Sara's Weeknight Meals

- [Sara] "Sara's Weeknight Meals" is made possible by: - [Oceania Presenter] Aboard Oceania Cruises, our guests embrace a passion for travel, and our chefs are inspired by the flavors of the world and committed to providing fine dining at sea.

That's Oceania Cruises.

Oceania Cruises, your world, your way.

- [Season Presenter] Since 1921, Season has brought you skinless and boneless sardine filets.

Our sardines are wild caught, and contain essential vitamins and minerals for everyday meals.

Season Sardines, rich in omega-3s and protein.

And it feels good - [Sunsweet Presenter] Sunsweet Amazin' Prunes and Prune Juice.

- And by Mutti Tomatoes of Parma, The Republic of Tea, and USA Rice.

(rolling rhythmic music) The Mississippi Delta is our destination today.

Like me, you can follow a trail straight from Memphis to the place where the blues was born.

Keep going and you'll hit some of the richest farmland on earth, harvested in this space-age tractor.

This is like a giant lawnmower.

Here, you reap what you sow and eat what you grow.

The farmer's wife and I made a casserole from their own crop.

- Today, we're gonna make Delta and Pine Land rice.

It's a wonderful, very savory rice dish, with lots of vegetables in it.

- [Sara] And then, a Delta favorite, blackened catfish.

- Ooh.

- Oh my goodness.

This is like my favorite thing to eat.

Junior League cookbooks have been the Bibles for these local homestyle recipes, especially the grandmother of them all, "Charleston Receipts."

- "Charleston Receipts" is the city's beloved best cookbook, and it is a huge bestseller.

Every new bride (laughing) gets this book, if doesn't already have it.

- [Sara] Down home cooking, Southern style, today on "Sara's Weeknight Meals."

Goin' down into Delta (old-timey blues music) - [Sara] Here in Clarksdale, Mississippi, they like to remind you of one thing: this area close by the Delta is the birthplace of the blues.

(old-timey blues music) You can shake it, you can break it You can hang it on the wall It out the window, catch it 'fore it fall You can break it, you can hang it on the wall It out the window, catch it 'fore it falls My jelly, my roll Sweet mama, don't you let it fall - [Sara] They say it started on farms, like nearby Dockery Plantation, where farmhand Charlie Patton spent his days in the cotton fields and his nights playing guitar.

Spawning bluesmen and musicians who were the best of the best: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B.B.

King.

Elvis Presley was born around here, and legendary blues singer Bessie Smith died here.

My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea - [Sara] Smith, see here in "St. Louis Blues," came to Clarksdale to perform, but she never made it.

In a terrible accident, she was thrown from a car, suffering massive injuries.

Or else he wouldn't have In the Jim Crow South, she was taken here, to what was then called the Colored Hospital.

But she was too far gone, no one could save her.

(old-timey blues music) Here in Clarksdale, you can't spit without hitting the picture of it's most famous blues man, Robert Johnson.

Once a terrible guitar player, he begged to play at the local juke joints with his idol, Son House.

Heard here.

And you know the sun is goin' down I said behind that old western hill - [Sara] Legend is that he went to the crossroads, sold his soul to the devil, and returned with mind blowing skills.

Just two years later, he was dead from a glass of poisoned whiskey.

(old-timey blues music continues) Stories like these are part of the Blues Trail, through the Mississippi Delta.

Like me, you can visit the famous crossroads and go next door to Abe's Bar-B-Q for a pork sandwich, still as delicious as it was when the joint opened 100 years ago.

Behind that old western hill (old-timey blues music continues) - [Sara] But I can't fill up on barbecue because my next stop is a farm kitchen, where we'll whip up some Mississippi favorites.

(old-timey blues music continues) (bright rolling music) Here I am, near the town of Benoit, in The Mississippi Delta, at the family farm of Bridget Satterfield.

- Hello.

- And Bridget is the lady of the house- - I am.

- But also, a former nurse practitioner.

- I am.

I worked as a nurse practitioner for 17 years, and so I am officially retired.

- You're not old enough.

- For one year.

(laughing) - Oh, okay.

