Fortunate Food

Every New Year, my mother made black-eyed peas for good luck - I never knew where this tradition stemmed from but assumed it's "a Southern thing" as so many of her family's habits are.  I researched the practice and found that the good luck traditions of eating black-eyed peas go way back - recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (compiled around 500 CE!) at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. In the United States the first Sephardi Jews arrived in Georgia in the 1730s, and have lived there continually since.  The Jewish practice was apparently adopted by non-Jews around the time of the American Civil War.  Now considering that my mother's family lived in Georgia ... well now I have to make them every year, or risk having a bad luck year ...

Here's a big ole pot of piping hot spicy black-eyed peas, starting with sauteed bacon, onions, red pepper and a jalapeno, and the beans, properly soaked over night, along with some diced tomato and a cup of chicken stock and enough water to just cover them, simmering in the spices (I use Creole spice blend, chili powder, paprika, cayenne and of course salt and pepper to taste.) Cook the beans for at least an hour until they've plumped up and soaked in all the flavor.  Real Southerners eat these with a shot of Tabasco.

For my New Year celebration dinner I decided to make roasted Cornish hen filled with cornbread stuffing - after all, what's Southern food without meat and cornbread?  And I must say it turned out positively pretty:

 Note I served up the hen - so cute! - on a platter adorned with fresh parsley, pecans and cranberries for some color.  I prepared the Cornish hen by the classic stuffing-trussing-roasting method: 

1) I began by making cornbread stuffing with chicken sausage, onions, carrots, parsley and pecans.

2) I prepped the Cornish hen by removing the giblets, washing that baby, filling it with stuffing and lacing the legs up with cooking twine.

3) I lay the hen in a baking pan on a bed of sliced onions, carrots and lemon segments, seasoning the bird with salt and pepper and grating some lemon zest over top, squeezing the juice from the lemon over the skin.  I tucked fresh rosemary, thyme, sage and parsley in between the legs and the breast and fit two cloves of garlic in the skin, to infuse the meat with herb flavor (this part is rather fun, like decorating a little Christmas tree ... of raw poultry, that is) and then drizzling melted butter all over the bird - I use the organic alternative but go for the real thing if it suits you - and then pop it into the oven at 425 degrees.

4) I roasted it for about 45 minutes, then switched to broil to brown up the skin for a few minutes and turned off the heat, letting the hen cool down in the cracked oven to distribute the juices evenly.  Slice into this girl and find the flavors of the cornbread stuffing have all melded together, encased by soft meat and a sunny yellow crispy skin.  I discovered Cornish hen to have a delightfully sweeter flavor than boring baked chicken, with a natural delicacy and tenderness that's positively regal.  Happy New Year, may it be filled with deliciousness abound!