Cook's Country

-"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook.

And we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

-Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan visits the shores of Brunswick, Georgia, and shares his version of Coastal Georgia paella.

And Morgan makes fresh peach ripple ice cream.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

-Monument Grills, offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast, with a lineup of gas grills designed with durability in mind, including the Eminence 605 with LED touch panels and side and rear infrared burners.

Learn more at MonumentGrills.com.

-Teakhaus -- inspired by a passion for cooking and respect for our planet, each board is handcrafted from sustainably sourced wood designed for every step, from food prep to presentation.

Teakhaus.

-The coast of Georgia is known for its beauty and history, and I found both and then some at Gilliard Farms in Brunswick.

It's a family operation run by Chef Matthew Raiford and his wife, Tia.

-And so these right here belong to this chocolatey pepper family.

-What is that called?

-Chocolate pepper.

-Chocolate pepper?

-[ Laughter ] -Real scientific.

-Real scientific.

-You guys making this up as we go along?

-Yeah.

That's all.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-I came here in search of the fresh seafood this region is known for.

But what I found was so much more.

-It's about every group of people that ever touched this coast.

So we have Spain, Portuguese.

And you lay over the top of that, folks from Africa.

So that's what our food is like here.

So lots of seafood, lots of one pot cookery, lots of long smoking.

-Matthew built a career in fine dining restaurants all over the world, but farming and the connection to the land is in his blood.

Gilliard Farms has been in his family for six generations and is named after his great, great, great grandfather.

-Gilliard Farms came to be because Jupiter Gilliard paid $9 in taxes for 476 acres of land.

During that time period in 1874, when he did that, first of all, amassing $9 and having been an ex-slave, it's probably like almost unheard of.

But he was a woodworker and ironworker and was able to save that way.

-Matthew's culinary career took him far beyond Brunswick.

In 2010, he was working as the executive chef for the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

That same year, he returned home to the farm for a family reunion that would change the course of his life.

-We come home and my Nana goes, "Hey, babe, I'm gonna ask y'all this.

What are we gonna do with all this land?"

And I just kind of, like, turned my head really slowly to my sister.

And my sister just went like this.

And it felt like somebody on this side of my shoulder was, like, whispering, like, "You know you need to come home."

Like this -- It's time.

And so I just turned to my nana and I was like, "You know what, Nana?

We should go back to farming the land."

And she was like, "'We,' baby?"

And I said, "Yeah."

-Matthew's nana gave him and his sister the deed to 13 acres of land that day.

But before he rolled up his sleeves on the family land, he headed to California to learn sustainable farming practices.

Now he's putting what he learned to work and carrying on a legacy of stewardship.

-We have almost 50 of that original 476 acres.

I'm raising hogs, just like he did.

I'm raising chickens, just like my great grandmother did.

My wife Tia and I are still wild foraging out here, just like all of our great grandparents did before us.

-Today, Matthew and Tia are once again rooted on the land his ancestors farmed.

They honor the many cultures and traditions that have shaped the foodways of the region with their own cooking.

A perfect example is Matthew's Coastal Paella, a seafood studded rice dish that nods to the Spanish influence in the area.

Alright, Matthew, you know how I know you're from the South?

-How?

-Is because you're peeling shrimp without complaining.

-Yeah.

-Just a part of life here.

-It's just a part of life, you know what I'm saying?

And I love these shrimp, man.

Georgia white shrimp are some of the best, sweetest shrimp, you know, you can eat.

This was swimming less than two days ago.

-Yeah.

-You can't get any more fresh than this.

-No, you can't.

It's great shrimp.

Nearly all the ingredients we used were grown on the farm or sourced from the nearby waters.

But the most important ingredient for Matthew was the rice.

-It's been -- It's been quite a journey.

I have been working with an organization called the Jubilee Justice, and they're -- the organization is about reclamation of rice back into African Americans' hands, which is what -- that's one of the reasons we were brought to this country in the first place.

And this is our first set of rice that we've worked with.