Well, how's it goin'?

- Good, it's goin' great.

- Well good, it means you have time to make a dish with me, what are we makin'?

- Today, we're gonna make Delta and Pine Land rice.

It's a wonderful, very savory rice dish, with lots of vegetables in it.

- [Sara] Okay, where do we start?

- First, we're gonna add six tablespoons of butter to the pan.

(butter sizzling) - But question, why is it called the Delta doohickey doohickey rice?

- (laughing) Delta and Pine Land rice.

It's called that because many, many years ago, there was an agricultural company, and its headquarters was in a little town not too far from us, called Scott, Mississippi.

This dish was created by the women who worked there, and it was brought to funerals, and potluck dinners, and church dinners, and they called it Delta Pine Land rice.

- Do these guys go in there?

- Yes.

So I'm gonna get you to add the onions and celery that have been chopped.

That's two cups of each.

And then we also need two chopped bell peppers, and I understand you have a trick.

- I do.

So, it's the lazy cook's version.

You stand the bell pepper up straight, and then you just cut four slabs off of it, leaving the ribs and the seeds in the middle.

And just take off the top and the bottom, we don't wanna be wasteful.

- Of course.

- And then that way, you don't have to spend all that time scraping out the seeds.

- Right.

- So tell me about farm life.

I mean, do you grow rice all year long?

- No, we don't.

We grow rice in the spring, and we cut rice in the fall.

We have three generations of our family working on the farm- - Really?

Like, right here?

- [Bridget] Right on this farm.

- And how often do you get together for lunch?

- About once a week, my mother-in-law tries to do a farm lunch.

- Oh, how nice.

- Alright Sara, I'm gonna let you go ahead and add that bell pepper and we're gonna get this sauteed.

- Okay.

- So Sara, I'm gonna get you to spray a casserole dish with cooking spray.

(can spraying) (gentle rhythmic music) Alright, so next, I'm gonna need two cups of rice.

- Is this your rice?

- It is.

- Tell me, what's the difference between white rice and brown rice?

- All rice starts off brown rice, and as it is milled, it becomes white rice.

And it's the least allergenic of all of the grains.

- Wow, that's pretty amazing.

- [Bridget] Okay next, we're gonna add two cans of mushrooms.

- Could you use fresh?

- [Bridget] You could, but you need the liquid, so I always use canned.

- Okay- - Alright.

- I guess I should have done that two-handed, huh?

(Sara laughing) Oh, I see all the liquid, I'm making sure it gets mixed in.

Okay, next.

- Next, you're gonna add two cans of beef consomme.

- Yeah.

(laughing) - You're doin' great.

- Yeah, really.

(Bridget laughing) I'm trying.

- Alright Sara, so now we're gonna add the vegetables to the casserole.

- I love all these vegetables.

- Lots of butter too.

- Julia Child would be so happy.

- Yeah, I want her to be happy, yes.

- She's smiling up in heaven.

Wonderful.

- Okay, we're gonna give this a little stir.

Alright, and then we're gonna add a teaspoon of salt.

- Okay.

- A little mix, give it another stir.

- Okay.

This would be good for Thanksgiving.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

- Alright, so next thing we're gonna do, we're gonna cover this with foil.

- [Sara] Right.

- And I've got the oven preheated to 350.

- And how long does it take?

(foil crunching) - We're gonna put it in there for 45 minutes.

- Okay.

(foil crunching) So now, I understand I'm gonna meet your adorable 10-foot husband.

- (laughing) Yeah, you will.

I think y'all are gonna cook catfish next.

- I love it.

- Okay, great.

- Okay.

(bright rolling music) Well, here I am with the other half of the team, I don't know if it's the better half, but anyway, Kirk, the farmer.

And what are we making?

- Today, Sara, we are making blackened catfish.

- Ooh, I love blackened catfish.

- Ooh, they are so good.

What I would like for you to help me do, if you would, we'll start with our rub, and have 1/4 cup of canola oil to get everything started.

- Okay.

Is this something you make often?

- We do, Sara, it's a great weeknight meal, we make it all the time.

Four teaspoons of garlic salt.

- Okay.

I used to be a huge snob about garlic salt 'cause it wasn't garlic.

But I have to say, I've really come to love it 'cause it's a different form of garlic and it brings other things to the mix.

- [Kirk] Alright next, we'll have four teaspoons of thyme.

- Okay.

These are the kinda spices most people would have in their pantry, I think.

- Four teaspoons of paprika.

- Okay, and this is plain paprika, not hot or smoky or- - Plain paprika.

- Okay.

You know, it's so bright in color, that means this is really good and fresh.

- [Kirk] And a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

- That's a lotta cayenne.

- And a teaspoon of my favorite hot sauce.

Just whatever you have handy around the house.

- Okay.

- Now, just a little black pepper to taste.

- Okay, a pinch.

There you go.

So that's the rub.

- What we will begin doing is whisking this and we will whisk it pretty rapidly, get it to a good consistency, almost a paste texture.

Then, we'll take our brush and begin rubbing the fish.

So Sara, you know, catfish is just really popular in Mississippi, somethin' we eat a lot of as these are locally grown Mississippi catfish.

Mississippi is the number one producer of catfish.

- [Sara] Oh awesome, yeah.

- And catfish is very good when you put a rub like this, it's very good to take on all the flavor compounds.

- Sort of like chicken.

Catfish really aren't fishy tasting, right?

- Absolutely.

- People have the wrong impression.

And so it's a wonderful sort of mild fish that absorbs a sauce, and boy, do I love me a sauce.

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

- Yeah.

- And we will take our tongs, once they're good and covered on one side, we'll just flip these over.

- That's the cutest pair of tongs I ever saw.

(Kirk laughing) Yeah, those are wonderful.

- Ooh yeah, sometimes you have a little split, but that's okay, they still cook all the same.

We'll begin to brush the sauce on the other side.

So these fish are very sustainably grown by some great farmers here in Mississippi.

- Well actually, I did some homework in advance of coming here, on the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is my go-to website to see if this is a good fish to eat 'cause was it grown properly or is it endangered?

And these guys get a really high score.

- [Kirk] Absolutely.

- [Sara] Well, wow, that was simple.

- It was.

So, let's get these on the grill.

- Oh okay, it's that simple.

(bright rolling music) (catfish sizzling) Wow.

This is a mighty grill here.

But this isn't really a grill, this is a flat top.

I cooked on one of those in my greasy spoon days when I flipped burgers.

- Great for cookin' burgers.

- Do you want me to do something with this?

- Yes, let's take a half of a lemon.

- Okay.

- Let's just go ahead and we'll just put a little squirt on each one, it doesn't have to be a lot.

- Yes.

Oh, I love that.

Now tell me, why are they called catfish?

I know they look sorta like cats.

- Not just for cosmetic appearance are those whiskers, Sara.

The barbels, as they call them- - Barbels?

- Catfish can't see very well.

And they use those barbels sorta for smell and taste.

A lotta their senses come through their barbels.

- Wow.

How long do these cook?

- We're gonna cook these about six minutes on each side.

We'll go ahead and flip the blackened catfish, get those turned over.

- Ooh.

- Ooh, that's beautiful.

- [Kirk] Ooh.

- [Sara] Oh my goodness.

Oh, I'm so excited.

- Oh, yes.

I'll tell you, while we're here, we may as well just do one more little drop of lemon.

Oh, you want me to do it?

Do you want me to take over?

(laughing) - (laughing) I'm like, "Should I put the lemon?"

- (laughing) Yeah.

- Oh my goodness.

- I'll be glad to put that extra drop of that cayenne pepper.

- You know, I realize that that nice color probably comes partially from the paprika because paprika's a pepper and has natural sugar in it.

- Absolutely.

They look just about right.

The firmness is there, you have the great colors.

These look really good, Sara, I think they turned out good.

- So that's it?

- That is it.

- So we're gonna platter it?

- We are ready.

- Okay.

- [Kirk] We will take the blackened catfish and have them ready.

- Oh, wow.

This is like my favorite thing to eat.

