Southern Comfort 101: The (Non-Fried) Sides

If you have been following the lessons on “Southern Comfort” favorites, you are sure to know that the featured choices are accompanied by certain side dishes.  These selections are genuinely deemed appropriate and somewhat required by southern culinary standards.  Please see below.

In our first lesson, we talked about how to prepare . The notorious side dish? Mashed potatoes. 

I was always quite impressed at the amount of butter and milk that my mother would add to her mashed potatoes. Then I went to a fancy French culinary school where they used even more butter and more milk. Tthese “pomme puree” were not accompanying chicken fried steak, more like a swanky filet of beef, medium rare.  

Regardless of who's preparing them, whether a down-home rustic cook or a gourmand French chef, Idaho potatoes are the preferred variety. "Lump free” automatically equals success. 

What’s the best way to de-lump your mashed potatoes? Use a potato ricer which presses your cooked potatoes through a series of holes, allowing all lumps to be, well, mashed of course. Thinking of pureeing your potatoes in a food processor? Save yourself the frustration, unless you're looking for a paste to use to re-caulk your bathroom tiles. Pasty doesn’t have room on the southern comfort dinner table. 

Moving on to the next side, we have collard greens. For the first seventeen summers of my life, my family would break down what was a twelve-hour station wagon ride into a three-day journey through the most southern of states. Destination: Destin, Florida. 

Every year we conquered the same battlefield of the Civil War, toured a number of plantation homes,  and made a dinner pit stop at an establishment known as the “Cock of the Walk,” which in the Civil War days meant "best of the best.” Fifteen years later, the Cock of the Walk remains open seven days a week.  

Known for their huge fried family-style platters of catfish, French fries, hush puppies (think fried cornbread),  and fried pickles (genuinely delicious), collard greens are offered there as an un-fried side dish. Heedlessly, collard greens are a staple among any southerner’s recipe box.  I love a recipe that is five ingredients or less, super simple to throw into a pot, doesn’t cost hardly anything, but tastes like a million bucks.  

Review the collard greens recipe below and practice at home (*Note the few number of ingredients used):

½ pound smoked ham hock (or smoked ham)

1 tablespoon salt

3 quarts water

1 large bunch collard greens

½ tablespoon butter

1. In a large pot, bring water to a boil.  Add ham hock and salt and cook for 1 hour.

2. Wash the collard greens in cold water 3-4 times to assure that any dirt or insect have been discarded.  Remove the stem running down the center of each leave by pulling apart or running a knife down either side of the stem. 

3. Stack 6-8 leaves on top of one another and slice the leaves widthwise into 1-2 inch thick slices. 

4. Place greens in pot with ham and add butter.  Cook for an additional 45 minutes until greens are tender. 

5.  Adjust seasoning, plate, and enjoy. 

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