-Really?

That's pretty amazing.

-Mm-hmm.

-Yeah.

So I'm looking forward to this paella today.

You have no idea.

-Matthew's focus on food as medicine and using what you have on hand resulted in an unexpected addition to the paella.

-So can't forget about this.

The turmeric.

Cannot.

So this is also kind of creating a dish that's going to have some anti-inflammatory to it and all of that, along with adding that nice orangish color to it.

-We adorn the rice with shrimp and clams from down the way, and then gather around the table with family and friends to enjoy.

-Do you want to stay?

-I kind of do.

-[ Laughter ] -There you go.

We have a room and we can use some help.

-Mama will make sure you're fed.

-Mm-hmm.

-Alright.

That's all you had to say.

-She'll be calling you.

You'll be hearing... -[ Both ] Bryan!

-Until I'm ready to take Matthew up on his offer, he's teaching his own children how to farm.

They will one day pass on this knowledge to their children.

This generational stewardship of the land is part of everything Matthew does.

-Being a Black man in the United States and able to say that there's an eighth generation that has been on this land, not enslaved on this land, but on this land, stewarding it, planting and harvesting, even sustaining the family is just an amazing thing to be able to say.

-Bryan, that farm looks so amazing.

You must have learned so much.

-I absolutely did.

Matthew and Tia were just such gracious hosts.

Watching the way they cook, his approach to taking a traditional Spanish paella and just turning it into a coastal Georgia delicacy is really amazing.

-Love that.

-We're going to start with a shrimp stock.

We have a pound of 21/25 shrimp, so that means there's 21 to 25 shrimp per pound.

-Okay.

-We're going to peel and devein the shrimp.

So I always like to take the paring knife, and I'll invert the paring knife so the blade is facing up.

And I'll cradle the shrimp in my fingers so his little leggies are hanging down into my hand there.

And I'll gently run the knife down the vein, just rocking it a little bit to kind of cut through the shell and expose that top part where the vein typically exists.

And if there's no vein, that's great.

And you just have the opportunity now to just peel the shell away.

And as you get down to the bottom towards the tail, you just give it a gentle squeeze.

So we have all of our shrimp.

Alright.

So we could set our shrimp shells to go right into 6 1/2 cups of water.

And our shrimp, we're going to season this with 3/4 of a teaspoon of fine sea salt and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper.

We just toss this together.

And this is just going to season the shrimp.

We're not going to use the shrimp immediately.

It'll go in our paella.

But we'll just let it start marinating for a minute.

The shrimp's set aside.

We're going to add the rest of the ingredients to the stock.

So we have 1/2 an onion.

We have 1 head of garlic that we've cut in half.

1 full tablespoon of ground turmeric.

-Mmm.

-Traditionally, you'd use saffron.

Turmeric will also add that bright yellow color.

But it's got this earthy ginger-like flavor that it really changes the whole complexity of this paella.

2 teaspoons of smoked paprika.

This will add a lot of depth to this stock.

2 teaspoons of fine sea salt.

1 teaspoon of peppercorns.

1/4 teaspoon of pepper flakes for a little bit of heat.

And 1/2 of a lemon.

We're just going to squeeze that and we'll throw the spent half in there.

Alright, so we'll turn the stock on to high heat and we'll bring it to a boil.

And once it starts boiling we'll reduce the heat to medium low.

And we'll let it simmer for just 10 minutes.

Alright, Toni, our stock has been simmering away for 10 minutes.

Now we're just going to strain this.

-Look at that magnificent color.

-Yeah, it's still got that golden hue that you would get from saffron.

And you could just smell it.

It's amazing, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-So we'll just press on all the ingredients here.

-Get every little last drop.

-Now if we're a little shy of 6 cups, we can add a little bit of water to this and bring it up.

That's why we started with 6 1/2 cups, because we knew there would be some evaporation.

Okay, Toni, we're ready to start cooking our paella.

First things first, we're going to create a lid for our paella pan here.

I learned this the hard way after trying to put a piece of aluminum foil on top of a paella hot pan.

-Yeah.

-So we're gonna do it while the pan is cold.

Now it's just going to be there to help the seafood steam.

This is a 14 inch paella pan.

This is carbon steel.

It's one of the ones we really like to use.

In our paella pan, we have 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil.

I'm going to turn that on to medium heat.

Okay.

Gonna let that heat up just for a moment until it starts to shimmer.

So we'll add 1 bell pepper cut into thin strips.

Onion.

And 1/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt.

So we'll let this go for about 10 minutes until the bell peppers are soft and the onions just begin to brown.

Okay.

Our peppers are softened.

Our onions are beginning to brown around the edges, and we're almost ready for our rice.

And that's an important distinction between Matthew's recipe and a traditional Spanish paella.

He's using long grain white rice.

And he actually, on the farm, uses rice ae grows himself, which has a real nice nuttiness to it.

So we're going to add three minced garlic cloves to this.

Mmm.

-Mmm.

Yeah.

That perfume is already coming out.

-So the garlic is very fragrant.

We're going to add our 1 1/2 cups of long grain white rice.

We'll stir that around.

We're trying to coat all the grains with a little bit of the oil that's in the pan.

And we want to toast it up until it gets nice and translucent around the edges.

It takes about two minutes.

Alright.

You could smell the rice.

It's got a little bit of nuttiness to it.

And you can see the edges of the grains are beginning to get a little translucent.

So at this point we can add our full 6 cups of our shrimp stock.

You want to increase the heat to high and bring this to a rapid boil.

We could stir for the first 8 minutes if we want to.

After that 8 minutes, when the level of the stock matches the level of the rice, we're no longer going to stir.

-This is a really vigorous boil you've got going here.

-It seems aggressive, but all that rapid boiling is really pulling out some of the starch of the rice.

It's emulsifying the fat that's in our stock and in our saute.

So at the end you're going to get this really luscious, creamy paella.

So you can see that the liquid has reduced down to the level of the rice here.

We're going to reduce the heat now to about medium.

So we're going to just drop about a dozen clams here.

These are littleneck clams.

It's really, really important that you scrub the outside of these clams.

Clams come with a lot of sand attached to them.

You know, nobody wants to eat that, especially me.

So we'll just drop 8 around the perimeter here, put them hinge side down.

And we'll drop 4 clams right in the center.

And now we're going to use our lid.

Put that right over top.

And we'll let that go for 6 minutes.

It's been 6 minutes.

We could take a look at our clams.

-Ah.

-So you see they require a good head start here because, you know, some of them are just starting to pop open.

Others have been busted open for a little bit.

Now we could layer in our shrimp.

Put a couple of shrimp, press in here.

-You can already see the shape of it coming together.

It's really pretty.

-It's a gorgeous dish.

And as you're placing the shrimp, you just want to give them a little -- a little push.

Same as the clams.

They're going to kick off a little bit of liquid.

We're going to cover this up again.

We're going to let it go for another 5 minutes just to cook the shrimp through.

-Okay.

-And after that 5 minutes, we're going to cut the heat off and let it sit for another 5 just so the shrimp can finish cooking.

Alright.

Ready for the big unveiling?

-I'm ready.

Oh, my goodness.

Isn't that gorgeous?

-And the aroma that hits you.

We're going to hit it with a tablespoon of chopped parsley.

Can I serve you up?

-I would love that.

-Alright, a little bit of shrimp, some rice, little clams for you.

You can see the bell peppers melted nicely.

And you can see here in the center there's a little bit of the socarrat, the crispy rice on the bottom.

So I like to use a fish spatula and just kind of scrape it up.

-Gorgeous.

-Have a little olive oil on yours.

-Ooh.

-Lemon squeeze.

-Thanks.

-Okay.

Alright, so let's just focus on the rice here first.

-Mm.

-Mm.

-Perfectly cooked through.

-Absolutely.