- [Kirk] Let's go eat somethin', Sara, it looks great.

- Yeah, alright.

(bright rolling music) Travis, you know what, you are a spoiled man.

- [Kirk] I think we all are.

- [Travis] We all are.

(everyone laughing) - [Sara] If you get to eat this beautiful food every week.

- [Sara] There ya go.

So we did good, didn't we?

- Yeah.

- We all did good.

- Yum.

- Yeah, indeed.

- Alright, well I'm always interested what people eat first, the first bite.

- I think I'm want catfish.

- I'm gonna have the catfish, I'm right there with you.

- I think I'm gonna have the catfish.

Travis, what bite?

- I'm gonna try this catfish.

- [Sara] Mm-mmm.

- [Bridget] Mm-mmm.

- Oh, that catfish, mm-mmm.

- Delicious flavor, we caught it this mornin'.

- It's deeply seasoned, yet it's not too spicy.

Mm-hmm.

- And the cayenne proves a lot worse comin' off the grill.

- Oh no.

Note to self, yeah.

Mmm, that rice is yummy.

- I love the celery.

- Good, I'm glad you like it.

- It's delicious, mmm.

- Now, it's time for Nancy's famous pecan pie.

- Oh, this looks great.

You know, Sara, Mississippi has a lot of pecan orchards.

These actually came from here on our farm.

- Boy, you do so much on this farm, from catfish, to rice, to pecans.

- But it's all here, in Mississippi.

- Oh goodness.

(Bridget laughing) Oh, this looks so good.

- This is a good pie, Nancy.

- [Nancy] Thank you.

- I wanna make a toast.

It's just been delightful.

And I wanna especially thank you, Kirk, for ensuring that we had a big time.

- Yay!

Big time, big time.

(Bridget laughing) - Okay Sara, great, we've had lunch, it's time to go do some work.

We're gonna go harvest some rice so we can eat some more.

- I'm ready.

- Alright, let's go.

(laughing) (bright rolling music) - [Sara] It is not often I get to harvest the food I eat.

To be honest, I expected to be handpicking rice, hip-deep in water.

This was not that.

First, I'm gonna comment, this is like a giant lawnmower.

- That's exactly right.

Well, you know, rice is in the grass family.

So yeah, it is, it is sorta like cuttin' your grass.

It's just a big yard.

- [Sara] Mississippi wasn't always a place where rice was grown, right?

- It wasn't, cotton was king for so long.

You know, late '40s, early '50s, we had us some great pioneers that came in and tried to grow some rice and were successful at it.

And Mississippi became a rice producing state.

- [Sara] But what happened to South Carolina?

- At that time, most every thing was hand planted, hand harvested.

And it just got to where when their numbers increased, the machinery was hard to run in those marshes.

- This machinery, a massive combine, does it all.

It sucks up the rice, separates the chaff, and shoots it out the back.

Then, it moves the cleaned rice to the grain bin.

So what happens next?

This all goes into the back of the machine.

- It will.

So you're watching it as it comes in?

Oh, it's disappeared.

(laughing) We're filled up back there.

- [Sara] Wait, is that rice right there?

- [Kirk] That is- - Up against the window- - It is.

- Lookin' at us?

- Lookin' at us.

- All those grains of rice?

- (laughing) Yeah.

Lookin' at us, all that rice is lookin' at us.

- Oh my God, we've been packed in rice.

- We have, that's right.

- I feel a little claustrophobic, except we got this view.

(Kirk laughing) Satellite technology allows the harvester to align with a tractor to unload on the fly.

Kirk doesn't even have to steer.

- [Kirk] See, look in your rear-view mirror.

- Oh, oh.

- You see- - Oh my goodness, he's so close.

- We got some action.

- We do.

We're being chased.

- We are.

- Yeah.

- [Kirk] See, grain tank full.

- [Sara] Yeah.

Oh, wow.

- So look at this, look, you see that big tube right there in your rear-view mirror?

- Yeah.

Oh my God, wow.

- Yeah.

- [Kirk] Alright, we're never gonna stop, I'm hands free, and here we go.

- [Sara] Yeah.

- [Kirk] Oh.

- [Sara] Oh, wow!

The wall of rice behind me disappears as it shoots into the tractor's cart.

- [Kirk] So now you can see back in your window back here- - [Sara] Ooh, wow!

- [Kirk] We're emptyin' out.

- Wow.

Oh, I feel free again.

(Kirk laughing) I really felt like we were in a submarine.

- [Kirk] Alright, so we're ready to go again, so off he goes.

- [Sara] And so do we.

Here on Satterfield Farm, there's another field to harvest, another meal to cook.

Farm life, I gotta say, it's growing on me.

(bright rolling music) To many of us, Charleston, South Carolina is the soul of the old South.

It's easy to lose yourself wandering its gracious streets and gaslit alleys.

It's a foodie town too, with great old traditions that started long before hot new restaurants came on the scene.

People ate dinner at 2: 00 in the afternoon.

- I remember doing that.

- [Sara] Josephine Humphreys grew up in Charleston, and can remember when the whole family came home for the midday meal.

- And then we didn't go back to school after that, but Daddy would go back to the office.

- And then, would you have dinner?

- Dinner would be supper.

The word dinner applied to the midday meal.

And so we didn't ever use the word lunch, that was a Yankee thing, lunch.

(laughing) - [Sara] Josephine is a novelist, who writes about Charleston.

- "Charleston Receipts" is the city's beloved best cookbook.

- Wow.

And put out by who?

- The Junior League of Charleston.

- Okay.

- And it is a huge bestseller.

Every new bride (laughing) gets this book, if she doesn't already have it.

- I looked through this a little bit, and it's very interesting.

There's all this possum and all that kinda stuff.

Is this the kind of food that your mom was cooking and you were eating?

- [Josephine] She did really cook a lot of wild game, seafood because we got it free, Daddy's caught it.

(laughing) - Well, you just go hunt it.

It's in your backyard.

- You go hunting and you go fishing.

- Right.

I mean, as a New Yorker, we don't have much possum, that's all.

So I don't usually encounter it, (laughing) what can I say?

(Josephine laughing) But there's some other little funny- - There's squirrel recipes in there that you could use.

- Oh, you're right.

(bright rolling music ending) Whose recipes were they really?

- First of all, they come from members of the Charleston Junior League.

But a lot of these recipes, and maybe the majority of them, must have come from the Black cooks employed by these households.

- [Sara] Right.

- And in the "Red Book," I noticed there were at least four Black cooks identified by name.

This picture represents a real man, he was named John Wilson, and he was one of Charleston's favorite street vendors in the '30s.

He was called a fish and shrimp man.

There were vendors of dozens of different varieties.

Anything that you could buy, there was somebody selling in the streets, every morning.

And John Wilson turned out to be the winner of the Citywide Huckster Contest, in 1934.

- [John] Get your shrimp!

Get your shrimp!

(indistinct) And I'm sellin' some!

(bright rolling music) - [Sara] Charleston doesn't have street vendors like that anymore, but it has exploded as a restaurant spot.

And a lot of these trendy eateries have incorporated recipes from "Charleston Receipts."

- This is Hominy Grill.

This is the place where you are gonna find true Charleston recipes.

- Across town, I met Charleston TV personality and cookbook author, Nathalie Dupree, for a tasting of recipes from "Charleston Receipts."

They were prepared by Chef Robert Stelling.

I'm so excited to meet you.

- Thanks for comin' in.

- Yes.

Alrighty.

- Thank you, Robert.

- So you're gonna take me through a tour of this.

Should we start with those guys?

- Well, this is benne wafers.

- I'm gonna try one.

Mm-hmm?

And what does benne mean?

- Oh, benne is sesame seed.

- Ooh!

Okay.

- And they tried very hard to grow sesame oil here in Charleston and in the South because of course the slaves were used to it, it was African.

- Okay, it was one of those Indigenous African ingredients that people were- - Well, but unfortunately, it wasn't Indigenous, it wouldn't go here.

- It didn't work here.

- Because it rained too much.

- [Sara] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- [Nathalie] And then what we have here- - [Sara] Mm-hmm, I'll try this too.

