Paula Deen - Paula Deens Southern Cooking Bible: The New Classic Guide to Delicious Dishes with More Than 300 Recipes

Thank you for purchasing this Simon & Schuster eBook.

Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Gallery Books.

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

Paula Deens The Deen Family Cookbook

Paula Deens Kitchen Wisdom and Recipe Journal

Christmas with Paula Deen

Paula Deen: It Aint All About the Cookin

Paula Deen Celebrates!

Paula Deen & Friends: Living It Up, Southern Style

The Lady & Sons Just Desserts

The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook

The Lady & Sons, Too!: A Whole New Batch of Recipes from Savannah

Paula Deens Cookbook for the Lunch-Box Set

Paula Deens My First Cookbook

Paula Deens Savannah Style

Copyright

Copyright 2011 by Paula Deen

Photographs copyright 2011 by Ben Fink
Illustrations copyright 2011 by Jason Snyder

All rights reservezd, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition October 2011

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com .

Designed by Nancy Singer

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Deen, Paula H.

Paula Deens southern cooking bible : the classic guide to delicious dishes, with more than 300 recipes / Paula Deen with Melissa Clark.

p. cm.

1. Cooking, AmericanSouthern style. 2. Cookbooks. I. Clark, Melissa.

II. Title. III. Title: Southern cooking bible.

TX715.2.S68D49 2011

641.5975dc22 2011011245

ISBN 978-1-4165-6407-2
ISBN 978-1-4165-6412-6 (ebook)

This book is dedicated to my

three precious grandsons,

Jack, Matthew, and Henry.

I look forward to seeing them blossom

into fine grown men who I hope

will always be extremely proud

of their Southern roots.

Chapter 1
GETTIN IT STARTED

Pecan and Cream
CheeseStuffed Dates

Bacon and SpinachStuffed
Mushrooms

Chapter 2
SALADS AND SLAWS

Chapter 3
SOUPS AND STEWS

Chapter 4
BRUNCH AND OTHER SAVORY EGG AND CHEESE DISHES

Chapter 5
PASTA AND RICE

Chapter 6
MEAT

Chapter 7
POULTRY

Chapter 8
FISH AND SHELLFISH

Chapter 9
GRILLING AND BARBECUE

Chapter 10
VEGETABLES AND BEANS

Chapter 11
BREADS, QUICK BREADS, AND BISCUITS

Chapter 12
COFFEE CAKES, GRIDDLE CAKES, AND DOUGHNUTS

Chapter 13
PIES, COBBLERS, AND CRISPS

Chapter 14
CAKES, COOKIES, AND BARS

Chapter 15
PUDDINGS AND FROZEN TREATS

Chapter 16
CANDIES, PRESERVES, AND BEVERAGES

Chapter 17
SAUCES, DRESSINGS, AND RELISHES

Y all know I was born and raised on Southern food and made my name sharing my version of down-home cooking with the world. But the funny thing is that until I began to travel outside of my own little town of Albany, Georgia, I couldnt have told you what Southern cooking is all about. Sure, my mama, grandmama, and Aunt Peggy taught me just about everything there was to know about the traditional dishes I grew up eating: the pork chops and gravy, the chicken and dumplins, the fried peach pies. And when I moved to Savannah as an adult, I learned mighty fast how differently folks eat there, with all the fruits of the seabeautiful blue crab and sweet shrimpjust swimming right outside their back doors. When I married Michael, I married into Savannah red rice, shrimp and grits, and a big old Low-Country boil full of seafood.

Southern food is simply not one thing or another. In fact, its about as regional as you can get: drive around the South and youll soon discover that the gravy, the barbecue sauce, and the corn bread change with the countryside. You havent eaten Southern food until youve had a taste of the Tennessee mountains stack cakes and chowchow, North Carolinas hill-country barbecue, South Carolinas Low-Country dirty rice, and a she-crab soup from the beautiful port cities of Charleston and Savannah, not to mention Cajun blackened fish, Creole gumbo, and soul food like hoppin John and collards from southern Louisiana.

All of this good food comes out of a rich history. In Louisiana, for instance, exiled French refugees known as the Acadians arrived in South Louisiana from Nova Scotia, Canada, in the mid-1700s. They were known for their use of wild game, seafood, wild vegetation, and herbs. But when those Acadians, who later became known as Cajuns, started mixing with the Native Americans, they learned techniques for using what was available from the swamps, bayous, lakes, rivers, and woods. Nowadays, Cajun food is a cuisine all its own, famous for its one-pot meals, such as gumbo, and its sausages, like andouille and tasso.

Creole food, on the other hand, is also Louisiana-based but traces its roots back to the early 1700s. Originating with Spanish immigrants and later blending with Native American, French, Spanish, English, African, German, and Italian cuisines, Creole cuisine gave us such traditional favorites as jambalaya, which probably descended from a Spanish paella. Creole food also tends to be fancier and closer to European cuisine than Cajun, since many of the Creoles were rich planters, and their chefs came from France or Spain.

Each time I learn something new about what all the great cooks of the South have simmering, I hold my head a little higher. I am just so proud to count myself among them.

Good, down-home Southern cooking isnt fancy, but when yall sit down to a simple plate of crisp fried chicken; a fluffy, warm, just-buttered biscuit; a mess of greens cooked down with a bit of ham; and a tall, handsome banana cream pie topped with ice-cold whipped cream afterward, well, youll have to agree: there is just nothing better.