May 15, 2014 |
Short Order
Lee Schrager’s Celebration of Fried Chicken Delivers Mary Mac’s Tomato Pie
Photo: Evan Sung
If like me you find devouring the pictures in a fabulous cookbook can be next best to actually eating at times, consider “Fried & True, Recipes for America’s Best Chicken and Sides” by Lee Brain Schrager (Clarkson Potter, $26.50).
Fried chicken? I would not have nominated Lee Schrager for a fried chicken oeuvre. I know him -- the food-obsessed world knows him -- as the brilliant ringmaser of great American wine and food festivals, a man who reels in cosmic cooking stars of the world as magnets for his cuisinary hijinks where the rest of us make a pilgrimage into unabashed gluttony to glorify the art of eating and raise money for those who are hungry.
But then, why not? Young Lee, like so many of us, keeps warm memories of his mother’s fried chicken. In my house when Mom was willing to fill the air with snap, pop and Crisco crackle, she sent a message of love.
Actually, it was Whoopi Goldberg who suggested Lee add a fried chicken event to his festival rituals -- or so she claims in the book’s forward here. The travels and tastings that followed, plus earlier wanderings in detours from his work for Southern Wine and Spirits, Schrager came up with an eclectic crew of fried chicken masters. From Seven Sows Fried Chicken in Ashevlle, NC to Thomas Keller’s upright buttermilk fried bird.
And then there are the sides, the irresisitible sides. In Atlanta, Lee fell for Mary Mac’s Tea Room. You’ll discover why a tea room is not necessarily a tea room. And if you look down below here, you’ll find a recipe for Mary Mac’s Tomato Pie, a new addition to the nearly 70-year-old institution classics.
Here’s the recipe:
Mary Mac’s TOMATO PIE
SERVES 8 TO 10
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for greasing
2 medium onions, very thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 sleeves Ritz crackers, crushed by hand or in a food processor (about 2½ cups crushed)
2 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes in juice
2 cups mayonnaise
1 ½ cups (6 ounces) grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (or domestic Parmesan cheese)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 × 13-inch oval baking dish with oil and set aside.
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until soft and translucent, 8 to 9 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper and set aside. Scatter 1 cup cracker crumbs in the bottom of the baking dish. Pour 1 can tomatoes, juice included, over the crackers. Layer half the onions on top of the tomatoes; repeat the layering with the remaining can of tomatoes and onions. Sprinkle 1 cup cracker crumbs over the top onion layer.
In a medium bowl, combine the mayonnaise, Cheddar, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and basil. Spread over the top of the layers and top with the remaining ½ cup cracker crumbs. Bake the pie until golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes.