The Mind of a Chef (2012) s02e07 Episode Script
Low Country BBQ
1 In this episode, Sean Brock invites his friends to a barbecue on Wadmalaw Island in Charleston, South Carolina.
Pit master Rodney Scott roasts a whole Ossabaw hog.
Sometimes it rains on your parade, huh? At this point you don't consider it rain, you consider it liquid sunshine.
Chef Steven Satterfield cooks Savannah red rice.
The dish is like 300 years old.
Yeah.
That's perfect.
And Chef Mike Lata makes a South Carolina classic, frogmore stew.
These are so fresh and so tender, I could eat 'em raw, man.
Holy cow, that looks incredible! Enter The Mind of a Chef.
My favorite thing about Charleston is the Barrier Islands the people who are living a very rural lifestyle, the way that I grew up.
Wadmalaw Island is a barrier island that was formed in the middle of the 17th century.
It's certainly one of my favorite places in the entire world.
There's just something about the air out there, the silence out there.
There's no buildings or construction or stores or gas stations.
It's farmland.
Makes me just wanna cook.
Just going out there period is the most calming and relaxing thing I can do.
But going out there and throwing a party? I mean, those are like the moments you never forget.
In the low country, any excuse we can find to throw an outdoor party, we're gonna do it.
When I first came to Charleston, I started hearing all these stories about this lady named Celeste Albers.
Everything that she does is the best.
Whether it's pig and onion and egg, it doesn't matter.
She puts so much care and effort into it that it's gonna be the best thing you ever had.
Hey, Sean! The unveiling.
The unveiling.
Beautiful, look at that fat little thing.
Yeah, this is Penelope's daughter, the granddaughter of our first sow.
Petunia's granddaughter.
These days, Celeste is trying to restore this breed called Ossabaw.
There really aren't that many Ossabaw in the area.
They're hard to find.
When I met one, I just fell in love with them.
I love the way they look, I love their personality.
Hi, sweetie.
They are happy when they're allowed to do their own thing.
They get so much enjoyment out of life.
Come on, Penelope! Come on out here.
We wanna help keep them going.
So this is really one of the most important pig breeds in America.
Yeah, they are descended from pigs left by the Spanish on Ossabaw Island off of Georgia.
In the 1500s, right? Mm-hmm.
They are descendants of Iberian pigs, and they went from being a really big, domesticated pig to a small feral pig.
And they still have all their instincts.
That's what I love about them.
They act like a pig.
They're very fast.
People throughout time would go to the island and catch them and bring them home to raise.
Just the redneck country folks did that, you know, and then the chefs started to find out that, "Wait a minute, these pigs are really good.
" The Ossabaw pig is just amazing by itself as a breed.
What she does is she takes all of the leftover milk and eggs from her other operations, and that's what she feeds the animals.
And so you get this flavor in the meat and the fat, it's just so sweet and unbelievably delicious.
Hey, kids! Anybody hungry? You're hungry, aren't you, girlie? Come on, lunchtime! We feed them as much high-quality protein as we can, like an Atkins diet for pigs.
Our pigs are very attractive.
We lucked out and got a really pretty boar.
When you speak to her about animals and pigs, it's like a family member.
Come on, y'all.
See, this is Petunia.
I think she's getting a little stiff, aren't you, girl? Yeah, she's gonna have piglets probably tonight.
When you name them and you care for them from birth, you care about their day-to-day experience.
When someone says to me, "Oh, I don't wanna know the name," I say, "That's wrong, you really should know the name.
" Hey, big guy.
This is Bogie.
He's the big boar.
We know when an animal is born that that animal is gonna feed us.
You don't really appreciate life when you're so removed from death.
Bogart's the dad of all the babies.
And he weighs a ton, don't you, big guy? He's solid, solid, solid.
I think it brings a whole different perspective and a deeper appreciation.
I have so much respect for her.
She works harder than anybody I've ever met and cares more than anybody I've ever met, and you taste that in the food.
Every time you cook something from her, it's such an honor and privilege, all the chefs in town fight over her products.
I can't wait to eat this.
Thank you so much for bringing this.
I'm here with one of my best buds and heroes and certainly one of the most respected and well-known pit masters in the South, Rodney Scott, Scott's Bar-B-Que.
Aw shucks, you're making me turn pink.
