Simpson-Fletcher's Soul Food Stuffings

I love Philadelphia. If you poke around in corners of the city, you can find unexpected treasures. I found Simpson-Fletcher's Soul Food Recipes at the Tacony Library Book Sale. 

Find out about the Church that created the cookbook HERE if you want to know more about the particulars. Just scroll on down past the chickens.

Simpson-Fletcher's Soul Food Recipes devotes a whole chapter to Stuffings. I produce two of the recipes verbatim. I am making the Fish or the Capon. Or maybe Roast Duck. I hate Turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!

Sweet Potato Stuffing the Jamaican Way
from Ms. Thelma Graham

1 and 1/4 cups mashed Sweet Potatoes
7 slices toasted Bread cubes
6 links Pork Sausage
2 tablespoons Water
1/4 teaspoon crushed Marjoram leaves
1/2 cup finely chopped Celery
1 finely chopped Onion
1/4 teaspoon Pepper
1/4 teaspoon Sage
1/2 teaspoon ground Thyme
2 tablespoons Butter
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Salt

Combine toasted Bread cubes and Celery with mashed Sweet Potatoes. Mix and set aside. In a frying pan, put Sausage links and cold Water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes then pour off any fat and break links into small parts. Add chopped Onion to the pan and cook until Sausage is browned and onions are clear. Remove from heat and add all the seasoning. Mix well. Now add Sausage mix to the Sweet Potato mixture. Blend well and stuffing is ready for stuffing a large Capon.

Sweet Pickle Stuffing for Baked Fish
from Albert the Chef

2 cups Rye or Whole Wheat Bread crumbs
1 cup Sweet Pickles, minced
2 Celery Stalks, chopped
2 tablespoons Onion, minced
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Pepper
1/4 teaspoon Sage (optional )
2 tablespoons melted Butter

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Toss the crumbs so they are well coated with melted butter. Stuff the Fish cavity. This is enough for a 3 pound Bass or Trout.

Solomon Gundy

I love my library.  They fund raise by having a donated book sale every Tuesday afternoon. I always go directly to the cookbooks. I found two gems. They cost me $1.50. I am interested in Caribbean Food. Since I live in Philadelphia, capital of Food Nation, my local Bodega stocks Salt Cod which seems like a reasonable substitution. 

Solomon Gundy is a Jamaican Salad. The name of the salad is a transformation of Salmagundi or vice versa. Salmagundi is also an Art Club in New York City. Somehow the Name transformed. 

Salmagundi is a whole meal salad created in the 17th century. One takes cold cooked Meat, Seafood, Vegetables, Fruit, Flowers, Nuts and Oil and Vinegar and combines them. Sort of odd bits salad. In Jamaica they used 'pickled' fish. This and that. 

Here are two vintage recipes verbatim. I prefer the second recipe which actually helped me understand the first recipe.  This is a really good appetizer or lunch. Persevere. 

Traditional Jamaican Cookery by Norman Benghiat, Penguin Handbooks, 1985.

Solomon Gundy

2 lb. (1kg) pickled shad
1/2 lb. (250kg) pickled cod
1/2 lb. pickled mackerel
2 onions
2 hot peppers, preferably Scotch bonnet if possible, chopped
1/2 cup salad oil
12 pimento berries
vinegar

Place the shad, herring and mackerel in a large bowl. Cover them with cold water and leave to soak for at least 4 hours to get rid of excess salt. Discard this water and add enough boiling water to cover the fish completely. Leave for 5 minutes, then again discard the water.

Remove the skin and heads from the fish, and as many of the bones as possible. Either put the flesh of the fish through a food mill with the onions and hot peppers, or chop the fish, onions and peppers very finely. Mix very well. Add the oil, the whole pimento berries and enough vinegar to make a paste. Store in sterilized jars. It will keep indefinitely. Serve on crackers or thin slices of bread. If shad is unavailable, use increased quantities of the other fish.

Cooking the Caribbean Way by Mary Slater, Paul Hamlyn Ltd., 1965

Salamagundi (sic)

4 Servings:

4 large Pickled Herring
1 breast of cold Chicken, cooked and minced
3 Apples, minced
3 Onions, cooked and minced
1 hard boiled Egg
Lettuce
Radishes
Tomatoes
Salt and Pepper

Slit each Herring along the side, being careful not to take the cut right to the head or the tail, keeping Fish intact. Carefully scrape out the flesh and remove the bones. Clean the Fish skin, pound the flesh with Chicken, Apples, Onions and season with Salt and Pepper. Pack the mixture inside the Fish skins until they look full and plump.

Old Jamaican recipes tell you to garnish with Barberries and Samphire, but failing these, a bed of Lettuce and a garnish of sliced Radishes, Tomatoes and Egg are very good indeed.

Be my Valentine? - Pasta with Smoked Salmon

Italians make this pasta on Valentine's Day but it is too good to confine to one day of the year.

Pasta with Smoked Salmon

1/2 pound of Pasta, linguine or penne
1/4 to 1/3 of a pound of Smoked Salmon, thinly sliced and cut into shreds
1 Shallot, slice thin
2 tablespoons Butter, preferably unsalted
1/2 cup of heavy Cream
1 tablespoon minced Parsley
1 tablespoon Whiskey, Brandy, Vodka
Salt and Pepper

This is how I do it. Cook pasta according to the directions on the box. This sauce is speedy (about 5-7 minutes) so do the preparation work first and do not overcook the sauce or the pasta. Start the sauce after you put the pasta in the boiling water.

Saute the Shallot in Butter until it is transparent. Do not brown. Add the shreds of Salmon, cook a moment until the Salmon changes color, add the liquor and saute until the liquor evaporates. Very gently stir in the cream. Check the seasoning. Add the Parsley. Add the drained pasta to the pan sauce and gently turn the contents until the sauce covers all the pasta. Serve promptly. Ideally diners are already seated and salivating. This is Italian fast food. Whole operation takes 25 minutes start to finish.

Serves two to four depending upon whether you serve as dinner or a first course. Yes, I put grated cheese on the table for those who like it on all pasta. Like me.

Rosemary Grilled Shrimp

It is far too hot to cook indoors. This is my favorite grilled Shrimp. I have a Rosemary shrub in my garden. I can pick a stem of Rosemary and pull the leaves off right into the marinade. If you have no Rosemary bush, use one tablespoon dried Rosemary. Dried herbs are more pungent than fresh.

Ingredients:

1 cup Olive Oil
6 cloves Garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh Rosemary
1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
1/4 cup Parsley, minced fine
1 cup fresh Lemon Juice
1 tablespoon Lemon Zest
1 dozen Jumbo Shrimp (10 to 15 per pound)

Shell and devein Shrimp. Combine Oil, Garlic, Rosemary, Cayenne, Parsley, Lemon Juice and Zest. in a nonreactive bowl. Add Shrimp and toss in the marinade. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. Stir occasionally.

When ready to grill, remove Shrimp from marinade. Broil or Grill about 4 minutes per side. Baste shrimp with marinade while it is broiling or grilling.

A Fish Grows in Brooklyn

Photo by Stefano Giovannini

First, my apologies to Betty Smith.  I know a good title when I read one. So I stole yours.

I continue to find articles about brave new sustainable farms in big cities.  I favor this adventure in feeding ourselves that is urban agriculture. I love Fish.  I use lots of Herbs. Will the Fish and Herb Farm be the latest in trendy restaurant decor?

Fish fuel farm! Bushwick’s Moore Street Market to boast ‘aquaponic’ garden

BY DANIELLE FURFARO

The Brooklyn Paper

Yemi Amu believes that fish poop can change the world — or at the very least change an abandoned Bushwick lot into a thriving farm.

She and her partner Jonathan Boe have spent the past year setting up small aquaponic gardens — closed systems that use fish feces and water to feed plants — and now they’re planning their masterwork: a fish poop-powered urban farm at the Moore Street Market in Bushwick.

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/35/47/all_williamsburgfarm_2012_11_21_bk.html

“It saves water and you don’t need a lot of space,” said Amu, who is constructing the urban oasis under the moniker Oko Farms. “You can do more than you could do with a soil-based garden and you get both fish and vegetables.”

This fish is a species of Tilapia, a freshwater fish which is very suited to aquaponic farming. Unlike carnivorous fish, tilapia can feed on algae or any plant-based food. This reduces the cost of tilapia farming, reduces fishing pressure on prey species, avoids concentrating toxins and makes tilapia the preferred "aquatic chickens" of the trade.