The Lee Bros. Southern Cook Book by Matt and Ted Lee

Recipes

A New Ambrosia

Ambrosia is the name of a cold, sweet, chunky salad found in most southern cafeterias. We've reinvented it from top to bottom.

The original ambrosia calls for canned tangerine segments, canned pineapple chunks, mini-marshmallows, shredded coconut, and mayonnaise. It is bracingly sweet, but we often find it served, bizarrely enough, as a side dish with the main course, which seems out of whack - a salad created for someone who'd rather eat dessert first. But the idea of "a food for the gods" - a cool, creamy salad that isn't coleslaw - appeals greatly to us, so we fiddled with the elements and came up with something new. read more & see recipe »

Frogmore Stew

Come October in the South Carolina lowcountry, when the shrimp season overlaps high blue crab season, it's time to make Frogmore Stew!

Named for Frogmore, South Carolina, a town of about ten thousand people in the low-lying wetlands between Beaufort and St. Helena Island, this stew quite literally seems to have emerged from the marshes: it puts shrimp and crab front-and-center, and it's often served by outdoorsy characters, at hunting stations, fish shacks, and boatyards. And more than any other stew, Frogmore (which is also sometimes referred to as Lowcountry Boil) lives up to the spirit of one-pot dining, with whole, shell-on shrimp, split crabs, corn-on-the-cob, and smoked sausages bobbing around in a richly-concentrated shellfish broth. read more & see recipe »

Red Velvet Cake

Red velvet cake is a mellow chocolate cake with an intense red color. A white cream cheese icing is traditional, preferably applied with such care that when you cut it, the cake's redness is a surprise. read more & see recipe »