My favorite barbecue.
The fat on these pigs has so much sugar in it, we call this pork cotton candy because when you eat it, it just melts instantly.
Fat is just so special.
It's like no other pig, really.
Take some of this off or leave it? Yeah, take some of the sugar out of here.
Wow, that's crazy.
Some articles were popping up about this guy in South Carolina that was cooking barbecue that was gonna save the world of barbecue.
I literally got in the car, drove an hour and a half from Charleston, and about half a mile out, you start to smell it.
And you walk in, and you've got one choice: barbecue.
I could not believe how amazing it was.
Today is gonna be a good day.
Yes, sir, it's gonna be a great day.
Rodney, you've been cooking pigs since you were 11 years old? Man, I don't even wanna tell you what I was doing when I was 11.
Wow, look at that.
Cook up a little something with this later.
Fried chicken with this, right? Look, it just melts.
That doesn't happen with any other pig.
Just a little split to let some heat penetrate down to the bottom of the hams.
You probably haven't changed the way you cook a pig your whole life.
Never.
Same way.
Well, it was the only way I knew.
If it works, it works.
If it ain't broke.
He does one thing every single day, and he does it better than anybody else in the world.
Your pops taught you how to do it, huh? Pops taught me how to do it, his uncle taught him.
Just like the river, we've been running ever since, man.
Can't get enough of it.
So you probably aren't used to such an amazing contraption as this one.
This is kinda like old-fashioned South crossed with what they call La Caja China box.
Let's put it on.
Belly side down.
Perfect fit.
Look at the fat on this thing, man.
Yeah.
That's not quite Not quite.
He works, though.
Yeah, that's what counts.
There's a very particular smell that comes from cooking wood down into embers and making your own charcoal and slow-cooking whole hogs, not shoulder.
What he does is go out in the forest and choose trees, cut them down himself, split them.
That's a ton of work.
I heard you say once it's like the chef going to the garden to pick out his tomatoes.
Yeah, exactly.
It's one of the major, major components.
I like white oak, hickory, pecan One of my favorites is live oak.
Something about that taste.
How we gonna light this thing? Paper.
Rodney, how about this? Wow.
That'll get it started.
I forgot I had it in my truck.
Is that legal? Oh, this is so dangerous.
That'll work, huh? Think we got something.
Now that's a fire.
So once we let it burn down and the wood coals fall, we take that, scoop it under the pig.
Everything is low: smoke is low, the heat is a little lower, and everything goes slow.
Nice and subtle because if you're cooking a pig for eight hours, you don't wanna blast it with smoke.
I love that you can smell that those coals put off a totally different flavor.
Starting to feel good in there.
So it's like 100 pound dressed.
So we put it in at noon, what's your guess? We're looking at about 7:00 before we actually sit down and eat.
That's a long time to wait.
Yeah.
Drink a few beers, tell a few lies.
That's the life of a pit master.
Getting ready for a big old party low country style, and Steven Satterfield was nice enough to join us from Atlanta.
I'm excited because I'm gonna see your version of Savannah red rice.
It's almost like the paella of the southeast, of the low country.
Well, the dish is like 300 years old.
This is one of those black skillet dishes that's passed down from generation to generation.
We're gonna do a fancier version with some andouille sausage and shrimp and okra.
I always start the pan with a little bacon fat and a little butter.
We're gonna sauté the rice in some fat.
That's a new technique for me, I like that.
It cooks the grains and helps keep them individual.
This is the Carolina gold.
So the pan's nice and hot, and I'm just gonna stir this around until the grains turn to more of an opaque color.
So it releases that aroma.
Yeah, this toasting of the rice really adds a layer of flavor on its own.
Not to mention the delicious smokiness and saltiness from the bacon fat.
This technique is awesome.
I'm stealing this for sure.
Okay, so we're gonna add the broth now.
So this broth is made up of onions and celery, tomato, some dried thyme.
I put a little bit of hot pepper vinegar in there because I like the acidity.
It's got a little bit of chili flake.
What we're gonna do is probably play with the heat, a little off, a little on, because we wanna get that nice crust on the bottom like paella.
But if you take it too far and it gets a little too burned, then it messes up the whole thing.
Let me just fashion a lid.
This is actually a true paella pan, and we're gonna use it as a lid.
The reverse.
It's the perfect lid.
