This Week's Rewind: Mint Infused Sweet Tea, Grilled Chili Lime Drumsticks, Southern Style Collard Greens, Spicy Rice and Corn Casserole and Lemon Icebox Pie.
Welcome to Vol. 3 May 2022 of "The Dish Rewind," where I highlight some of the past recipes from my many years of sharing on Deep South Dish website.
I hope you'll enjoy this new feature as well as to find some recipes that you may have missed seeing in the past.
To visit and get more details for each recipe, just tap or click on the photo or the titles below. To view all of the Rewind Round-ups, tap or click on the link.
I grow mint in my garden - in a container - and you definitely want to grow it in a container if you grow it because it'll go out of control in no time! In fact, my gardening skills have fallen off the cliff the past few years as it gets harder and harder to deal with the heat, but that pot of mint always finds a way back, every time I think I've inadvertently killed it. This recipe is basically the same formula that I use for my Southern-Style Sweet Iced Tea, except with an added infusion of mint. The mint is just enough for a subtle hint without over-powering the real star here, that being the sweet tea. You can, of course, use as much mint as you like.
I love a grilled chicken. I'm even one of those folks who like the really charred pieces the best, even though it is said that's not exactly good for you. This is a wonderfully flavorful chicken marinade that could be used for wings, thighs, drumsticks, or a spatchcocked or whole cut up chicken and will work either for the grill or in the oven. Be careful on the grill though because this marinade can easily char. (ask me how I know!) The flavors here are a bit of a fusion of Asian meets Southwestern I guess, using a combination of lime, with fresh garlic, ginger, chili powder and just a touch of red curry powder. The red curry I use is a blend of coriander, cumin, chili pepper, red pepper, and cardamom, that I absolutely adore. It is superb in a stir-fry and worked extremely well here in this dish.
Collard greens and ham hocks were just meant to be together in my opinion. I mean, is there possibly anything more southern than a big bowl of southern style collard greens, made with ham hocks and a couple of hoe cakes tucked into the corner of the bowl, filled with plenty of pot likker? I absolutely adore collards personally, and really, though you can use a few other types of meats to season them with, ham hocks rule. Now, the collards I have pictured here are the prewashed and trimmed collards you can buy ready to go in a bag from the store now. They're just a nice convenience, though I get criticized about the photo because my collards aren't pulverized. You know what I say about that? I like a little texture so I'm happy with them like this, but if you want them more minced up, it's your kitchen. Go for it! That cornbread pictured is the recipe from my cookbook. It's a little different from the website because I use a stone-ground cornmeal.
This spicy rice dish is a perfect take along dish for any gathering, though I suggest doubling up on it in those instances. It combines yellow rice, Mexican corn, jalapenos and pepper jack cheese, making it flavorful and a perfect side dish. It is so good y'all! Jill Conner Browne, Sweet Potato Queen and our own local, Mississippi celebrity, calls this dish Death Corn Five because it's a great funeral food dish. Yes. That really is a thing in the south. Now, for this, I'm using a box mix of yellow rice, but if you have my cookbook, there's an excellent homemade yellow rice in there you can substitute.
The old-fashioned version of lemon icebox pie uses raw egg yolks in the filling. It is believed that the combination of the acids with the eggs in the pie filling "cook" the eggs sufficiently, but the thought of raw eggs gives some folks the jeebies these days. This pie eliminates that and really, it's kind of a cross between a lemonade pie and an icebox pie, proving that you can still have the well-loved creamy taste of an icebox pie, but with a few shortcuts. And no heebie jeebies.
