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00:04Cook's Country is about more than just getting dinner on the table.
00:09We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.
00:14We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook.
00:20And we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.
00:25We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.
00:31This is Cook's Country.
00:37Today on Cook's Country, I visit Edisto Island in South Carolina to learn how to make Hoppin' John from the
00:45island's matriarch.
00:47Ben Bryan makes our version of Hoppin' John.
00:50And Ashley bakes Alabama orange rolls.
00:53That's all right here on Cook's Country.
01:05For decades, I have been fascinated by the culinary traditions of South Carolina's low country.
01:12These coastal plains and the nearby sea islands are home to the Gullah Geechies,
01:17descendants of West Africans who were enslaved for their rice farming skills, among other things.
01:23The geographic isolation of the region allowed the Gullahs to protect their culture and foodways from outside influence.
01:32So when I got the chance to cook with one of the Gullah's great matriarchs,
01:37I knew I had to make the journey to Edisto Island.
01:40So Brian Roof and I jumped in the car and headed over the bridge.
01:45Miss Emily Maggett is Edisto's undisputed culinary queen.
01:50She's called this island home for her entire life.
01:54You have to move here to live in a little heaven.
01:58And I'm telling you, I haven't seen one person yet come across that bridge and say,
02:06I'm not coming back.
02:07And everybody here, love everybody.
02:10Everybody.
02:11For Miss Emily, cooking is more than just a passion.
02:15It's a way to feed family and friends, to take care of folks in the community who are down on
02:22their luck
02:22and in need of a warm meal.
02:25She often drives around her neighborhood, dropping off her specialties to islanders she calls her little people.
02:36I joined Miss Emily at the stove, where she already had some of her most beloved low country dishes bubbling
02:43away.
02:44What are you going to teach me?
02:46I'm going to cook the peas for the hoppin' john.
02:49Cabbage, two kinds of chicken, baked and fried, and of course, the classic peas and rice combination,
02:56hoppin' john, a New Year's Day tradition served for good luck.
03:00Or just any time you like, according to Miss Emily.
03:04You serve Hoppin' John all year, only on New Year's?
03:08No, no, any time.
03:09Any time.
03:09In most southern kitchens, the dish is prepared with black-eyed peas.
03:14But here in Edisto, it's made with Sea Island red peas.
03:17You know what?
03:18Put this, put this over there.
03:21It quickly became clear that this would be a hands-on lesson.
03:26Yes.
03:27Shall I cut the other one?
03:29Yeah, cut that.
03:31Yes, cut it?
03:32Yes, cut it.
03:35Now, look behind this stove right there.
03:37See the oil?
03:38Yes.
03:42And my hard work was rewarded with pearls of cooking wisdom,
03:45a repertoire of tricks and techniques built over a lifetime in the kitchen.
03:51All right.
03:52Look, look for the bone now.
03:53That's the bone.
03:54Like, how to split a ham hock close to the bone so it imparts more porky flavor to the beans.
04:01Like that?
04:01Mm-hmm.
04:03You have to be strong.
04:07Mm-hmm.
04:08But, but I can feel the knife is running right alongside the bone.
04:12Feel for the bone.
04:13You just go right beside that bone.
04:16Or, how to drain off the red peas that float to the surface.
04:20The dead peas, as Miss Emily calls them.
04:23You see those, see those peas floating in the water?
04:28Yes.
04:32What is the, the fact that they're floating mean?
04:35The dead.
04:38But many of her tips are more subtle, requiring intuition and experience.
04:43Like how she knows the right amount of liquid to add.
04:46You can just tell by the heaviness of the rice on the spoon as you stir.
04:51Feel that.
04:53You gotta feel the heaviness of it.
04:55I feel the heaviness of the rice now coming towards me.
04:59At 89 years old, Miss Emily published her first cookbook.
05:04Extracting the many recipes from her mind and transcribing them to the book took years.
05:10But the result was a success.
05:13The book shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
05:16It's an outcome that a younger Miss Emily would have found improbable.
05:22And I cook from my brain, my heart, and my hands.
05:27It's the feel of it.
05:29Well, now I understand how your heart is on the pages here.
05:33But sitting down at her kitchen table to tuck into the meal we just prepared together,
05:39it's clear that the real thing that matters to Miss Emily is this.
05:44Turning strangers into family and showing them love through food.
05:51When you come to that gate and you come up to a step, you gotta come in like family.
06:01Thank you for letting us into your home today.
06:03Sure.
06:04Anytime.
06:05Okay, tomorrow.
06:06This time.
06:18Learning kitchen wisdom while cooking side-by-side with an excellent cook is an age-old tradition.
06:25And Brian, you and I learned so many incredible lessons from Miss Emily.
06:29It was definitely one of the highlights of my young cooking career.
06:32You know, and the first thing that really kind of was news to me was that Hoppin' John,
06:36which I've seen all my life living in the South, is not traditionally made with black-eyed peas,
06:40at least not at Estill Island.
06:42It's made with these Sea Island red peas instead.
06:44That's right.
06:45And you know that's because these black-eyed peas resemble the red peas that were brought over
06:50on the slave ships during the slave trade.
06:52And descendants are still making the red peas with them today.
06:56Yeah, and they have such a different flavor.
06:57Like these are so much more earthy, more like soil.
07:01And these are a little bit more nutty.
07:02So what we're going to do first is we're going to rinse our peas.
07:05So let's head to the sink.
07:07Okay.
07:08So we're just going to fill the bowl up with cold water.
07:10Rather than draining it right away, we're going to give it a second to let the peas settle.
07:15This is something Miss Meggett showed us that I thought was really interesting.
07:18We want to wait and see what comes floating to the top.
07:21So these are what she calls dead peas.
07:23So these are peas and, you know, little pieces of dirt or twig we don't want to put in the
07:28final dish.
07:29So once they're all done, we're just going to give them a drain.
07:34We can drop these into our pot.
07:38This is four quarts of water.
07:39And now the next thing, the ham hock.
07:43Like we've both seen ham hocks.
07:45So she actually used a fresh ham hock, which I'd never worked with before.
07:49I never had either.
07:50What she did, she ran the blade of the knife along the bone.
07:53Well, you do have to find that bone.
07:55I remember that I struggled a little bit.
07:57I like to use a bone enough because sometimes you've got to wiggle around.
07:59Because, you know, ham hock has a lot of little bits of cartilage.
08:02And the bones are a little bit inconsistent in the hock.
08:05So we're going to drop this into our peas.
08:07And we're going to add a tablespoon of table salt.
08:10And we're going to turn this on high.
08:12And once it comes to a boil, we'll put the lid on.
08:13We'll go down to medium low.
08:14And let it go until the peas are tender.
08:16And that takes anywhere between 50 and 60 minutes.
08:18And the reason why we're going to use a lid is so we trap all the water and the steam
08:22and the evaporation.
08:23Because we're going to use a portion of that liquid to cook our rice.
08:26Our peas have been cooking for just under an hour.
08:30So now we need to take out our ham hock and let that sit and cool.
08:34So we're also going to reserve about 200 quarter cups of our cooking liquid here to cook our rice in.
08:40This is liquid gold.
08:43All right, so let's drain our peas.
08:45So as you notice here, we're saving all this liquid.
08:49There's a ton of flavor in this.
08:50But you can make soups, all kinds of things with this.
08:52So I don't want to throw that away.
08:53Now we are going to turn our attention to some salt pork.
08:58This was a key ingredient in Miss Maggett's Hoppin' John.
09:01She took the salt pork and she rinsed it thoroughly.
09:04These pieces often come with a lot of salt crusted on the outside.
09:06And you want to remove as much of that as possible.
09:09And then we're going to cut it into three quarter inch pieces.
09:12Once you rinse this, it's super important that you dry it well with paper towels.
09:18All right, so we're going to throw a quarter cup of lard into our saucepan and put it over medium
09:22heat.
09:24So we're going to throw a lid on this and we're going to cook this until it's nice and rendered
09:27out.
09:28And that takes about 10 or 12 minutes.
09:30So we'll give it a stir on occasion.
09:31Okay.
09:32Our ham hock has cooled down a little bit and so now we can chop it up.
09:36And I've got to be honest, this is of the many things I love about this dish.
09:41Adding ham hock meat back into it is probably my favorite.
09:44Now we're looking to cut this into about half inch pieces, you know, about three quarters of a cup all
09:49day.
09:49So that's about three quarters of a cup right there.
09:52Our salt pork has been sizzling away here.
09:54You can hear it sputtering, right?
09:55Yeah, for sure.
09:55It's been cooking away for about 12 minutes over medium heat.
09:58It's all nice and crispy.
10:00Oh, that looks gorgeous and smells wonderful too, right?
10:02So good.
10:02So now we're going to add a cup of chopped onion.
10:05Love that.
10:06Three scallions that we've cut into half inch pieces.
10:09We'll cook that until it gets softened.
10:11It takes about three minutes or so.
10:13At this point, we're going to add our rice.
10:15I have one and a half cups of Carolina gold rice.
10:18And we're just going to let that rice toast for about two minutes.
10:21All right, so this is the one spot where we really diverge from Miss Meggett's cooking method.
10:26You know, we're using a pilaf method here, which helps coat the grains of rice with a little bit of
10:30fat
10:31so they don't kind of clump together as they cook.
10:33Now we're going to add the seasoning to our rice.
10:35So we have a teaspoon of salt right here.
10:37This is table salt.
10:38A little bit of black pepper.
10:39This is three quarters of a teaspoon.
10:40Three quarters of a teaspoon of granulated garlic.
10:43And a half teaspoon of onion powder.
10:46There you go.
10:47We'll just stir that all together.
10:49We're going to drop two and a quarter cups of our pea cooking liquid that's been fortified with all that
10:54ham hock flavor.
10:56We'll add our ham hock pieces to it.
10:58And now we're going to add our sea island red peas.
11:01We'll stir this together.
11:03So, you know, this is where a lot of people get into trouble when they combine rice and peas in
11:08the pot together
11:09because the peas contain starch.
11:11They tend to scorch on the bottom.
11:13So this is why we relied on the pilaf method, you know, to coat the rice with that fat to
11:17make sure it stays separate.
11:19And we had plenty of fat in the dish to make sure nothing scorches on the bottom.
11:22Now that this is coming to a simmer, we're going to cover it with a sheet of foil.
11:25What this does is it traps all that steam in there, so it makes it a much more efficient cooking
11:30method.
11:30Put the lid on top.
11:32So now we're going to drop this down to low heat, and we're going to let it go for 20
11:36minutes.
11:36And the most important thing anybody could ever know about cooking rice is you don't remove the lid to check
11:43it,
11:43at least not for the first 20 minutes.
11:45The rice is cooked for 20 minutes over low heat, and then we shut the heat off, left it on
11:50the burner,
11:50and let it sit without opening the pot, removing the lid for another 10 minutes.
11:55And that last 10 minutes is as important as the first 20.
11:59You know, this is where the rice continues to steam gently and kind of coast into being just perfectly tender.
12:03All right, so we could do our unveiling.
12:07Can't wait.
12:08Oh, how beautiful.
12:10All right, so now we have to fluff the rice.
12:14This, everything that day, this is probably my favorite piece of kitchen wisdom,
12:18that she didn't even speak about it, she just did it.
12:20She just did it.
12:20She used a carving fork to fluff the rice.
12:23And it took me a minute, and I thought she was just using it out of convenience to flip other
12:26things,
12:27but if you look at the carving fork two tines, there's plenty of room for the rice to pass through.
12:32If you look at a regular fork, there's more tines on it, obviously,
12:35and you tend to mash the rice up a little bit, even though the intention is to fluff.
12:38So if you move around here, you can see how gently it kind of fluffs the rice, knocks it around
12:43a little bit.
12:44And we can just transfer it to our serving dish here.
12:47See how those grains just kind of stay separate?
12:49So nice.
12:50The bottom of the pot is not scorched, nothing's burned.
12:53It's really just perfectly cooked rice.
12:55You can smell the garlic, black pepper coming through.
13:00What do you think?
13:01You ready to try some?
13:02I'm ready for a taste.
13:06Gosh, it just smells so good.
13:09Okay.
13:11All right.
13:15Oh, my goodness.
13:17Mmm.
13:19It just, like, it makes me smile.
13:20It's so good.
13:21It's so good.
13:23It's so light.
13:25Mm-hmm.
13:27That porky flavor, totally subtle.
13:30Yeah.
13:30Just adds a nuance of flavor.
13:32Everything is about balance in the dish.
13:34Absolutely.
13:34And I think you get that balance of pork.
13:36Even though it looked like we were adding a lot of pork, what you get is the peas coming forward.
13:39You get some of that garlic powder, that black pepper.
13:41Everything is playing nicely together.
13:43And I have to tell you, we lost Miss Maggot shortly after we visited with her.
13:50And we were so fortunate to have people to spend that time with her.
13:52And we are also fortunate that we're able to continue to have this dish.
13:56Thank you so much, Brian.
13:57You're very welcome.
13:58For a classic Hoppin' John, the Edisto Island way, create a broth using red peas and ham hocks.
14:06Cook Carolina gold rice using a peel-off method.
14:10And finally, fluff it all together with a carving fork.
14:14From Cook's Country, a tribute to Miss Emily Maggot, Hoppin' John.
14:20Brian, I'm ready.
14:22You ready for support?
14:22I'm looking for a big piece of ham.
14:24I already ate all of mine.
14:25You ate all of yours?
14:26I couldn't wait.
14:33Orange rolls are really similar to cinnamon rolls in that they're made with a yeasted sweet dough.
14:38They're wrapped around a filling, covered with glaze.
14:41But orange rolls taste like orange instead of cinnamon.
14:44Now, they're popular at different places throughout the South, especially in Alabama,
14:49where they're served alongside the main course, almost like a dinner roll.
14:52And Ashley here is to tell us more.
14:54So, the recipe I'm going to show you today is based off of and inspired by the Alabama
14:59orange rolls we had in Coleman, Alabama at a restaurant called All Steak.
15:03I love the name of that.
15:04All Steak.
15:05All Steak.
15:06And orange rolls.
15:06Yeah.
15:08But first, before we go anywhere near an orange, let's make our dough.
15:12Okay.
15:13I have three cups, which is also 15 ounces of all-purpose flour here.
15:17And then I've got a quarter cup of granulated sugar.
15:20And I've got two and a quarter teaspoons of instant yeast.
15:23And one teaspoon of salt.
15:26Simple dough so far.
15:27So, I'm just going to give this a whisk by hand.
15:30Now, I've got some orange juice, which is going to give us, obviously, that really gorgeous citrusy flavor.
15:36But I did microwave this to 110 degrees.
15:39It's a little warm.
15:40Oh, yeah.
15:40And the reason I did that is because it's going to help to activate the yeast.
15:43So, it's going to jumpstart our dough.
15:45And that is half a cup.
15:47And I've got some heavy cream.
15:48I've got a quarter cup of heavy cream.
15:50And some butter that I went ahead and softened ahead of time.
15:54There's six tablespoons that I cut into six pieces.
15:57And then, finally, one whole egg plus an egg yolk.
16:00All right.
16:01So, I'm going to mix this for about two minutes on medium.
16:04So, I'm going to let this go until the dough is just combined.
16:08Now, I'm going to increase the speed to medium-high.
16:11And let the dough go for about eight more minutes until it's elastic and smooth.
16:17So, as you can see, the dough is elastic and it's smooth.
16:21And it's nice and warm, too.
16:24Oh, yeah.
16:24Yeah.
16:25All right.
16:25So, I'm just going to flour the counter here.
16:28Because the dough is going to be really soft at this point.
16:30And that's totally normal.
16:31It's okay.
16:32But I'm going to knead this just for about 30 seconds, just until it's a little bit smoother.
16:37Just get it nice and taut.
16:39Brush off any of that excess flour.
16:41Now, here I have a greased bowl.
16:43It's a good-sized bowl.
16:44And then I also have some plastic wrap.
16:47And usually what I do, any kind of yeasted dough, because I'm Forgetful Jones, I like
16:52to use a Sharpie and just run my Sharpie over the dough just so I know if it's really doubled
16:58in size.
16:58And then I always write down the time.
17:00I love it.
17:00I do the same thing.
17:01I write down the time it goes in and what time it should be ready to go.
17:04Exactly.
17:05All right.
17:05So, this is going to go into a warm area and it's going to rise until it's doubled in size
17:10about an hour and a half to two hours.
17:11Okay.
17:12All right.
17:13Let's check this out.
17:14It did double in size.
17:15Again, it was about an hour and a half that we waited while this was in a nice warm spot.
17:19All right.
17:20So, before we go any further with the dough, I want to make our sugar mixture.
17:25I've got half a cup of granulated sugar here.
17:27And then I've got two teaspoons of orange zest.
17:31Okay.
17:31Now, you notice there aren't any white bits in there.
17:34That's the bitter part, the pith.
17:35You don't want to go anywhere near that when you're zesting an orange or any citrus for that
17:39matter.
17:40So, I'm going to add, again, two teaspoons into the sugar and just give it a good whisk.
17:45All right.
17:46I'll put that aside for now.
17:48I'm just going to add a bit of flour to our counter.
17:52I need to form this into a 16 by 8 rectangle.
17:59I want the long side of the rectangle to be parallel to the counter.
18:02Okay.
18:03And then every once in a while, I just go in there just to release it.
18:07Double check my work one more time.
18:08I want it from a blob to perfection and it's like that.
18:11I love it.
18:12All right.
18:13So, I've got some softened butter here, two more tablespoons.
18:17And what I'm going to do is just using the small offset, I'm just going to move the butter
18:23along here because the butter is going to be the glue that holds our sugar orange zest mixture
18:29onto the dough.
18:30So, now the hands-on part of the recipe, I'm going to sprinkle this mixture just over top
18:37the butter.
18:38Smells so good.
18:40It really does.
18:42So, now we need to roll this into a log.
18:44And what you're going to do is roll away from you, but you want to roll pretty firmly.
18:48And that's going to prevent any air pockets from forming.
18:51All right.
18:52And then I'm going to finish with the seam side down, but I want to go in there just to
18:57pinch
18:57it, just to ensure that it doesn't come undone when baking.
19:02Now we're going to cut this in two rolls.
19:04Mm-hmm.
19:05So, each piece is going to be two inches thick, and we're going to have eight pieces
19:10total.
19:10Okay.
19:11So, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go right down the line with a serrated
19:15knife.
19:16Just using a serrated knife just makes ease of cutting that dough so it doesn't rip or
19:20tear.
19:21And now I've got this nine-inch dark cake pan.
19:24So, we did prefer using a dark cake pan here, but if you don't have a dark cake pan at
19:29home,
19:29just extend the cooking time to 45 to 50 minutes.
19:32Okay.
19:33Now, I did go ahead and grease it.
19:35I lined it with some parchment and then greased it again.
19:37So, now you want to put one directly into the center.
19:40And now the following rolls, you're going to put them around the center, but you want to
19:44have the seam side facing inward.
19:47Okay.
19:47You run the risk of them unraveling.
19:49Gotcha.
19:50All right.
19:51So, now these need to rise again.
19:52So, I'm going to put some plastic wrap over top, and I'm going to let them hang out in
19:56a warm part of the kitchen for 60 to 90 minutes until they've doubled in size.
20:01All right.
20:02Take a look at how beautiful these look.
20:06They've doubled in size clearly.
20:07They're gorgeous.
20:08Yeah.
20:09So, I'm going to bake these in a preheated oven at 325 degrees.
20:13The oven rack is at the middle position, and I'm going to cook these until they register
20:17195 degrees in the interior, which should take 40 to 45 minutes.
20:22All right.
20:27Oh, I can just smell them.
20:32They're so pretty.
20:34They are.
20:34They perfectly filled in all those empty spots in the pan, and they have that color, that
20:39slight citrusy color.
20:41And they didn't unravel.
20:42They didn't.
20:42Phew.
20:43So, again, we're looking for an internal temperature of 195 degrees.
20:48Awesome.
20:48196.
20:49Perfect.
20:50Nice.
20:50Now, these need to cool in the pan on the wire rack for 30 minutes.
20:54Okay.
20:55Now, while those cool, I'm going to make a glaze.
20:57Mmm.
20:58So, I'm going to add a quarter cup of some heavy cream, some sugar.
21:03I've got a quarter cup of granulated sugar, two tablespoons of orange juice, two tablespoons
21:09more of the softened, unsalted butter, and then finally, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt.
21:15Over medium heat, I'm going to bring this to a boil.
21:18So, I'm going to let this cook for about four minutes until some large bubbles begin to appear.
21:23All right.
21:24So, as you can see, the mixture is just starting to get slightly thickened, and then we're just
21:28looking for some slow, lazy bubbles.
21:32Mmm.
21:32That's it.
21:33That's it.
21:34All right.
21:35It's been 30 very long minutes, and these are nice and cool now.
21:39So, I'm just going to tip this over because I want to remove the parchment from earlier.
21:44Very smart.
21:46Oh, that released a whole new aroma into the air of orange and sugar and butter.
21:52It totally did.
21:52And those smell good.
21:54Mm-hmm.
21:55And now, I'm just going to glaze all of the rolls very generously with this delicious butter
22:01cream mixture.
22:04You're not holding back with this glaze, Ash.
22:07I love it.
22:07No way.
22:08Not on my watch.
22:09I'm going to go through and make sure we get all that glaze all around.
22:14I'm just going to use this offset spatula just to help me-
22:17Loosen it up?
22:18Loosen her up there.
22:22Oh, yes.
22:24You can smell the orange in the air.
22:26I mean, that is just incredible.
22:30All right.
22:31Are you an outer or an inner kind of roll?
22:33I'm a yes.
22:34Yeah?
22:34Yeah.
22:40Mm-hmm.
22:41That's really good.
22:42Really good.
22:44Buttery, orangey, not too sweet, which sometimes these can be really sweet.
22:49Mm-hmm.
22:49And I love that delicate balance.
22:51It's really not too sweet.
22:53Mm-hmm.
22:53I guess there really wasn't much sugar in the dough itself.
22:55Right.
22:56Mm-hmm.
22:57I'm going in for the middle.
22:58I love the middle.
22:59The orange flavor is spot on.
23:02You taste orange, but it's not bitter.
23:04It's not sour.
23:05It's just fragrant.
23:06Mm-hmm.
23:07And the glaze.
23:08Mm-hmm.
23:08It's a really mild, buttery flavor.
23:12A little bit of sweetness, a little bit of orange.
23:14But more importantly, it keeps the rolls moist so they don't taste dry on the outside.
23:18Ashley, these are delicious.
23:21Oh, my pleasure.
23:22If you want to make these incredible orange rolls, start by making a rich orange-flavored
23:28dough using cream, butter, and orange juice.
23:30Roll the dough up around an orange zest and sugar filling and drizzle with a cooked orange
23:36glaze from Cook's Country, a simple and delicious recipe for Alabama orange rolls.
23:42You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our product reviews
23:46and select episodes at our website, cookscountry.com slash TV.
23:52I seem to have eaten all my rolls.
23:54Should we get another round?
23:55Yeah, I think we need another round.
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