Jump scare! It’s me, Kim Severson. I’m filling in for Melissa Clark, she of the “glossy red hair and angular jaw,” as she was described last week in a spicy San Francisco Chronicle article about the chef Thomas Keller.
It’s Memorial Day. Here’s why I love America: It’s packed coast to coast with hyperlocal food and singular culinary traditions. I’m constantly delighted by how different a dish can be from one state to another. Take collard greens, for example. The fried collards served between two discs of hot-water cornbread in a corner of North Carolina could not be more different than the greens stewed with two kinds of pork and red pepper flakes in the Mississippi Delta.
Texas has a particularly long list of culinary quirks, and cowboy caviar is one I really like. It’s the trifecta of party dishes: delicious, easy and a crowd favorite.
The original — black-eyed peas in vinaigrette — was knocked out by a New Yorker who moved to Texas and first served it at a Houston country club. Margaux Laskey, a Midwesterner by way of the South, adds black beans and corn, with some cilantro and jalapeño for character. It’s a great dish for an impromptu Memorial Day cookout.
Featured Recipe
Cowboy Caviar
Important public service announcement: In the South, what you do on a grill in your backyard is a cookout. Barbecue is the art of smoking meat over wood.
Here are a few recipes you might want in your back pocket today. First comes this simple, versatile homemade barbecue sauce from my old pal John Willoughby, who was once the executive editor of the late, great Gourmet magazine. Smoked paprika is the secret.
Ali Slagle’s cool cucumber salad is another dish we should invite to the cookout. Give the red onions a little rinse under cold water to tame them, and add a bit of honey to balance the vinegar.
And we can’t forget to invite agua fresca. Naz Deravian advises that almost any fruit can be fresca-ed. Just serve it super cold.
“But Kim,” you might be asking, “what about dinner Tuesday?” How about this recipe for garlic-ginger chicken breasts with cilantro and mint that Priya Krishna pried out of her aunt Sonia, or yakitori-style salmon with scallions and zucchini from Kay Chun? Truth be told, that last one should also come to the cookout, and you can save the extra sauce to punch up some fried rice later in the week.
Now that all those guests have left my imaginary cookout, it’s time to clean up. Try this strategy from Bon Appetit, which starts by not piling the dishes in the sink and involves making a soap bowl.
Loyal readers know what comes next. These recipes don’t write themselves. Help us out here at the word factory, and subscribe to New York Times Cooking. We’d appreciate it.
And if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times: For technological help, don’t call me. I keep my passwords under my keyboard. But please do reach out to [email protected]. Send tips, compliments and gripes to [email protected].
Kim Severson is an Atlanta-based reporter who covers the nation’s food culture and contributes to NYT Cooking.
The post Giddy Up, Cowboy Caviar appeared first on New York Times.
