Quick Knockouts
Sampling the Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern

 By Mary Warner

“When cooking’s a thrill,” says Ted Lee, “it’s no longer a chore.” He should know. With his brother, Matt Lee, they’ve turned this philosophy into a career that began by writing a travel article and led to earning a Beard Award (among others) for their book The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook. While their latest cookbook, Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor, is a fraction of the size of their first, it still manages to distill our regions nuanced flavors into quick meals that honor tradition and nod to change. 

With Simple Fresh Southern, the Lee brothers present recipes inspired by the “quick knockouts” from their previous cookbook. Every recipe in this book calls for just a few ingredients that are relatively easy to prepare. They invite cooks to experiment or do what feels comfortable, even break a rule. (Who says pimento cheese can only fill slices of white bread? They serve their version in a potato gratin.) Like many of us in the South, Matt and Ted are curious home cooks who are passionate about cultivating and preserving Southern cooking. “We’re living proof,” they write in the introduction, “that if you love cooking at home and are open minded enough (and restless enough!) not to follow old recipes to the letter, you can make soul stirring food today.” 

Simple Fresh Southern is organized by chapters that “proceed the way a meal typically would” with cocktails and coolers first, then snacks and appetizers, soups, salads and cold sides, hot sides, main dishes, and a short—but sweet—section on dessert. Don’t skip the introduction. It sets the tone of the book, empowers the cook, and demonstrates the boys’ knack for storytelling. There’s not a whiff of academic rhetoric here, just a nod to Matt and Ted’s own journey to understand their roots in the South – and advice on how to maximize the home kitchen.

While the Lee brothers haven’t worked in restaurant kitchens, they’ve developed recipes that cooks from all backgrounds will appreciate. Ted admits to being a “recipe follower” who’s more inclined to get inspiration from something that already exists, such as rice pudding. He reinvented the traditional Southern dessert as a Popsicle spiked with curry, then skewered and thrown in the freezer for a summertime treat. Matt, on the other hand, is an intuitive cook who relies on what’s in the refrigerator or pantry for menu ideas. The buttermilk pudding cakes with sugared raspberries bear Matt’s mark, as does hominy stew with chicken and chilies. “They’re familiar old Southern textures,” he says, “but not traditional flavors of the South.”

Matt and Ted’s approach to cooking celebrates the culture of the American South. Their recipes are resourceful and refined without an ounce of pretension. They like to have fun—as anyone who has attended one of their parties can attest— and they keep it low-key. “We make a pickle plate with vegetables from our garden and put it out for guests to nosh on,” says Ted. They’ve devoted an entire section of the cookbook to quick pickles, the current darling of kitchen condiments. If you’ve ever wondered what to do with a bumper crop of zucchini, try the zucchini and onion pickles. Off the beaten path, there are pickled grapes with rosemary and chilies.

The Lee brothers aren’t trying to steer people away from the South, instead, they’re inviting people to go deeper into it. “It’s a great time to cook Southern in this country,” says Ted of the diversity of cooking they discovered during their travels throughout the South. If chefs like Hugh Acheson in Athens, Andrea Reusing in Chapel Hill, and others they’ve met along the way aren’t enough inspiration for the brothers, there’s their caché of old Junior League and PTA cookbooks. They recall their epiphany with a deviled egg and shrimp recipe they found in The New Fairyland Cookbook, published by the Fairyland PTA in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, in 1964. In their overhauled version, they paired fresh farm eggs with local shrimp, added a healthy dollop of good store-bought mayonnaise, sassed it up with lemon, and finished the mixture with a generous crumbling of bacon. The result was the perfect filling for a roll and just one of many inventive recipes the Lee brothers deliver in Simple Fresh Southern. 
 

Butternut squash soup with rosemary
Serves 4 to 6
Time: 30 minutes
 
In preparing the family Thanksgiving meal, one of us tackles the “Thanksgiving Baroque”––the heirloom American Bronze turkey, brined, rubbed with paprika butter, then stuffed with oysters and chestnuts (a three-day production)––while the other brother heads for the relative ease of the “Thanksgiving Zen,” or those simple dishes that express clear flavors with a minimum of effort and agita. Inevitably it’s the Zen dishes, the meditations on one or two ingredients, that get the wildest raves. The noble butternut, the most utilitarian (and fortunately the tastiest) supermarket squash, breaks down into a silky soup, which we highlight with wintery, medieval rosemary and cured ham. A little garlic and buttermilk actually serve to amp up the flavor of the butternut. It’s a rich enough dish to make a fine lunch, served with a thick wedge of buttered toasted bread and a glass of dry French chardonnay, or any elegant white wine that’s not too fruity.
 
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
1/3 cup finely diced country ham or Serrano ham (about 1 1/4 ounces)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 3 large cloves)
1 (2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into1/2-inch dice (4 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, or to taste
1/4 cup whole or lowfat buttermilk, plus more for garnish
Freshly ground black pepper, for garnish
 
Pour the olive oil into a 12-inch skillet set over medium-low heat. Once the oil warms, add the rosemary, ham, and garlic and stir constantly for about 2 minutes, until the garlic is fragrant but not browning.

Turn the heat to low, add the squash, and stir for about 30 seconds to coat the pieces with the oil. Let cook for a minute longer, still stirring. Then add 3 cups water and cover the skillet. Turn up the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat so that the liquid is simmering, stir in the salt, and cook, covered, for 7 minutes, until the squash is tender but not dissolving into the soup.
Using an immersion blender or transferring the mixture to a food processor (in batches if necessary), blend the soup until just a few chunks of squash and ham are still visible in the puree. Add the buttermilk and stir to incorporate. Serve in large bowls, and as a final touch, loosely stir a tablespoon of buttermilk into each, leaving a trail of white. Season with a grind of black pepper.