Sassy Southern Cooking with a French Twist

FIG

Turning Over a New FIG Leaf

Recreating FIG’s Classic Arugula Salad at Home

When The Charleston Chef’s Table Cookbook (2009, Globe Pequot Press) and the “New” edition in 2018 were written and published, part of my intention as the author was to give readers the opportunity to relive their the broader memories and impressions of Charleston through a beautiful “coffee table” book, but also to give them the chefs’ tools to recreate their favorite dishes from some of her best restaurants when they returned home.

Never in a million years did I, and probably not most of you, anticipate the massive closures (hopefully for the short term) of not just Charleston’s restaurants, but many around the world due to corona virus disease.  It’s hard for me to think of so many  Mom & Pop eateries shuttered and sleeping, and even more so, Charleston’s eat-in restaurant delicacies denied to consumers, especially FIG’s.  This restaurant encapsulates everything that cooking should be – simple, pure, unfettered, streamlined. Everything here shimmers on the plates with freshness and restraint. Nothing is overdone here; everything is prepared perfectly. Chef Owner Mike Lata’s original local-meets-seasonal-and-simple credo, begun in 2003 when FIG opened, continues to shine in Executive Chef Jason Stanhope’s capable hands today.  This salad, prepared with seasonally fresh (right now!) arugula and only a few other ingredients – all top quality – is quintessentially FIG.

To follow is an excerpt from The New Charleston Chef’s Table Cookbook to help you recreate the salad at home. FIG is currently closed but, like so many, hopes to reopen soon. If you would like to help them sustain the restaurant and their staff click here to visit their GOFUNDME account which has been established to help the restaurant pay their employees during the time of the restaurant’s closure. Now, let’s dig into this simply amazing salad, which would be absolutely delicious at your home Easter table or for any fresh, spring feast.

FIG’S Classic Arugula Salad

(Serves 4 to 6)

James Beard Best Chef Southeast (2015) winner and FIG Executive Chef Jason Stanhope’s clean, pure, and exquisitely sourced culinary style is very compatible with the whole FIG mission. “There is a magic in restraint,” says a reflective Stanhope, who considers his high school/college wrestling and football pursuits and sadly, the passing of his father at a young age as the impetuses to what’s become an amazing career in food. “I took this crazy gamble after Dad’s death to go and gain traction (in my life) and attend Le Cordon Bleu. I completely fell in love with the sports-like aspect of team work, vision, being bigger than self,” he says, alluding to a quote from football great Vince Lombardi. As for FIG, everyone there coddles every step of the cooking and restaurant experience with every ounce of collective energy.”

His classic, simple arugula salad, dotted with crispy shallots and aged cheese, is a perfect reflection of Stanhope’s style. “We like to serve this salad on the larger side, a celebration of a few simple ingredients. All arugula is different so be sure to taste yours before seasoning and adjust accordingly – if it is heartier it might want more olive oil, it it’s already spicy you might back down on the pepper,” he advises.

Stanhope includes a few more tips for making your salad the best it can be at home. “An easy alternative to frying your own shallots is to buy a bag of crispy shallots from an Asian market. But they are simple to make and will keep well in an airtight container at room temperature. We use a Pecorino Canestrato from Goat.Sheep.Cow   but any hard, salty Italian cheese will work here. Using a micro-plane to grate the cheese yields a super fluffy pile that doesn’t weigh down the salad. For this salad, you can’t really have enough crispy shallots or cheese.”

Ingredients:

3 – 4 cups canola oil, for frying

3 large shallots

1/2 cup cornstarch

16 ounces arugula, gently washed and dried thoroughly

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (we use domestic Arbequina)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

4 – 6 ounces Pecorino Canestrato, or any hard, salty Italian cheese such as Grana Padano or parmesan

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse kosher or sea salt, or to taste

20 turns freshly cracked black pepper, or to taste

Method:

Fill a medium, heavy-bottomed pot about 2 inches deep with canola oil. (The oil will rise when you add the shallots so make sure the pot is less than halfway full). Using an insta-read or candy thermometer, heat oil to 275F. Line a plate with paper towels and set aside.

Peel shallots and slice on a mandolin (or carefully slice) into rings about 1/8-inch thick. Toss with cornstarch to coat and shake off the excess. When the oil is ready, fry the shallots until golden and crispy, about 12-15 minutes. Stir gently, from time to time. Remove from oil with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels to drain. Season generously with salt.

Place arugula in a large bowl and gently toss with olive oil until glossy. Season with salt and black pepper. Drizzle in the lemon juice and divide generously among 4-6 plates. Using a microplane, finely grate the Pecorino over each salad. Top with crispy shallots and season to taste with freshly cracked black pepper.

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Bon appetit! Wishing you delicious cooking and safe living at home and an eventual return to patronizing the restaurants we all know and love.

Author, Chef, Cookbook writer Holly Herrick Fondly,

Holly and Rocky

 

 

 

New Charleston Chefs Table book cover

 

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Best Four Charleston Restaurants and Their Best Dishes

Absolutely Not-to-Be Missed Epicurean Delights in Charleston

At least once a week and probably more often than that during peak season, I get asked by friends, family, visitors, students and people on the street about the best restaurants in Charleston. The next question is invariably, “What should I order?” These are both tough questions to answer when you consider the broad range in taste, budget and even location these people usually represent. But, as a tough professional and personal food critic and trained chef, I always go to the ground rules. For me, these include chefs and kitchen staffs that utilize restraint, balance, and pristine technique in their dishes, use only the best and freshest ingredients, and execute both of these elements on a consistent (as in every time) basis.  In addition, the spaces need to  be immaculate and pleasant and have a professional and informed staff to make my must-do recommendation list.

Of course, in Charleston, there are many that do. But, there are only four that always do that I know of: FIG, Charleston Grill, Little Jack’s Tavern, and Hominy Grill. Each of these gems create the stuff of dreams, daily. Some of them inhabit my own, frequently. And, all of them are places I recommend without hesitation to anyone who asks. Everything is perfect at each of these places, but I’m going to tell you my favorites and why because I don’t want anyone to go through this life without sampling them, because life is too short to miss this kind of deliciousness – the kind that makes breaking any diet rule worth it, at least once.

FIG

A star almost since it opened in 2003, this now super star and James Beard-winning destination at the corner of Meeting and Hasell Streets in downtown is almost impossible to book, it’s become that famous.  A master of restraint and technique, Chef and Partner Mike Lata has curated some of the best talent and instilled the same crafts within, most notably with super talented and affable Executive Chef Jason Stanhope.  If you don’t think ahead to make reservations, try a seat at the comfortable bar (best bet is early or late to ensure seating) and order the silky chicken liver pate. Served with cool and sweet bread and butter pickles, imported French Dijon, and brioche toast points, it’s infinitely better than the very best foie gras, a more humane preparation, and a much better buy at $15. I never want the little square of French perfection to be finished. Add the Yukon Gold potato puree ($10) side to your go-ahead-and-do-it list. It’s smoother than butter and cream, and lovingly fortified with both, but the airy puree of golden potatoes spontaneously lifts every spoonful closer to ethereal heights.  In recent years, the restaurant’s made award-winning improvements to its wine list, too. Locally sourced pristine fish and produce all shine on the menu.

Charleston Grill

Leading the special event dining destination pack since I moved here in 2000 and before,  Charleston Grill remains that white linen tablecloth experience and more. It is jazzy, sexy, cosmopolitan, and subdued, and an ideal destination with  go with a group or all alone to enjoy the live jazz and outstanding service. You won’t feel alone. You’ll feel sublimely pampered in the expert hands of Executive Chef Michelle Weaver and General Manager Mickey Bakst. A star player on the dinner menu and the bar menu, the fluffy, crisp, and tender crab cake is the not-to-be-missed specialty here. As Weaver has described them to me, “One bite is like tasting a mouthful of the Lowcountry.” The golden cakes are all crab and taste all of that plus sweet and buttery and expertly dressed with creek shrimp and a lime tomato vinaigrette.  Sit and stay awhile. You may very well build up an appetite for another.

Exquisite Charleston Grill Crab Cake with Creek Shrimp and Lime Tomato Vinaigrette

Little Jack’s Tavern

This is the place I always take guests to when they’re in town, not only because it will please them, but because, like a greedy little lady version of Wimpy, I’m always craving their Tavern Burger, and really every single thing on their menu. Everything is perfect. The menu is abbreviated, but chock full of nostalgic American, Rat Pack-era bravado and friendly, neighborhood service. Parking is easy (and always welcome), but the “baby” burger as I call it, not the double version, is the number one (closely followed by the first-class service) reason to come here.  The 1/2″-thick patty emanates ground in-house freshness and just enough fat to enhance the sweet flavor of the “Tavern” sauce and tender, griddled onions. Nestled on a soft bun, custom made and baked daily in-house it, it drips with fully melted, wonderfully mild American cheese. It’s so sublime, it’s even on their dessert menu for those that want one more. Also outstanding here, steak tartar, all of the salads, baked egg, fries, and house cocktails, especially the Bee’s Knees.

Hominy Grill

Saving the best for last, Hominy Grill is my most recommended and favorite restaurant in Charleston. That’s because it possesses all the qualities I demand (and outlined at the top of the story), but adds elegant, authentic and homey Southern food (what most people come to Charleston to sample) for both breakfast and lunch in an adorable single house prepared by a man that has to be the one of the world’s most humble and hands-on and talented chefs, Chef/Owner Robert Stehling. His training comes from his childhood in North Carolina and later stints at celebrated Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill and some of Manhattan’s best before he brought it all home to Charleston.

I break all the rules here – diet, budget, restraint. If I had the foresight to know what my last meal on earth would be, I would make sure it was here and I would order a cup of  she crab soup, a bowl of the shrimp and grits, a high rise biscuit with butter and house made preserves and for dessert, the chocolate pudding or the buttermilk tart, or both. Each of these are examples of some of the best food in Charleston, and arguably, the world. The shrimp are utterly Lowcountry local, rife with the sweet, briny flavor for which they’re known and settled on a bed of stone ground cheese grits with a simple, slightly lemmony mixture of mushrooms, scallions and bacon. The chocolate pudding, as a North Carolina- bred friend of mine used to say, is the best thing I ever put in my mouth. Dark, deep chocolate and silky smooth it (like the tart/sweet heavenly buttermilk pie) comes topped with a generous dollop of freshly whipped cream.

All of this ambrosia comes with a price – fame, and ensuing long lines. Best time to come is just before 9 a.m. on a weekday morning. You’ll likely get in the queue in short order and you can make an excuse to sip one of Hominy’s also delicious house Bloody Mary’s on the front patio.

Hominy Grill’s world-class and utterly authentic shrimp and grits is served all day. Get some!

Quite possibly the world’s best biscuit. Feel free to slather with the succulent house made preserves.

Now you know my list. Go out and make your own when you’re in town. Charleston is full of the good stuff! I’ve featured each of these four in my latest cookbook, The New Charleston Chef’s Table Cookbook (Globe Pequot Press, May, 2018). along with many others. You can find recipes for Michelle Weaver’s crab cakes and Little Jack’s steak tartar, too. But, even better to go in person.

Bon appetit! Enjoy Charleston and don’t hesitate to write and tell me about your favorites, too.

Holly

 

 

 

 

 

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Introducing The New Charleston Chef’s Table

Voila! She’s Finally Here and A Cookbook Give Away

It’s been a long time since I’ve visited. It’s been a very busy and wonderful year.  In addition to a new cookbook (number nine), I have a now sixteen month-old  puppy named Rocky (Rocken Roll) and have been enjoying writing press and news for a large Charleston restaurant group.

I deem The New Charleston Chef’s Table “number nine” with some hesitation, as I’m not sure exactly what to call a new edition of an old book (the original Chef’s Table came out in 2009). Is that really a new book? But since it’s essentially an 80% new book, that is almost all of the old book was pulled and new restaurants, chefs and recipes were added, I’m going to go with number nine.

The reason so much of it is new is that Charleston went through yet another massive restaurant renaissance during the past decade. What was delicious got even more delicious and the boundaries for types of food and restaurant locations and styles got even broader. Increasingly, Charleston taste buds veered farther from formality and more towards casual ethnicity diversification, but always, always with a demand for outstanding cuisine. Because, if it was not delivered, those restaurants went away in short order.

Reluctant at first to take on such a huge task, I was glad I did, and am grateful for the opportunity from Globe Pequot Press. The New Charleston Chef’s Table truly reflects the Charleston of now, which was my intention. I pursued recipes that were less structured and more adaptable for the home cook. Some of my favorites include Leon’s Whole Grain Spoon Salad,  Fig’s Classic Arugula Salad,  Crust’s Chilled Summer Corn Soup, Lewis’ Hatch Green Chile Corn Pudding, The Ordinary’s Fish Schnitzel, and The Daily’s Buttermilk Rhubarb Fool.  In this book, more than in the original, I let the book morph with the commentary and thoughts of the chefs. For example,  Matthew Niessner at Halls Chophouse didn’t want to share just one recipe, but an entire meal catered to this audience, just as he likes to do for groups when they come to Halls. So he shared recipes for creamed corn, iceberg wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, and how to perfectly prepare a restaurant style ribeye. Meanwhile, at Mex 1 Coastal Cantina I surfed with Ryan Jones into the Baja, California peninsula and cool surfer mentality with cantina chicken tacos and stewed lima beans slow and steady with Martha Lou Gadsen of Martha Lou’s Kitchen.

The design and editing team did a beautiful job of designing the book, which is verdant and fresh with lots of green color and beautiful photography, and has an equally more casual and modern look, reflecting an ever morphing Charleston.

New Charleston Chefs Table book coverThe book was released this past week and is available at major bookstores and online now. I’m offering a signed cookbook to one of you. Just click like on this post or elsewhere where you see it  and I’ll do a randomly picked number search on June 4 and announce the winner that day.

Wishing you a beautiful and soulful Memorial Day!

Holly

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A Night to Remember – Supper at Sumter

In the middle of a week riddled with the specter of  dangerous Hurricane Irene and the reality of a 5.9 earthquake felt along the East Coast (including Charleston), the fate of last night’s Ultimate Critics Dinner seemed as shaky as Ft. Sumter’s dark days dating back to its April 1861 Union occupation and subsequent Confederate take-over.

Painstakingly planned by the BB&T Charleston Wine + Food Festival staff and board, and mightily supported by local chefs and the Charleston community, the first ever after-hours gourmet supper and fundraiser was in peril of weather-related postponement right up to the final hours before its “ultimate” impeccable and delightful debut.

The evening featured the food of five chefs (Marc Collins of Circa 1886, Mike Lata of FIG, Jacques Larson of Wild Olive, Sean Brock of McCrady’s/Husk, Ken Vedrinski of Trattoria Lucca, and Emily Cookson of Charleston Grill) to be paired with wines selected by “ultimate” sommelier, Clint Sloan of McCrady’s. “Ultimate” Host Mickey Bakst of Charleston Grill kept the crowd informed and entertained. All of the above were the highest scoring winners of a best-chef/F & B survey completed weeks ago by a panelist of food writers and critics (myself included, it should be noted). Considering the extreme logistical complexities and cooking limitations presented by cooking in the middle of a large port/harbor in an antiquated antebellum fort with virtually no electricity, what they accomplished was nothing short of a coup.  Bravo, bravo, bravo to all involved!

The Spirit of the Lowcountry, a mostly open-air boat, ferried 130 eager guests across the harbor from the South Carolina Aquarium, where re-enactors in period dress greeted all who came their way. A hush seemed to descend upon the entire audience as we approached the historic fort. Dolphins frolicked in the water just ahead, as the vast expanse of the Atlantic waved just beyond and the proximity of Morris Island, James Island and Sullivan’s Island – where so much Civil War bloodshed occured – closed in tighter and tighter, until finally the fort which looms so large from the peninsula seemed suddenly fragile and exposed, yet somehow all the bolder for the bravery it and its inhabitants enduring for four long, embattled years.   

Refreshed with the exceptional first-course appetizers provided by Marc Collins, including a mouth-popping salmon jerky drizzled with creme fraiche and fresh herbs and “Leftover Libations,” a potent brew of bourbon and fresh peach infused syrup, guests descended to greet the night – the first ever of its kind at Ft. Sumter.

A post-thunderstorm brilliant sky of puffy white clouds and waning afternoon sun set the stage for sparkling wine and Pickled Brown Shrimp, Vermillion Snapper Roe & Heirloom Roe, prepared by a straw hat-capped “incognito” Mike Lata (pictured right)  and his staff on the upper level of the fort, overlooking breath-taking, 360 degree views of the harbor and ocean. The vinegar bite of the sweet shrimp seemed to cut the sharp breezes, while the crunch of the pickled vegetables and smooth butter lettuce cooled the last breaths of the late afternoon August heat.

Several courses would follow, each expertly paired with wine. Clint Sloan greeted guests at all of the tables explaining the logic of the pairings, while chefs intermittingly described the extensive thought and research they put into their original dishes, all of which had been inspired by the mid-19th century and authentic Charleston dishes/ingredients from that period. 

For example, Jacques Larson’s toothsome and satisfying Carolina Rabbit with Barley, Mepkin Abbey Mushrooms, Balsamic and Black Truffles (pictured right), reflected the heavy consumption of both game and barley by Charlestonians of the time and also focused on local mushrooms, foraged and consumed as they have in days past and increasingly do now in our local restaurants. Larson jokingly conceded that black truffles and balsamic vinegar would likely not be on the menu then, but he felt that guests deserved a little something extra special to help justify their $300 (each) passage to this special fund-raising event.

The delicious food just kept coming. My cheerful table-mates and I couldn’t help but notice that each dish seemed to trump the last, but maybe it had something to do with the wine. I think there was magic in the air, too. It was mystical, taking a breath and a moment between bites and sips to look up at what had become a star-filled, cool evening and scan the remnants of this formerly formidable fortress and imagine the voices that once echoed here, the feelings that were felt here; love, fear, pride, hunger, and what must have been, at times, panic. The pathos of war was palpably embraced by the late summer night and the humbled walls of the historic fort. Yet, all around there was joy and an irrepressible sense of community. Witnessing Charleston’s amazing chefs help each other plate their respective dishes and laugh in genuine fraternity was a heart-warming sight to see. It was a night to remember, indeed.

As I prepared to put my head on my pillow before I retired last night, all of these emotions kept washing over me which was a sweet lullaby for someone who loves Charleston, history, and delcious food as much as I do. The final note before slumber, though was the memory of Ken Vedrinski’s Lightly Cured & Smoked Grilled “Deckle” of Kobe Beef, Warm Lobster, Peanut Potato Salad, and Barolo Vinaigrette. The fork-tender beef held the smoke of the grill that was buffeted with something silky and so smooth, quite probably olive oil. A background of acid in the vinaigrette, firm/tender buttery new potatoes, and swaths of lobster – it matched the night in every ounce of its perfection.

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FOODIE’S NOTE: Tickets for the world-class BB&T Charleston Wine and Food Festival go on sale next week for next spring’s festival.  For more information and to order your tickets, go to www.charlestonwineandfood.com

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