- Is a Country Captain.

- Mm-hmm.

- Country Captain goes back to Miss Eliza, who was one of the early cookbook writers.

(bright rolling music) Delicious, huh?

- Mmm!

Wow, that has curry in it.

- Oh, of course.

- I didn't see that coming.

- All the spices came in here through this port.

FDR loved this, this was his favorite chicken dish.

And it was Patton's favorite chicken dish as well.

So that's when it became ensconced in the South, and then the Junior League picked it up.

(bright rolling music) And that's our wonderful shrimp and grits, which is from "Charleston Receipts."

- Mmm.

- And it's a little different than the original Charleston shrimp and grits, which was just butter, and grits, and shrimp.

- You just throw it in.

- And you would just put your grits on to cook, and then you'd go out and you'd catch your shrimp while it was cooking, and then you'd come back and throw them on top.

- Well, talk to me about hominy.

What's the difference between hominy and grits?

- Hominy is grits.

- Ah, okay.

- Ah.

Here, in Charleston.

- Oh.

- Hominy is the large dry corn, and then it's ground, and the first grind is grits.

- [Sara] Ah, corn syrup.

- Right.

The second grind is cornmeal, and then the third is corn flour.

This is a wonderful perloo.

- Mm-hmm.

- And anything can go into a perloo, a rice perloo.

They say anything but the kitchen sink, you know, that's probably where that phrase came from.

And that's because rice made South Carolina rich.

- Rice is very, very big to this day on every menu- - That's right, on every menu.

In fact, in "Charleston Receipts," there are, I'm making this up, but 60-ish recipes for rice, and 12 recipes or six recipes for potatoes, I mean- - Like, "Eh, potatoes, we don't care."

- They could care less about potatoes.

- Yeah, and I imagine grits feature pretty well.

- Right, right, right.

And then here, we have the Lady Baltimore cake.

- [Sara] Mm-hmm.

I think you need to bring that over here so we can have a little taste- - Oh, well- - Don't you think?

- If you insist, yes.

And Lady Baltimore cake wasn't really a cake until a fellow named Wister wrote a novel.

It was called "Lady Baltimore," and this was the cake that was in it.

- Mmm, that is sweet.

To this Northerner, I went, "Whoa."

- Well, yes, but you know we have a sweet tooth.

- I know you do, you and your sweet tea.

Whew, whew!

- That's right, that's right.

It's because of the heat, I think.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

But this is really a winter dessert, you know, you don't make cake in the summer.

- Okay.

- Unless you have to.

- 'Cause you have to turn on your oven.

- Yeah.

- So, what do you think is the place of "Charleston Receipts," that book?

Do people at home make these recipes?

- They still make them.

This is kind of the Bible.

If you first move here, you're safe if you cook from this book.

- Ah.

So you know what I'm confused about, the word receipts.

I've never heard recipes pronounced as receipts.

- Well, they have a poem in here, "Receipt versus Recipe."

- [Sara] Okay.

- "Throughout this book, as you will see, we never mention recipe.

The reason being that we felt, although well aware how it's spelt, that it is modern and not meet to use in place of old receipt to designate time-honored dishes according to ancestral wishes."

(bright rolling music) (bright rolling music continues) - For recipes, videos, and more, go to our website: saramoulton.com.

"Sara's Weeknight Meals" is made possible by: - [Oceania Presenter] Aboard Oceania Cruises, our guests embrace a passion for travel, and our chefs are inspired by the flavors of the world and committed to providing fine dining at sea.

That's Oceania Cruises.

Oceania Cruises, your world, your way.

- [Season Presenter] Since 1921, Season has brought you skinless and boneless sardine filets.

Our sardines are wild caught, and contain essential vitamins and minerals for everyday meals.

Season Sardines, rich omega-3s and protein.

And it feels good - [Sunsweet Presenter] Sunsweet Amazin' Prunes and Prune Juice.

- [Sara] And by Mutti Tomatoes of Parma, The Republic of Tea, and USA Rice.

(gentle descending music) (warm string music) (bright gentle music)