(upbeat electronic and orchestral music) - Hi, and welcome to Connections.

I'm P.A.

Bennett.

You too can prepare savory and delicious meals.

Meals made up the type dishes that make our southern taste buds jump for joy.

On this edition of Connections, we're traveling from the low country to the Piedmont to bring you the best South Carolina has to offer.

And have you ever wanted to make and eat a gingerbread house?

Well, stay tuned because this is your opportunity to learn how.

But first up in studio with us is the Gullah lady herself from Mount Pleasant and the Gullah Island Cuisine restaurant, Miss Charlotte Jenkins.

Ms. Jenkins, thank you so much for being with us today.

- I'm happy to be here today.

- I am so excited because nu-number one, I love low country food and number two, you the best person in the world to teach us how to prepare a delicious dish from the low country.

Now, what are we making today?

- We are making the Gullah stew chicken.

- And tell us the ingredients in the Gullah stew chicken because there are a lot of folk out there who wanna know.

- Okay.

The ingredients in the Gullah stew chicken is, you have your seasoning of salt and pepper, savory and thyme, garlic, fresh garlic, I like to use fresh garlic, gives it a good flavor, onions, carrots, and then, you know, we-flour.

- Yeah.

And I see your oil over there too.

- And the oil, yeah.

- So now with the seasonings, about how much?

Are we talking about a few teaspoons or-?

- Okay, on the seasoning with the salt and peppers, mostly to taste.

- Okay.

- But you can start with like a fourth teaspoon of salt and pepper.

And on your spices, like the savory and the thyme you'd wanna do a, a teaspoon.

- Now, one of the things I do wanna ask you, not many of us, at least I haven't, but then I'm not a cook, but the savory, where do we get savory from?

- Well, savory is you, you, you can really buy it because it's not this, you can grow.

Mostly it's, it's grown, not, well, not here in the low country, but it's-it's- it's leaves and it's-you dry-it's dried, and then the serve, like, then you use it like, I could use thyme or oregano.

- So we could easily find it in the grocery store.

- Oh, definitely.

- Okay.

So it's not something that's unusual.

- No, no.

It's not unusual.

- So what's the step, the first step?

- Okay the first step you would do is you have salt and pepper.

And I'm gonna, normally, I would- it's always good to rub your seasoning in, but I'm not prepared today.

I didn't bring my gloves.

So I'll just- I will use, you know, a fork- And then once I, I season it with all of the- I can rub it together like that.

- Okay.

- You just have to maneuver with it.

- So you put your salt and pepper on first.

- Salt and pepper on first.

- Okay.

- And then, so you can just, you can rub it in like that.

- Okay.

- And then I'm gonna sprinkle a little flour that's gonna give the browning effect.

So I'll sprinkle a little flour on it.

And also this flour would be as a thickening agent, you know, like, you know, you- sometime when you do a stew, you might want a thick stew, but this is- this stew is not thickened because you'll have your vegetable in it and it's,-it's just will be- - Just enough, just sprinkling on both sides.

- Yes.

Sprinkling on both sides.

- And you're gonna need, do you need a whole cup or half a cup, about how much you think you'll need?

- On this or the flour?

And you, you just, you need about the, well, if you're doing a whole chicken and that's that you'll get, and you cut it up in quarters, that'll be about eight pieces.

So you would use a half a cup of flour.

- Okay, so for eight pieces, a half cup of flour.

Okay.

We've, we've, we've floured it.

- Mmhmm.

Now we gonna put the oil in the pan.

- Okay.

- And let's hope this is hot enough.

Yeah.

It looks like it's getting ready to crystallize.

Okay.

We're gonna put this in and we gonna sear this for about, yeah, four to five-I'm sorry, three to four minutes.

- Okay.

- And actually we just want it to brown.

- Oh, so searing is actually browning.

You're not trying to cook it totally.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

But you, so I use the word searing because of the fact that searing is sealing the juice in the meat or chicken or whatever you prepare.

- Okay.

- So see that's, And- - And so to sear it, about how long does it take to sear it?

- I would, I would give four minutes on each side.

- Four minutes.

- Or until, you know, brown, you know, it gets-it's brown.

Depends on the amount of heat.

Now this heat here is on the medium.

- Okay.

- I don't wanna do it on high because you know, chances of burning.

- Right.

- And um- - So searing is just browning.

And to sear a piece of chicken will take you three to four minutes on both sides of chicken.

- Right.

Mhm.

- Okay.

All right.

- Okay.

And, and over here I will have my, then as this, once I turn it, you know, I get a little browning on it.

Once I turn it I'm gonna add my garlic and the savory and the thyme.

And I'm gonna let that cook a little bit.

- So are you, you just, you just sprinkling that over the chicken?

- Yeah, I'm gonna sprinkle that over the chicken.

- Okay.

- Actually, you know, it could be done now because it's still, you know, still taking a little time browning.

So I'm gonna take-sprinkle this over the chicken.

This is the thyme I'm sprinkling.

- Now thyme that's ground thyme does- - Yeah.

- Do you suggest using only ground thyme as opposed to- - Well you could use either or and it doesn't matter.

It's, it's all have the same flavor.

- Okay.

And that's the savory.

- This is what I just-this is the savory.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

This is just one that I happened to, I just picked that up.

I mean this is- - And so you gonna let that sear for, like you said, three to four minutes on either-on both sides.

- On both sides.

And I'm adding the garlic.

- Now what-now was that fresh garlic?

Or was that- - This was, was fresh garlic was crushed.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

I, I like to use the fresh garlic.

It's crushed.

Now I'm gonna check, see if we gettin' a little brown in here.

- Okay.

(pan sizzling) So at home you don't want it on high.

- No.

- But you want it to be cooking rather robustly.

You wanna hear the popping.

- Oh yeah.

You hear the popping, you know that it's cooking and you know that- And, and now one point I, I would suggest when you preparing something like this, it's best to stand over it.

Don't go and try to do something else.

You know, I-I-it's always best to watch your pot.

- Yeah.

- Because if you do that, things can happen.

Now- - Now let me ask you, you, you said if you cut up a whole chicken, it's about eight pieces.

- Yeah.

You cut in quarters, yeah.

- So what are you, how many people are you trying to serve if you use a whole chicken?

- If you use-eat-eight, service for eight.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Six to eight, you know, six- - Six to eight people.

Some people might want two pieces.

- Yeah.

- But you're looking at six to eight.

- Well, it's smelling good and sounding good.

Ms. Jenkins, tell us where are we now?

The chicken is browned.

It's, it's simmered, or seared rather.

- Yeah, the chicken is seared and we got, we got a browning, just enough to give us a coloring.

- Yeah.

- In the stew.

So now I'm gonna remove the chicken.

- Okay.

- And I'm gonna proceed with my vegetables, okay.

- Okay.

So we just gonna put the chicken in the pot and get it ready to start simmering.

Okay.

And you're putting the chicken into chicken stock, is that right?

- Yeah, this is some stock that I put in earlier to speed it up so you can drop it in-in the-in the pot.

- So now this can be cooked-I'm sorry.

Do you make your own chicken stock?

- Yes.

Um, you take the back of the chicken, the chicken back and chicken neck and also chicken feet.

That makes the best stock.

- Chicken feet make good stock.

- Oh great stock.

- Okay.

- And you are, you, you know, you boil it with onions and you take, you know, you for onions for, about chicken doesn't take that long.

- Yeah.

- So maybe about an hour, 45 minutes, and then you strain it.

- Oh, you- - Yeah, you set that aside and you could freeze it and use it whenever you're making a chicken with gravy or any, any kind of chicken stew.

- Great.

- You can use that.

- Great.

Now what did we do here?

You're, you've taken your vegetables.

- Vegetable, and we are cooking the vegetable in that-the drippings from that chicken.

And once, then once that gets a little tender, we gonna add, we gonna add, now we can do that.

We'll add the stock.

- Oh, okay.

- And here's the chicken stock.

- So you use a lot of chicken stock in this recipe.

- Yeah, well actually, you know, the more stock, 'cause you know, you gotta give a chance.

'Cause once it boil, it reduce.

- Okay.

- What we-this recipe with the-with a whole chicken, which is about eight pieces of chicken.

You would, you would want to use a quart of stock.

- A quart of stock.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Which is four cups of stock.

- Okay.

Four cups of stock.

- Yep.

Now- - And you're still simmering your-your-your vegetables.

- Yeah.

The, the carrots.

I'm not doing the, the green pa-green peas because that doesn't take much cooking.

So that would go in last.

- So how many, what amount of vegetables are you using?

Are you using a cup of carrots?

A cup of onions?

What are you using here?

- A cup of carrots, a cup of onions, you know, when you're doing a, a eight piece chicken.

- Okay.

Okay.

And so you will, you will cook these vegetables about how long?

- Okay.

This, this vegetable, I'm not really cooking this vegetables, I'm just getting, I'm just putting a, I-I saute it for about maybe three, four minutes.

- Okay.

- And then I'm trying to, I'm getting all this dripping from the chicken and I'm gonna add this in here and the vegetable will cook along with the chicken, which would be 45 to an hour.

- Okay.

- So, but I'm just making sure that I'm getting every bit of this because this is where the true flavor is, at the bottom.

All that that's stuck to the pan while it was sauteing.

That is what's really gonna give you a good flavor.

- Okay.

Get all that good chicken flavor outta there.

- And I'm gonna pour it all in here.

And if you would look at that, you would see- - Oh yeah.

- You would see now that, see the coloring from that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

It looks delicious.

Smells good too.

- So this is gonna cook for about 45 to an hour.

- Okay.

- But, and- - And the last step when we come back will be- - We'll put the green peas in.

That's for like, you know, five minutes and then we are done.

- Okay.

Well I tell you what, we're gonna take a a break here and let you get all these ingredients down for this recipe before we actually complete the Gullah chicken stew.

And we're gonna travel up to Greenville to meet Chef Manigault to relish the surprise he has in store for us.

(jazz music) At Chef Manigault's restaurant, La Vielle Maison in Greenville, the pleasant surprise is the chef can wow his guest with many talents, including sculpting ice.

