great meal. And I hope that you like the recipes. And that you will stay there and get your pen and paper ready. If you want any of the dishes that we prepared tonight on Black Horizons, simply send us a self -addressed stamped envelope to Black Horizons recipes, care of WQED -4802 -5th Avenue Pittsburgh PA -15213. These are going to be good. Mm -hmm. Thank you.

Thank you.