How to cook... a southern breakfast

June 19, 2014

This month, Stacey Little, author of the Southern Bitecookbook and blog, teaches us how to whip up a hearty southern breakfast or a sweet snack from his native Alabama. "As a true southerner coming from a long line of amazing cooks, I delight in sharing southern food with people," says Stacey. "Southern food isn’t about fancy ingredients and expensive kitchen gadgets. It’s about the resourceful use of local, fresh ingredients and combining that with a little ingenuity to feed our hungry families. "In the south, we celebrate everything with food: birthdays, anniversaries, funerals and football games. It’s just one of the many ways a southerner expresses love to another person. We feed them." Read on for some of Stacey's favourite recipes, or read about our food columnist Wendell Steavenson's adventures at the Kentucky Derby. Cheese gritsGrits are a ground-corn based porridge of Native American origin, commonly eaten for breakfast in the southern states of the USA. They're hard to find in the UK but you can order them cheaply online. If you can find quick-cooking grits to save yourself a bit of time, all the better. "Grits are probably one of my favourite breakfast foods," says Stacey. "I remember eating them as far back as my mind will let me. On cold winter mornings, my Mom would put a bowl of steaming grits with crumbled sausage in front of me to get me that 'right start' for the school day. Now, my little guy is a grits fan too. The morning I made these cheese grits, he ate a whole bowl by his one-year-old self."

Prep: 5 minutesCooking: 20 to 30 minutesIngredients 5 1/3 cups water 1 1/3 cups quick cooking grits 1 1/2 tsp salt 85g cream cheese 2 tbs butter 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese Directions 1. Bring water and salt to boil on medium high heat. 2. Add grits slowly, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. 3. Reduce heat to low and cover. 4. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until desired tenderness and consistency. 5. Cut cream cheese into chunks and add into grits with cheese and butter. Stir until well blended. Tips "One of my favourite ways to eat grits is to crumble bacon or sausage in them," says Stacey. "Regular grit recipes tend not to include the cream cheese, so that can be eliminated if you want." Sweet cornbread muffins Cornbread is central to southern cooking: the National Cornbread Festival takes place annually in Tennessee. It is usually baked or fried and can be sweet or savoury. Like grits, cornbread can be traced back to Native American cuisine. "These muffins are sweet, tasty, and easy to get on the table quickly, which is probably the best part," says Stacey.    

Prep: 10 minutesCooking: 15 minutes

Ingredients 2/3 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal 4 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 egg 1/4 cup milk

Instructions 1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 2. Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium size bowl. 3. Add oil, egg, and milk. Stir until lumps are gone. 4. Pour into a greased muffin pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Deep fried pecan pies"Us southerners know some pastries," says Stacey. "And when it comes to classic southern pastries, pies top the list. There’s not another southern pie quite like the pecan pie... To kick it up a notch, I've turned them into hand-pies and deep fried them. This is true decadence."     Prep: 30 minutes Cooking: 15 minutesIngredients 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 1/2 cup light corn syrup 2 large eggs 5 tablespoons butter 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 cups chopped pecans 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 800g ready-rolled shortcrust pastry (Stacey uses Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts, but you probably won't be able to find them in the UK) Vegetable oil for frying Icing sugar Instructions 1. In a medium-sized saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, eggs, butter and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce the heat to a simmer and stir in the pecans. Simmer for about 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. 2. Bring the pastry to room temperature. Unroll a sheet on a lightly floured surface and cut circles using a 4-inch circle cutter. Re-roll the dough and repeat until all of the dough has been used. You should end up with about 24 circles. 3. Place a heaped tablespoon of the pecan filling mixture in the centre of a pie crust circle. Lightly moisten the edges of the crust with water, then fold the crust over, crimping the edges with a dinner fork. Repeat the process until all of the pie crusts have been used. 4. Heat about 1 inch oil in the bottom of a deep, heavy-based pan to 175 degrees Celsius. Fry the pies in batches for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels then lightly dust with icing sugar. Serve warm.

Read moreProspect's food columnist Wendell Steavenson enjoys some southern cooking and more than a few mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby