Cured Meat

Instead of slaving over a stove in the morning, buy packaged 50% reduced-fat bacon pieces. You’ll save tons of time, and you’ll be less likely to overindulge because you won’t have the smell of bacon wafting through the house for hours. Look for the bacon pieces near the croutons and other salad ingredients in your favorite grocery store. Or, if you love them as much as I do, head to Costco and buy them in a big bag. They keep fresh in the refrigerator for a long time.

Gina: This is Pat’s “feel like a king” dish, and if you are married to a meat-and-potatoes man like I am, this dish will make him feel—you guessed it, girl—like a king. The secret to this sauce is two ingredients: bacon and beer. There isn’t a man anywhere in Memphis who would turn up his nose at a steak lacquered with both of those. We like to serve this steak sliced on the diagonal, with plenty of extra sauce on the side. When Pat takes a bite of this and gives me one of his sly winks, honey, I know it’s a slam dunk!

Pat: My kitchen sinker—also known as the omelet with everything—includes bacon, ham, two kinds of cheese, and anything else I find lying around in the fridge. When my girls get involved, I need to change it up a bit by adding vegetables to the mix, so I sauté up a mixture of onion, tomato, pepper, and scallion. But if you ask me, they just get in the way of the meat and cheese, and since I’m always the first one up, I make it my way! With my omelets, there is no flipping or flapping—I just bake them in the oven.

Pat: A breakfast sandwich should be a thing of beauty, a stackable, delectable, calorie-laden gut-buster of a meal. This one is all those things. I usually have this sandwich on a warm buttermilk biscuit, but you can also split a glazed doughnut in half and use it as the “bread” (you’re already down the rabbit hole with the bacon, sausage, and cheese, so you might as well go whole hog with the biscuit or doughnut). Butter and hot sauce are the only condiments that I need, but feel free to add a slather of mayo, mustard, or ketchup, if you like. Have a fresh pot of coffee ready when you prepare this one.

Gina: This recipe calls for four Momma Daisy’s Buttermilk Biscuits, but a batch makes ten, so you’re going to have a few left over. This is never a bad thing. You can have them for breakfast the next day, and the next, and then when you run out you can make another batch!

New Orleans is one of our favorite “kick back” vacation destinations. We go there for the people, the food, the music, and the overall vibe. New Orleans is second only to Memphis in vibeness. We also go there for the sandwiches, and always make a point of digging into one of their most famous, the muffuletta, every time we visit. It’s a killer sandwich, made with spicy Italian meats, cheeses, and a knockout marinated olive salad, the aroma of which is so powerful that when you’re waiting in line it’ll cause you to salivate! Our Memphis Muffuletta has bayou roots for sure. We start with a large round Italian loaf with a sturdy texture, so it can hold up to the delicious mix of ingredients. The meats and cheeses vary, but our favorite is a muffuletta with salami, hot soppressata, mortadella, smoked turkey, Swiss, and aged provolone. Our Memphis kicker is the addition of smoky piquillo peppers from Spain. They infuse the piquant olive salad with an incredible flavor. When it comes to cheese, we go for two flavorful varieties—an imported Swiss and an aged provolone. We call this our backyard sandwich, because it’s actually best if you assemble it in advance and allow it to marinate for about 30 minutes on the cutting board. Then you can cut the big loaf into eight wedges and have dinner on the patio. In New Orleans tradition, serve this sandwich with a cold Abita beer and some spicy Zapp’s potato chips.

Pat: Black-eyed peas, simmered with fatty pork (such as ham hocks or bacon), have been a staple in the South for hundreds of years. Inexpensive, easy to grow, and easy to store, they provide protein and nourishment and, many believe, good fortune (which is why eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is a Southern tradition). Some even eat greens, meant to symbolize money, alongside of them. Don’t worry if at the end of the cooking process these beans seem a little watery. To cream them up, mash the beans against the side of the pot with the back of a spoon, or purée a cup of them in the blender and add them back in. These black-eyed peas are great poured over warm cornbread, and are a perfect side with grilled or fried pork chops.

Pat: When I was growing up in Memphis, everyone had their own special mac-and-cheese recipe. Traditionally, the matriarchs used elbow noodles, but my girls love experimenting with different pasta, and we fell in love with cavatappi, because its tubular spiral shape holds plenty of cheese sauce, making every forkful a delight (of course, old-fashioned elbows will also work just fine). A piquant, cheesy white sauce and a crispy topping made from potato chips and bacon creates the best—and most indulgent—version of mac and cheese that we have ever tasted. Served alongside roast chicken, or with a simple green salad and a glass of great red wine, this is the ultimate comfort food.

Gina: This simple, satisfying braise is another Neely staple. After a bit of knife work in the beginning, most of the cooking is unattended, and I love the aroma of bacon and cabbage while I set the table or simply hang with a glass of wine and my girls. Baby carrots add a contemporary twist to this otherwise old-fashioned dish, and they’re a nice color accent for the cabbage. Homemade Smash Seasoning and fresh parsley have the effect of punching up the flavors.

Gina: Some Southern greens benefit from long, slow cooking, but kale is best prepared as a speedy sauté. Shredding the kale allows it to cook even faster, keeping its bright color and abundant nutrients (calcium, vitamins A and C) intact. Adding bacon, onion, and the unexpected flavor of smoked Spanish paprika creates a spectacular side dish that just might steal the show from the main course. For a quick, satisfying dinner, you could also toss this sauté with whole-wheat pasta, and finish the dish with toasted pine nuts and grated Parmesan cheese.

Gina: You gotta love an enormous chopped salad made with just about everything in the vegetable drawer. Our version includes the traditional ingredients of bacon, egg, and blue cheese, along with an array of colorful vegetables for fresh flavor and crunch, and our creamy Barbecue Ranch Dressing (imagine the tart, spicy creaminess of ranch with the sweetness and smoke of the barbecue sauce; it’s a match made in heaven). Your vegetables will be “grooving” in the bowl! This is a hearty salad worthy of being a meal all on its own.

Gina: Ours is a spinach salad with some serious attitude. In addition to the bacon and creamy blue cheese dressing, we add sweetened pecans and tart dried cranberries, and the overall effect is to give this salad a festive feel. It’s a great dinner party starter, and it’s especially good partnered with a fat grilled steak. The spiced pecans are good enough to eat on their own as a snack, but try to save them for the salad! And even though we call for dried cranberries, you can substitute a variety of dried fruit, including dried cherries or golden raisins.

Pat: Creamy, smoky white beans, simmered with some kind of pork fat, are a Southern staple, especially when served with a wedge of warm cornbread. This white-bean soup is finished with kale, a nourishing green that’s packed with vitamins A and C (the leaves are so pretty that Gina uses the green and purple varieties to decorate her party trays). Smoked sausage makes a great addition to this soup, and what we do then is leave out the bacon and add 1/2 pound of sliced smoked sausage instead. (You’ve heard the expression “an eye for an eye” in Memphis we say “a pig for a pig.”)

Pat: This creamy corn chowder, packed with vegetables and spices, has more sass than your average chowder (and the sweet potato and spices give it a distinct orange hue). The ingredients smoky bacon, fresh herbs, and a little Neely kick (cayenne pepper) combine for an over-the-top, out-of-this-world chowder flavor. When corn is at its peak, during the summer, we use fresh kernels straight from the cob. But since we crave this soup all year long, we use frozen corn as well and get great results. If you use frozen corn, look for the white kernels—they are particularly sweet.

Gina: Just a few minutes on a hot grill will give shrimp and scallions a wonderful charred, smoky flavor, making an incredible filling for crisp and gooey quesadillas. The smoky flavor is echoed in the guacamole, which is made with chipotle peppers in adobo.

Gina: A few years ago, Pat and I had the honor of visiting Madrid, Spain, to cook at the U.S. Consulate there. The idea was for the Spaniards to taste some real Southern barbecue (see page 52). Well, my poor husband got straight off a plane and headed for a makeshift smoker, while I got to lounge in a fabulous hotel and drink champagne. But the dinner turned out to be a huge hit, and afterward we got to celebrate by exploring the city and hitting several tapas bars. When I saw that the streets and the restaurants were still buzzing with folks of all ages late into the evening, I decided the Spanish have it down—they know how to have a good time. When Pat and I got home, we decided to put our own spin on a favorite tapas dish. Down South, we like our “crostini,” or grilled toasts, with a little soul. So we started with a rich, creamy pimento cheese that we love and gave it a little kick with the addition of some cayenne pepper. For a truly Southern spin, we added crumbled bacon (Pat and I will find a way to incorporate pork into just about any recipe). As a finish, we slathered the cheese spread on toasted bread and sprinkled the crumbled bacon on top, then slipped the toasts under the broiler until the cheese was just melted. Good Lord, what’s not to love? These toasts are amazing with chilled white wine. Covered and chilled, the pimento-cheese spread will last for up to 3 days in the refrigerator.

This meat filling is similar to the one for cannelloni on page 165. You can use them interchangeably.

I always roast meats by adding some liquid to the roasting pan first, then allowing it to cook away and the meat to brown. The aromatic steam penetrates the meat before the surface of the meat is seared by the heat. Then I add more liquid as the meat cooks, to make a delicious pan sauce. Mortadella is one of those ingredients that give a tremendous amount of flavor to meat-based ravioli or cannelloni fillings. Think of mortadella as the Italian version of bologna, seasoned with Italian spices and studded, mosaiclike, with pistachios and cubes of seasoned pork fat. Thinly sliced mortadella is delicious as part of an antipasto assortment or in a sandwich. Add the mortadella to the meat and vegetables when they’re fresh out of the oven: the steam coaxes the flavor out of the mortadella. To grind the meat-and-vegetable mixture, you can use a hand-cranked meat grinder or a grinder attachment for an electric mixer. In either case, choose a disc that is fine but not too fine. Although it isn’t absolutely necessary, when I have besciamella handy, I like to stir a little into the meat filling. It helps to bind it and adds a smooth texture. You can prepare this filling with a combination of beef, veal, and pork, or with leftover roasts, like turkey, pork, or beef. If you’re making this filling with leftover meat, reheat it by simmering it with its own gravy and the porcini-soaking liquid, the soaked porcini, and some vegetables, like diced onions and celery and shredded carrots. When the meat is warmed through and moist and the vegetables are tender, season them, add the remaining ingredients, and grind as above.