American

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from The Dooky Chase Cookbook by Leah Chase and are part of our story on Mardi Gras.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Hollywood Dish by Akasha Richmond. When I catered Billy Bob Thornton's Christmas party one year, he whipped up some of his special soy — based pimento cheese sandwiches for all of us cooking in the kitchen. The following summer when I catered Billy's birthday, I made the sandwiches as an appetizer and served them with a cream of tomato dip — an idea that my friend Sergio Gomez gave me. When Emeril Lagasse made pimento cheese on his show, he told the audience that when you're in the South as a guest in someone's home, and they bring out the pimento cheese it's a special thing, so I was really honored when Billy made this dish for me. Note: Any leftover dip, can be thinned out a bit with more soymilk and served as soup. When I cater parties I place the dip in small shot glasses or demitasse cups, and slice the sandwiches into long strips and serve them on top of the glasses. I also like to slice a small baguette thinly and use that to make the sandwiches.

This fried chicken recipe is excerpted from The Dooky Chase Cookbook by Leah Chase.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from The Twinkies Cookbook. "I created this special family recipe on a whim. My daughter, Sarah, would always dunk Twinkies in chocolate milkshakes. so one day, I made her a chocolate shake and added Twinkies to it. It is still one of her—and the rest of the family's—favorites."
Brenda McDevitt, Worth, Illinois

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from The Dooky Chase Cookbook by Leah Chase and are part of our story on Mardi Gras. Chase also shared some helpful tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. In Madisonville, where I grew up, we would use smoked ham to add flavor to our red beans. In New Orleans, they would use pickled meat. Pickling of pork was done in the Creole community. Pickled ribs with potato salad were popular. The meat was pickled in a brine, more or less, along with seasonings. There is a market in New Orleans that still makes pickled meat, in just this way. They might also use some kind of vinegar. In this red beans recipe, I stick with the smoked meats, just like in the country.

I tinkered endlessly with the proportions of basic brownie ingredients to come up with a recipe that I think is perfect. They have a deep chocolate flavor, moist, fudgy interior, and chewy edges. Best of all, they are entirely mixed in one saucepan. No bowls to wash!

I once considered making more authentic smoked ribs for a tailgate party and, in the planning, realized that not only would I need to be at the parking lot hours before everyone else, but my grill was not large enough to smoke enough ribs for everyone in my party. And to try to pass off just "a taste" of barbecued ribs is like trying to arm-tackle Priest Holmes. So it was a choice between shelling out for another grill or devising another method of cooking the ribs. Baking them first in a slow oven produced moist, flavorful meat I then had only to finish on the grill.

Talk about convenient! Baking a whole sweet potato takes about an hour, but sautéing the grated potato takes only fifteen minutes from start to finish — and you end up concentrating the flavor to boot. This recipe dresses up your potato with Southwestern ingredients, but there's no reason not to go Asian (add ginger and soy) or Italian (add sage, brown butter, and pine nuts) as the mood strikes you. For that matter, you could swap out the sweet potato and use butternut squash instead.

Modern-day Reuben sandwiches are often open-faced and broiled, which dries out the corned beef and makes the cheese rubbery. Or, under the misguided belief that more is better, they are overstuffed. The main things to remember for a great Reuben are to keep the filling under control and in balance, so when you bite into it you get a harmonious and succulent mouthful; and to grill the sandwich slowly and under some pressure, so the bread gets toasty brown and buttery crisp, the meat gets warmed through, and the cheese is just melted enough to be oozy.

Harmony is achieved in a dish when contrasting flavors combine to create balance. In this dish, the black pepper and bourbon add a real jolt of flavor that's miraculously mellowed by the cream and butter.

This fruit butter makes a quick dessert. It's also a great snack on bread or toast. We use it in a low-fat recipe for a moist and chunky apple butter spice cake. We have found preserving in half-pint (250 mL) jars convenient, since that recipe calls for that amount of apple butter. But if you use larger jars, you'll have lots left for other uses.

This spoon bread is as tender as a soufflé but much simpler to make.

Actress Bridget Moynahan is fueled both by stardom and foods that keep her in top form. "I love beets," Moynahan says. She can get her fix with this dish from Axe, her healthy eatery of choice. Pick up organic fixings at a farmers' market and enjoy!

We are always wowed by how complex in both flavor and texture hand-milled grits are compared to their supermarket counterpart, which we don't recommend for this particular recipe. Grits are best when freshly cooked, but if you're making an entire menu, you'll probably want to prepare them the day before (see cooks' note, below). We suggest storing raw grits in the refrigerator until you're ready to cook them.

The trick: Sear in juices.
For her Southwestern Shrimp Soft Tacos, Jacki Pearson, executive sous-chef at Green Valley Spa in St. George, Utah, turns on the high heat to lock in the marinade and the shrimp's natural flavors — with hardly any oil. Use this technique with thin cuts of pork, beef, or poultry, too: Toss a piece of meat into an extra-hot pan and sear both sides (a minute or two) until a golden crust forms and meat cooks through.

Save big in the calorie and fat departments with this remade version. Plus, get a fiber fix courtesy of the oatmeal and potato skins.