So they always tell you in the old recipes that you never lift the lid.
Yeah, no peek.
You gotta trust your senses.
Listen, smell I'm not good at that, though.
What are you talking about? I'm just paranoid.
I have to.
So this is the part where we sit and wait.
Yup.
Where's that beer? So what I do with this version is I cook the shrimp and smoked sausage, usually andouille, a little sliced okra in some of the broth.
This is actually roe shrimp that is only in season for a couple of weeks, right? Yeah, it's a very short season.
It's extremely sought after, and all the chefs in town fight over it.
And basically, the shrimp are carrying the roe.
You can actually see it when you hold up the shrimp.
Yeah, yeah.
It's right there.
When you open it up here, you can see that roe.
Yeah.
This is like redneck umi.
Yeah, it is.
I'm gonna eat it raw.
Do it.
Mmm.
You gotta try it.
It has the same texture of umi.
Wow, it's really sweet.
Okay, we're gonna look, are you ready? I'm nervous.
Don't be nervous.
Dude.
You've done this before, my friend.
And then we're just gonna stir that together.
Gonna kinda like fluff the rice a little bit.
There's some nice sticky pieces on the bottom.
You nailed it, man, that's perfect! Holy cow.
And I like to garnish this with a little celery leaf and a little chives and scallion.
Doesn't that look amazing? Look at that.
Oh yeah, that's the best part.
Perfectly crispy this is the way I like okra.
Yeah, barely cooked.
I see a little bit of cooked right there, you see that? Oh my God.
You got the magic bite right there.
The rice crispies.
Still steaming.
God bless you.
It's fantastic.
All the nets are in the water And the plows are in the field May the ocean give her bounty And the crops bring heavy yield Where the roots are always center And the mouths are always fed On down through generations brought up on gingerbread.
Some people check the temperature around 200, 300.
I feel it.
So it's the rate that you wanna hear that sizzle, right? Yes, kind of like a rhythm.
If you just get the constant drip and sizzle like that.
Yeah.
That's my new cologne right there.
This pig was raised right.
We'll shut her down, trap the heat back in.
Now, the shrimp boat's in the harbor And the tractor's in the barn And they brought in Neptune's harvest And it's quiet on the farm Out on Wadmalaw Island going out to Thackeray Where the feast that's on the table Is always sure to please.
Sometimes it rains on your parade, huh? Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Ready? Yeah.
Right.
Yeah! Oh my God.
Look at that.
That's awesome.
That's an Ossabaw.
Look at that fat on there.
Look at that color.
Oh, dude, it's perfect.
Yes.
Mmm! It's not always sunshine and perfect weather in Charleston.
You know, living on the coast, we have lots of hurricanes and lots of storms, and they come out of nowhere and shock everybody.
You're starting to get excited about the low country boil and all these other things and everybody showing up, and all of a sudden, it just breaks loose.
It happens sometimes, but what are you gonna do? Tell everybody to go home and go home hungry? No way.
You figure it out, you put a raincoat on, you get an umbrella, cook that pig, you find some shelter.
You're gonna have to do more than that to keep us from having a party.
You're gonna have to do more than rain on us.
Right here is where I like to break everything down a little bit.
Break 'em up.
Oh man.
Been cooking six or seven hours, nice and slow.
Take a little bit of salt to go down the middle.
You wanna go heavy in the spine, hams and shoulders.
Dust the rib area simply because it's thinner.
This right here is a family blend of seasonings.
Some red pepper, black pepper, and some love.
Mmm.
Light coating of that.
Man, the fat on this pig is so delicious, so sweet.
This pig got a lot of love in his life.
Oh my God.
Put some coal under there? We definitely wanna get it a little hotter.
Best done in a highly flammable rain suit.
Yes.
Yeah, there we go.
This is my favorite part right here.
Oh, I love this part.
I like to start at the thicker areas first, kind of work my way back.
There's that sizzling sound you wanna hear.
We still got some warriors over there.
Those people are smart.
They've been waiting on this pig all day.
Definitely can feed them.
There's something romantic about eating in the rain.
See at this point, you don't consider it rain, you consider it liquid sunshine, natural flavor.
Oh my God, that looks good.
You gotta be careful not to puncture that skin.
Yeah, you don't wanna do that.
Got a grease fire going then.
Yeah, spreadin' the love, spreadin' the love.
Spread that.
Let's close it up.
We're here on a beautiful sunny day with my buddy Mike Lata of FIG and The Ordinary here in Charleston.
I appreciate you weathering the storm.
This makes it fun though, man.
It makes me hungry.
Yes.
So Mike's gonna make a very classic dish called frogmore stew.
Yeah, we're gonna keep it pretty simple.
That's the beauty of this kind of cooking, I think, right? The more complicated you make it, the less beer you can drink and the more you stress out.
So I'm not diverting too far from the real version which, as I understand it, has to have shrimp, sausage and corn.
We add potatoes to it, semi-traditionally, you see that quite often.
And we put some zucchini in there just to give you a little variety.
The beauty of this dish, you put it all in one pot, lift it out, dump it on the table.
It's go time.
I love it.
Well, first we're gonna make the broth and we're gonna start by adding a good dose of Old Bay.
Probably got four gallons of water in here, and I'm gonna put the better part of three cups of Old Bay in it.
So do you wanna put that flame up real quick? Yup.
Ready? Woo! Yeah.
Top Gun style.
This would not have been as much fun if it was beautiful outside.
Gotta keep telling yourself this.
How many lemons you want? I got four right here.
Maybe five? First in are the potatoes.
We'll let those simmer for 20 or 30 minutes until they're "pierce with a fork" tender.
As each ingredient takes a different amount of time to cook, you just keep adding it at the appropriate amount of time.
So that's why the potatoes go in first.
That's kind of the secret.
All right, so let's check the potatoes.
These new crop potatoes cook pretty quick.
I'm thinking 10, 12 minutes? Let's go ahead and add the sausage.
Andouille is traditional.
And I'll add the corn, too.
I think the corn might be my favorite thing.
Yeah.
Dip it in that butter, wow.
All right, so the only thing left is the shrimp.
The roe shrimp season here is very, very short.
Down here, the shrimp, you know, that's our religion, so the timing couldn't be better.
I think it's one of the things that comes out of the low country that's probably top of my favorite list.
The texture is so perfect.
I think they're the best-tasting shrimp in the world.
All right, so we're getting close.
I would trade that for any white tablecloth experience, huh? Exactly, man.
Oh! Okay, so let's go with the zucchini.
And then all the shrimp.
So now these shrimp, we put all this stuff in, you're looking at cooling the water down a little bit, but let's just stand over it and make sure that we don't overcook them.
This is the critical point.
Oh my Lord.
These are so fresh and so tender.
You could eat 'em raw, man.
That looks incredible, doesn't it? Holy cow, that looks incredible.
Oh man.
All right, buddy, it's go time.
Let's do it.
Need a hand? Maybe, I don't know, this could be like 60 pounds.
Look at you grabbing the back side, that's the easy part.
Okay.
All right.
Holy cow.
So we do this at the end too, we just take some fresh lemon juice, go over the top.
Geez.
And then just a little bit more Old Bay? Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.
Hit it with that mop? We can hit it again.
Awesome, man, so what's next? We can bone 'em out.
Gonna make some happy dogs right there.
Oh, yeah.
See how easy that came out? Oh, yeah, love it.
That's when you know it's done.
You just pull the bone right out.
Irresistible, huh? Oh my God.
So if someone said to you you're only allowed to grab from one spot, what's it gonna be? The rib area.
Right here, just below the shoulder.
That's my spot there.
Oh man, look at that piece right there.
Oh, wow.
Mmm.
Look how moist the loin is.
You never see that on a loin.
Never.
It's so cool to be able to serve it to the people that raised it.
It's more than just food at that point.
Has more meaning.
A lot of meaning.
Let's eat! Don't be shy.
I'm not gonna be.
Look how juicy that is.
Cooking outdoors, it's just the coolest thing.
Oh my God! Just throw everything out on tables, everybody lets their guard down.
You got a beer in a koozie in your hands.
Mmm.
Oh my God.
These are beautiful, aren't they? And you're just eating like crazy.
To me, that's my favorite kind of party.
Rodney, you did it perfect.
People that came to that party will never forget that.
They'll talk about it forever, and that's what's so cool about it.
That's how memories are formed, that's how relationships are formed, and that's how communities stay together.
In the South, we certainly have a celebratory way about life.
You know, it's embedded in you.