-Really well seasoned because of that shrimp stock we invested so much time and care into.

-And I don't miss the saffron at all.

-When we used the fresh turmeric, it was just an unreal kind of flavor.

That peppery earthiness.

-Okay.

How about the seafood?

-Yeah.

Let's go for it.

-Mmm.

-Mmm.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mm-hmm.

Going for a clam.

-I'm going.

I just got that little hit of olive oil.

Tender.

Bright.

This was delightful, Bryan.

I learned so much.

-I'm glad you enjoyed it.

-And if you would like to make a paella in Matthew Raiford's coastal Georgia tradition, make a turmeric flavored shrimp stock.

Use long grain white rice instead of traditional bomba rice, and stagger the cooking of the seafood for the perfect doneness.

From "Cook's Country," a delicious coastal Georgia paella.

I love this, Bryan.

-Peach ice cream was the first ice cream I ever made as a kid, and I can tell you, it was disappointing because peach ice cream is actually hard to make.

Most peach ice cream is, in fact, the pits.

Which is why Morgan's here.

She's going to show us a peach ice cream that actually tastes like peaches.

How about that?

-Yeah.

So peach ice cream is one of those things that definitely sounds amazing in theory, but peaches are packed with water, which is the enemy of ice cream.

It's like water turns into ice crystals, so you aren't as prone to getting a nice smooth, creamy ice cream.

So I really wanted a peach ice cream that packed in the peach flavor.

And you do have to treat the peaches with a little care.

So I have a pound and a half of peaches total.

I'm going to peel this one and cut it up.

It's a very good sign when my cutting board is this juicy.

You do want to use really nice, ripe peaches.

You can actually even do this with frozen peaches if you want.

As flavorful as your peach is, it's going to play into how flavorful your ice cream is.

-And it looks like you can use either clingstone or freestone.

That doesn't matter, because you're going to cut it up.

-Exactly.

You're going for about 1/2 inch pieces just because we want to macerate these.

And I want a lot of surface area, but you don't have to be super careful.

And then to this I'm going to add 1/2 cup of sugar and just 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice.

It's just going to give a nice little tang to enhance those peaches, and a pinch of salt.

-Gorgeous.

Not too much salt.

And I'm going to toss this.

I'm going to let the peaches macerate for about an hour or an hour and a half.

I'll know they're ready when they've released about 1/2 cup of liquid.

Okay, so the peaches have transformed in that last hour.

You can see how much liquid is in here now.

And this is packed with flavor, so we don't want to get rid of it.

But if I just churn this into ice cream as is, we'd have a little bit of an icy mess.

We want the creamiest peach ice cream we can have.

So I am just going to strain out as much of this as I can.

Again, it's all about controlling the moisture.

We're incorporating peaches a lot of different ways in this ice cream, and this is one of them.

I'm looking for about 1/2 cup.

So I'm adding it to a small saucepan and I'm going to cook it down.

I'm going to cook it over medium heat.

And I'm going to let this go until it's thick and syrupy.

So I'm going to cook off a lot of the water from this and really just concentrate that peach flavor.

I'm gonna cook it until it registers 218 to 220 degrees, anywhere between 5 and 8 minutes.

Alright, so we're looking between 218 and 220.

Alright.

218.

Now I'm just going to pour this right in here.

This is gonna be the base of the ice cream.

-Ooh.

So not just vanilla.

-Not just vanilla.

No.

We're not doing a sweet cream ice cream with peach.

We're not doing a vanilla ice cream with peach.

We're doing a peach ice cream.

-Peach in every bite.

-Peach in every bite.

Speaking of peach in every bite, I have these peaches that macerated earlier, and we strained it off.

I'm going to take these, and I'm going to blend these into a nice puree that is going to go into the peach ice cream as well.

Because we took off a lot of that liquid, they're not going to make too icy of an ice cream, like we've controlled for a lot of that.

So I'm just going to blend this for about a minute until it's nice and smooth.

-Okay.

-Okay, like, the best looking peach smoothie.

-I would be very happy with that.

-Alright, so I'm going to set aside 1/2 cup of this for later.

And the rest of this is going right in with that peach concentrate.

I really want a fresh peach flavor with this ice cream.

And fresh peach is going to carry that flavor.

Like, you want it to taste like you're biting into a peach.

So you did say you've made ice cream before.

-Yes.

-I'm picturing, like, a little girl Bridget making peach ice cream.

-Yes, it was disastrous.

-Well, I'm sure it was very adorable.

But this doesn't look exactly like your typical ice cream base.

I mean, typically, there's eggs in there.

-Yeah.

Custard base.

-Yeah.

When I made an egg-based custard, it actually pulled away from the peach flavor.

Like, it tasted more custardy, which is good, but not for peach ice cream.

-Right.

Okay.

-So here I have 1 cup and 1/2 of half and half.

Again, not as rich as heavy cream because I don't want that fat to compete with the peach flavor.

And then I'm pulling in some fat with 3/4 of a cup of sour cream.

Now sour cream has a nice tang.

So it's kind of doing the same work that something like lemon juice would do in a peach pie.

It's going to enhance the peach rather than pull away from it.

I have 2/3 of a cup of sugar and 1/3 of a cup of corn syrup.

The corn syrup is just going to keep the ice cream really soft and scoopable.

And then 2 tablespoons of vodka.

The vodka is actually optional.

What it does is it prevents more ice crystals.

Like, if you think about putting vodka in your freezer, it never freezes.

-True.

-Same concept with ice cream.

All I'm going to do is give this a nice whisk, get everything really incorporated.

So I'm just going to cover this, pop this in the fridge until it hits about 40 degrees.

It'll take about 4 hours.

-Okay.

-We have our peach base.

We're going to pack in even more peach flavor with a swirl.

I set aside some of this peach puree earlier.

-Right.

-And this is going to become a ripple throughout the ice cream.

-Oh, come on.

-So I'm going to take this 1/2 cup that we set aside and I'm going to cook it down.

There's some technique to gettin' the right ripple.

So you want something that actually eats like a caramelly texture once it's frozen.

-Right.

-Yeah.

So it's a little hard to achieve that just because it's frozen.

So we are using some of the same ideas that you would for making a caramel.

So I'm adding in 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.

That's more for flavor.

But I'm going to cook this down.

I'm aiming for 218 to 220 degrees.

So that's my magic number to get that nice texture for the peach ripple.

-Alright.

-I'm cooking over medium heat.

I'm going to bring it to a boil.

And that'll take anywhere from 6 to 8 minutes to get to that right temperature and texture.

And while it's been cooking, I've been stirring and scraping the bottom.

This can get really sticky, and you don't want any burnt peach bits on the bottom.

-Definitely not.

-Alright, let's see where we're at.

Alright, 218.

I'm going to pour it out of here.

I'm going to let this cool off a little bit at room temp.

And then I'm going to pop it in the fridge until we're ready to churn.

Okay, Bridget, it's time to churn.

So I froze these both overnight.

Both the base and the paddle.

-Okay.

Good idea.

-Yeah, I want it nice and cold.

I have the base.

It's nice and cool.

It's 40 degrees.

Let's get this churning.

Alright, let's get it in here.

-Oh, it's a good color for peach ice cream.

-I need my mint ice cream to be green.

-Yes.

-I need my peach ice cream to be peach.

-To be peche.

-To be peche.

-Paddle in, top on.

[ Machine whirring ] So I'm gonna let this go for 25 to 30 minutes.

I'm looking for it to be about the consistency of soft serve ice cream.

-Okay.

-Alright.

It's been 25 minutes.

It's changed.

-That looks like soft serve to me.

-It does.

So there's a little technique behind ripple in an ice cream.

So here I'm going to take about 1/3 of this base and stick it in the loaf pan.

I'm going to spread this into a nice, even layer.

It does not have to be perfect because it's all going to be swirled in the end.

-Right.

-That's about 1/3.

-Okay.

-Again, just eyeballing it.

And then I've got my ripple.

It's actually gotten a little bit thicker since we were cooking it.

But now it's like, what, a little thicker than honey or something?

-Mm-hmm.

-So I'm going to take about 1/3 of this and then I'm going to do just a little drizzle.

Again, this does not have to be perfect, but you don't want to just glob it all totally down in one spot because we're going to eventually swirl it in here.

Let's cover up our first ripple.

-Alright.

-Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I'm using a loaf pan here.

A loaf pan is really great for freezing ice cream because it has so much surface area.

Like, if you use one of those quart containers, they look pretty, but they're a little taller.

-Tall.

And then hardly any on the top.

-Exactly.

Hardly any on the top.

The goal here is to freeze it really quickly.

When you freeze it quickly, you avoid more ice crystals.

You get a nice, even layer here.

And the last bit of the peach ripple.

-Mmm.

-And again, just trying to get a relatively even drizzle over top.

I have a skewer and I'm just going in and I'm actually doing these sort of rough zigzags and swirls.

-Almost like you're folding.

-Exactly.

But with a skewer.

And I'm trying to go all the way to the bottom of the pan, make this, like, beautiful, almost tie dye of peach ripple.

-Oh, yeah.

-Okay.

Like, I think I'm not going to over swirl because you don't want the ripple to actually, like, start mixing into the ice cream.

Now I'm going to cover this with plastic.

I'm going to freeze it until it's nice and firm, which will take at least two hours.

-Okay.

-Alright.

So it's been two hours.

Ice cream is nice and cold.

It's frozen.

-It's now ice cream.

-It is now officially ice cream.

-Alright.

-How many scoops can I count you for?

-They call me Jimmy Two Scoops.

-Jimmy Two Scoops, I like that.

-Oh, yeah.

You're getting that ripple in every scoop.

-I know.

-All the way down.

-I know.

it's like little gifts of peach ripple throughout your ice cream.

And the moment of truth.

Are we peachy enough?

-I know you're already peachy enough.

-Awe.

Get a bite with some ripple and some ice cream.

-That's a big peach.

-It's, like, as big as the peaches down in Georgia.

-Oh, my goodness.

Bam!

That swirl is just super concentrated peach flavor.

-I know.

-But fresh.

-I mean, we're really careful about cooking exactly at 220 degrees.

It preserves the peach freshness.

-This is what peach ice cream wants to be.

It's the best peach ice cream out there.

-Oh, thanks so much, Bridget.

-Thank you for sharing with us.

Mmm.

If you'd like to make this delicious peach ice cream, it starts by simmering the juices released from sugared peaches until syrupy.

Use some peach puree along with the syrup in the ice cream base.

Layer the churned ice cream with more puree and use a skewer to create a ripple.

So from "Cook's Country," a very summery and perfect peach ice cream.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes.

And those are all available on our website, CooksCountry.com/tv.

Slash peach ice cream.

-Slash peach ice cream.

The place I want to go.

-Yes.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

Visit our website anytime for the newest season's rigorously tested recipes, full episodes, ingredient advice, and equipment reviews.

CooksCountry.com/TV.

-"The Complete Cook's Country TV Show Cookbook" brings together every recipe, tasting, and test from 18 seasons of the beloved TV show, with trusted equipment recommendations and insights from the entire cast.

This book is your guide to the very best in regional cooking.

The cost is $24.99.

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To order, head to our online shop at CooksCountry.com/book.

-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

-Monument Grills, offering innovative technology and design for the grilling enthusiast, with a lineup of gas grills designed with durability in mind, including the Eminence 605 with LED touch panels and side and rear infrared burners.

Learn more at MonumentGrills.com.

-Teakhaus -- inspired by a passion for cooking and respect for our planet, each board is handcrafted from sustainably sourced wood designed for every step, from food prep to presentation.

Teakhaus.