You have to have parties and share food.
You just have to.
You'll go crazy if you don't.
That's beautiful.
Pit master Rodney Scott roasts a whole Ossabaw hog.
Sometimes it rains on your parade, huh? At this point you don't consider it rain, you consider it liquid sunshine.
Chef Steven Satterfield cooks Savannah red rice.
The dish is like 300 years old.
Yeah.
That's perfect.
And Chef Mike Lata makes a South Carolina classic, frogmore stew.
These are so fresh and so tender, I could eat 'em raw, man.
Holy cow, that looks incredible! Enter The Mind of a Chef.
My favorite thing about Charleston is the Barrier Islands the people who are living a very rural lifestyle, the way that I grew up.
Wadmalaw Island is a barrier island that was formed in the middle of the 17th century.
It's certainly one of my favorite places in the entire world.
There's just something about the air out there, the silence out there.
There's no buildings or construction or stores or gas stations.
It's farmland.
Makes me just wanna cook.
Just going out there period is the most calming and relaxing thing I can do.
But going out there and throwing a party? I mean, those are like the moments you never forget.
In the low country, any excuse we can find to throw an outdoor party, we're gonna do it.
When I first came to Charleston, I started hearing all these stories about this lady named Celeste Albers.
Everything that she does is the best.
Whether it's pig and onion and egg, it doesn't matter.
She puts so much care and effort into it that it's gonna be the best thing you ever had.
Hey, Sean! The unveiling.
The unveiling.
Beautiful, look at that fat little thing.
Yeah, this is Penelope's daughter, the granddaughter of our first sow.
Petunia's granddaughter.
These days, Celeste is trying to restore this breed called Ossabaw.
There really aren't that many Ossabaw in the area.
They're hard to find.
When I met one, I just fell in love with them.
I love the way they look, I love their personality.
Hi, sweetie.
They are happy when they're allowed to do their own thing.
They get so much enjoyment out of life.
Come on, Penelope! Come on out here.
We wanna help keep them going.
So this is really one of the most important pig breeds in America.
Yeah, they are descended from pigs left by the Spanish on Ossabaw Island off of Georgia.
In the 1500s, right? Mm-hmm.
They are descendants of Iberian pigs, and they went from being a really big, domesticated pig to a small feral pig.
And they still have all their instincts.
That's what I love about them.
They act like a pig.
They're very fast.
People throughout time would go to the island and catch them and bring them home to raise.
Just the redneck country folks did that, you know, and then the chefs started to find out that, "Wait a minute, these pigs are really good.
" The Ossabaw pig is just amazing by itself as a breed.
What she does is she takes all of the leftover milk and eggs from her other operations, and that's what she feeds the animals.
And so you get this flavor in the meat and the fat, it's just so sweet and unbelievably delicious.
Hey, kids! Anybody hungry? You're hungry, aren't you, girlie? Come on, lunchtime! We feed them as much high-quality protein as we can, like an Atkins diet for pigs.
Our pigs are very attractive.
We lucked out and got a really pretty boar.
When you speak to her about animals and pigs, it's like a family member.
Come on, y'all.
See, this is Petunia.
I think she's getting a little stiff, aren't you, girl? Yeah, she's gonna have piglets probably tonight.
When you name them and you care for them from birth, you care about their day-to-day experience.
When someone says to me, "Oh, I don't wanna know the name," I say, "That's wrong, you really should know the name.
" Hey, big guy.
This is Bogie.
He's the big boar.
We know when an animal is born that that animal is gonna feed us.
You don't really appreciate life when you're so removed from death.
Bogart's the dad of all the babies.
And he weighs a ton, don't you, big guy? He's solid, solid, solid.
I think it brings a whole different perspective and a deeper appreciation.
I have so much respect for her.
She works harder than anybody I've ever met and cares more than anybody I've ever met, and you taste that in the food.
Every time you cook something from her, it's such an honor and privilege, all the chefs in town fight over her products.
I can't wait to eat this.
Thank you so much for bringing this.
I'm here with one of my best buds and heroes and certainly one of the most respected and well-known pit masters in the South, Rodney Scott, Scott's Bar-B-Que.
Aw shucks, you're making me turn pink.
My favorite barbecue.
The fat on these pigs has so much sugar in it, we call this pork cotton candy because when you eat it, it just melts instantly.
Fat is just so special.
It's like no other pig, really.
Take some of this off or leave it? Yeah, take some of the sugar out of here.
Wow, that's crazy.
Some articles were popping up about this guy in South Carolina that was cooking barbecue that was gonna save the world of barbecue.
I literally got in the car, drove an hour and a half from Charleston, and about half a mile out, you start to smell it.
And you walk in, and you've got one choice: barbecue.
I could not believe how amazing it was.
Today is gonna be a good day.
Yes, sir, it's gonna be a great day.
Rodney, you've been cooking pigs since you were 11 years old? Man, I don't even wanna tell you what I was doing when I was 11.
Wow, look at that.
Cook up a little something with this later.
Fried chicken with this, right? Look, it just melts.
That doesn't happen with any other pig.
Just a little split to let some heat penetrate down to the bottom of the hams.
You probably haven't changed the way you cook a pig your whole life.
Never.
Same way.
Well, it was the only way I knew.
If it works, it works.
If it ain't broke.
He does one thing every single day, and he does it better than anybody else in the world.
Your pops taught you how to do it, huh? Pops taught me how to do it, his uncle taught him.
Just like the river, we've been running ever since, man.
Can't get enough of it.
So you probably aren't used to such an amazing contraption as this one.
This is kinda like old-fashioned South crossed with what they call La Caja China box.
Let's put it on.
Belly side down.
Perfect fit.
Look at the fat on this thing, man.
Yeah.
That's not quite Not quite.
He works, though.
Yeah, that's what counts.
There's a very particular smell that comes from cooking wood down into embers and making your own charcoal and slow-cooking whole hogs, not shoulder.
What he does is go out in the forest and choose trees, cut them down himself, split them.
That's a ton of work.
I heard you say once it's like the chef going to the garden to pick out his tomatoes.
Yeah, exactly.
It's one of the major, major components.
I like white oak, hickory, pecan One of my favorites is live oak.
Something about that taste.
How we gonna light this thing? Paper.
Rodney, how about this? Wow.
That'll get it started.
I forgot I had it in my truck.
Is that legal? Oh, this is so dangerous.
That'll work, huh? Think we got something.
Now that's a fire.
So once we let it burn down and the wood coals fall, we take that, scoop it under the pig.
Everything is low: smoke is low, the heat is a little lower, and everything goes slow.
Nice and subtle because if you're cooking a pig for eight hours, you don't wanna blast it with smoke.
I love that you can smell that those coals put off a totally different flavor.
Starting to feel good in there.
So it's like 100 pound dressed.
So we put it in at noon, what's your guess? We're looking at about 7:00 before we actually sit down and eat.
That's a long time to wait.
Yeah.
Drink a few beers, tell a few lies.
That's the life of a pit master.
Getting ready for a big old party low country style, and Steven Satterfield was nice enough to join us from Atlanta.
I'm excited because I'm gonna see your version of Savannah red rice.
It's almost like the paella of the southeast, of the low country.
Well, the dish is like 300 years old.
This is one of those black skillet dishes that's passed down from generation to generation.
We're gonna do a fancier version with some andouille sausage and shrimp and okra.
I always start the pan with a little bacon fat and a little butter.
We're gonna sauté the rice in some fat.
That's a new technique for me, I like that.
It cooks the grains and helps keep them individual.
This is the Carolina gold.
So the pan's nice and hot, and I'm just gonna stir this around until the grains turn to more of an opaque color.
So it releases that aroma.
Yeah, this toasting of the rice really adds a layer of flavor on its own.
Not to mention the delicious smokiness and saltiness from the bacon fat.
This technique is awesome.
I'm stealing this for sure.
Okay, so we're gonna add the broth now.
So this broth is made up of onions and celery, tomato, some dried thyme.
I put a little bit of hot pepper vinegar in there because I like the acidity.
It's got a little bit of chili flake.
What we're gonna do is probably play with the heat, a little off, a little on, because we wanna get that nice crust on the bottom like paella.
But if you take it too far and it gets a little too burned, then it messes up the whole thing.
Let me just fashion a lid.
This is actually a true paella pan, and we're gonna use it as a lid.
The reverse.
It's the perfect lid.
So they always tell you in the old recipes that you never lift the lid.
Yeah, no peek.
You gotta trust your senses.
Listen, smell I'm not good at that, though.
What are you talking about? I'm just paranoid.
I have to.
So this is the part where we sit and wait.
Yup.
Where's that beer? So what I do with this version is I cook the shrimp and smoked sausage, usually andouille, a little sliced okra in some of the broth.
This is actually roe shrimp that is only in season for a couple of weeks, right? Yeah, it's a very short season.
It's extremely sought after, and all the chefs in town fight over it.
And basically, the shrimp are carrying the roe.
You can actually see it when you hold up the shrimp.
Yeah, yeah.
It's right there.
When you open it up here, you can see that roe.
Yeah.
This is like redneck umi.
Yeah, it is.
I'm gonna eat it raw.
Do it.
Mmm.
You gotta try it.
It has the same texture of umi.
Wow, it's really sweet.
Okay, we're gonna look, are you ready? I'm nervous.
Don't be nervous.
Dude.
You've done this before, my friend.
And then we're just gonna stir that together.
Gonna kinda like fluff the rice a little bit.
There's some nice sticky pieces on the bottom.
You nailed it, man, that's perfect! Holy cow.
And I like to garnish this with a little celery leaf and a little chives and scallion.
Doesn't that look amazing? Look at that.
Oh yeah, that's the best part.
Perfectly crispy this is the way I like okra.
Yeah, barely cooked.
I see a little bit of cooked right there, you see that? Oh my God.
You got the magic bite right there.
The rice crispies.
Still steaming.
God bless you.
It's fantastic.
All the nets are in the water And the plows are in the field May the ocean give her bounty And the crops bring heavy yield Where the roots are always center And the mouths are always fed On down through generations brought up on gingerbread.
Some people check the temperature around 200, 300.
I feel it.
So it's the rate that you wanna hear that sizzle, right? Yes, kind of like a rhythm.
If you just get the constant drip and sizzle like that.
Yeah.
That's my new cologne right there.
This pig was raised right.
We'll shut her down, trap the heat back in.
Now, the shrimp boat's in the harbor And the tractor's in the barn And they brought in Neptune's harvest And it's quiet on the farm Out on Wadmalaw Island going out to Thackeray Where the feast that's on the table Is always sure to please.
Sometimes it rains on your parade, huh? Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Ready? Yeah.
Right.
Yeah! Oh my God.
Look at that.
That's awesome.
That's an Ossabaw.
Look at that fat on there.
Look at that color.
Oh, dude, it's perfect.
Yes.
Mmm! It's not always sunshine and perfect weather in Charleston.
You know, living on the coast, we have lots of hurricanes and lots of storms, and they come out of nowhere and shock everybody.
You're starting to get excited about the low country boil and all these other things and everybody showing up, and all of a sudden, it just breaks loose.
It happens sometimes, but what are you gonna do? Tell everybody to go home and go home hungry? No way.
You figure it out, you put a raincoat on, you get an umbrella, cook that pig, you find some shelter.
You're gonna have to do more than that to keep us from having a party.
You're gonna have to do more than rain on us.
Right here is where I like to break everything down a little bit.
Break 'em up.
Oh man.
Been cooking six or seven hours, nice and slow.
Take a little bit of salt to go down the middle.
You wanna go heavy in the spine, hams and shoulders.
Dust the rib area simply because it's thinner.
This right here is a family blend of seasonings.
Some red pepper, black pepper, and some love.
Mmm.
Light coating of that.
Man, the fat on this pig is so delicious, so sweet.
This pig got a lot of love in his life.
Oh my God.
Put some coal under there? We definitely wanna get it a little hotter.
Best done in a highly flammable rain suit.
Yes.
Yeah, there we go.
This is my favorite part right here.
Oh, I love this part.
I like to start at the thicker areas first, kind of work my way back.
There's that sizzling sound you wanna hear.
We still got some warriors over there.
Those people are smart.
They've been waiting on this pig all day.
Definitely can feed them.
There's something romantic about eating in the rain.
See at this point, you don't consider it rain, you consider it liquid sunshine, natural flavor.
Oh my God, that looks good.
You gotta be careful not to puncture that skin.
Yeah, you don't wanna do that.
Got a grease fire going then.
Yeah, spreadin' the love, spreadin' the love.
Spread that.
Let's close it up.
We're here on a beautiful sunny day with my buddy Mike Lata of FIG and The Ordinary here in Charleston.
I appreciate you weathering the storm.
This makes it fun though, man.
It makes me hungry.
Yes.
So Mike's gonna make a very classic dish called frogmore stew.
Yeah, we're gonna keep it pretty simple.
That's the beauty of this kind of cooking, I think, right? The more complicated you make it, the less beer you can drink and the more you stress out.
So I'm not diverting too far from the real version which, as I understand it, has to have shrimp, sausage and corn.
We add potatoes to it, semi-traditionally, you see that quite often.
And we put some zucchini in there just to give you a little variety.
The beauty of this dish, you put it all in one pot, lift it out, dump it on the table.
It's go time.
I love it.
Well, first we're gonna make the broth and we're gonna start by adding a good dose of Old Bay.
Probably got four gallons of water in here, and I'm gonna put the better part of three cups of Old Bay in it.
So do you wanna put that flame up real quick? Yup.
Ready? Woo! Yeah.
Top Gun style.
This would not have been as much fun if it was beautiful outside.
Gotta keep telling yourself this.
How many lemons you want? I got four right here.
Maybe five? First in are the potatoes.
We'll let those simmer for 20 or 30 minutes until they're "pierce with a fork" tender.
As each ingredient takes a different amount of time to cook, you just keep adding it at the appropriate amount of time.
So that's why the potatoes go in first.
That's kind of the secret.
All right, so let's check the potatoes.
These new crop potatoes cook pretty quick.
I'm thinking 10, 12 minutes? Let's go ahead and add the sausage.
Andouille is traditional.
And I'll add the corn, too.
I think the corn might be my favorite thing.
Yeah.
Dip it in that butter, wow.
All right, so the only thing left is the shrimp.
The roe shrimp season here is very, very short.
Down here, the shrimp, you know, that's our religion, so the timing couldn't be better.
I think it's one of the things that comes out of the low country that's probably top of my favorite list.
The texture is so perfect.
I think they're the best-tasting shrimp in the world.
All right, so we're getting close.
I would trade that for any white tablecloth experience, huh? Exactly, man.
Oh! Okay, so let's go with the zucchini.
And then all the shrimp.
So now these shrimp, we put all this stuff in, you're looking at cooling the water down a little bit, but let's just stand over it and make sure that we don't overcook them.
This is the critical point.
Oh my Lord.
These are so fresh and so tender.
You could eat 'em raw, man.
That looks incredible, doesn't it? Holy cow, that looks incredible.
Oh man.
All right, buddy, it's go time.
Let's do it.
Need a hand? Maybe, I don't know, this could be like 60 pounds.
Look at you grabbing the back side, that's the easy part.
Okay.
All right.
Holy cow.
So we do this at the end too, we just take some fresh lemon juice, go over the top.
Geez.
And then just a little bit more Old Bay? Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.
Hit it with that mop? We can hit it again.
Awesome, man, so what's next? We can bone 'em out.
Gonna make some happy dogs right there.
Oh, yeah.
See how easy that came out? Oh, yeah, love it.
That's when you know it's done.
You just pull the bone right out.
Irresistible, huh? Oh my God.
So if someone said to you you're only allowed to grab from one spot, what's it gonna be? The rib area.
Right here, just below the shoulder.
That's my spot there.
Oh man, look at that piece right there.
Oh, wow.
Mmm.
Look how moist the loin is.
You never see that on a loin.
Never.
It's so cool to be able to serve it to the people that raised it.
It's more than just food at that point.
Has more meaning.
A lot of meaning.
Let's eat! Don't be shy.
I'm not gonna be.
Look how juicy that is.
Cooking outdoors, it's just the coolest thing.
Oh my God! Just throw everything out on tables, everybody lets their guard down.
You got a beer in a koozie in your hands.
Mmm.
Oh my God.
These are beautiful, aren't they? And you're just eating like crazy.
To me, that's my favorite kind of party.
Rodney, you did it perfect.
People that came to that party will never forget that.
They'll talk about it forever, and that's what's so cool about it.
That's how memories are formed, that's how relationships are formed, and that's how communities stay together.
In the South, we certainly have a celebratory way about life.
You know, it's embedded in you.
You have to have parties and share food.
You just have to.
You'll go crazy if you don't.
That's beautiful.