Chef Manigault actually also is an ice sculptor and we're watching him work right now.

Chef Manigault, thanks for having us today.

What are you working on here sir?

- Well we just shaving a little of the ice off to clear it up a little bit and reshape it.

- And so when did you actually get started in sculpting ice?

- Ooh, in college I looked around.

I didn't see anybody that looked like me.

Meaning that there wasn't very few African-Americans hardly.

And my question's always been "if not me then who?"

(upbeat music) - Making gingerbread houses-more on that later- and preparing delicious dishes to die for.

He prepared a very special dish for us, a Cajun favorite.

- Étouffée is really a simple southern crayfish dish.

I say when the Cajuns came, or the French came and settled into the Bayou area, they discovered these little things called crawdads.

- Okay.

- And you can probably find 'em anywhere, but it- my opinion, Bogue Falaya, uh, river That'd be the easiest way to say, I don't wanna call it nothing bad.

So we got crayfish, end results, we have crayfish meat.

- Okay.

- And how you get that is by taking this, pinching it off and taking out the meat.

And it's painstaking- - Time-consuming.

- It's time consuming.

So it should be a very expensive dish, but it's not too bad a cost.

You gotta have butter.

As Paula Deen would say, You gotta have butter, butter's just- - How much butter?

- In this particular recipe we, we starting out with about a quarter of a stick.

I'm going add some oil to it.

This is to help build and saute the ingredients together and then we're adding in our flour and so on so forth to make our roux.

And it goes on this.

And we have some Cajun seasoning- little blend that I put together.

We have a lemon pepper, we have salt, a little Italian seasoning, a great secret that most people don't know about, and gotta have a little lemon.

And then we have about a cup and a half, cup of onions.

- Okay.

- Now you wanna start with a large onion.

Some people will cut it Julienne style and then some people will do it as this.

In this particular case, these are reconstituted, dehydrated type onion.

- Okay.

- Either one will work.

This is the basic ingredients other than a little cream that would go inside to finish it on up.

Oh!

Some champagne.

Get our hot pan, put our butter in our pan.

See that's hot there.

Mm!

Now we don't want the butter to burn.

So we're gonna set that down just for a second, keep it from burning.

We're gonna to add us a little oil to this.

If we get a little brown it's not too bad.

We'll-won't be no major problem.

And when you're using the-when you're using the onion, like I talked about, this onion, what's good about it- it's already cooked.

Now this is a very quick little dish in the Bayou area or the Cajun area.

You'll see stuff like this happening all the time.

Now, onion is about where it needs to be.

If we using raw onion, then you gonna have the raw onion cooking until it's about a little brown, opaque color.

Okay to that, because our pan is greatly hot.

We're gonna go ahead and add in a little flour help get it ready to get thickened up.

That's about a tablespoon.

A little bit more flour.

Now as you can see, the roux is starting to happen.

Once the roux takes place and it gets to have that kind of coloring to it, that's what you want.

Gotta go back to the stove, gotta get it hot.

From this point we're adding all our seasonin'.

The salt.

We'll go ahead and add our crayfish meat in here.

And lemon juice.

Now roux and mixture have began to come together.

You see how simple that is?

Let the roux brown off a little bit.

The aromatics are all taking place.

You got a wonderful smell going on.

And all I need is two last ingredients.

A little champagne.

And keep in mind, this is just a quick version, something that you can do at home.

Smell, smell that champagne coming out.

Add the cream.

It-it's the easiest, quickest version of étouffée you're going to get.

You don't want it too thick.

So as it's slowly startin' to thicken up, finish addin' a little bit more cream to it, keep it from gettin' too thick.

Course now take out one of those grand-daddy long-leg fryin' pans.

Now I got some good old rice.

We gonna put that rice right here.

Big scoop of rice.

And that's just Carolina white rice.

Put it down like that.

Or sometimes see people do this, and go ahead and make a bed of rice.

You can do that.

And like I said, what's next you gotta do the most important thing with étouffée, you gotta taste it.

(jazz music) Yeah, yep.

(jazz music) Yeah, got you a little étouffée right there.

And then you just add your crayfish as decoration.

(jazz music) And voila.

Get a little parmigiano.

Put it right on top.

Boom.

There's étouffée from South Carolina.

- And what about that gingerbread house tutorial we promised you?

Chef Manigault is going to teach us how to do that too.

(upbeat guitar music) - Well the basic ingredients to gingerbread house is flour- plain flour, molasses, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger of course, clove, vegetable oil, eggs, and sugar.

(upbeat music) It's many different recipes.

Three cups of flour or three and a half cups of flour, typically one egg, about a a quarter of a cup of lard, quarter of a cup of-of molasses.

And then teaspoon, half teaspoons of like each other's seasonings.

- And that- - Then the sugar is about about a cup, three cups of sugar.

Once you make the cookie dough up, you have to refrigerate it for an hour, let it rest.

Once you do that, then you roll it out just as just roll it out about a quarter inches thick.

From there you take your templates or your different patterns that you're going to cut out.

In the, in the case of a house, you need the A-frame gable, you need the sides and then you need the roof, which means the front, back, sides, and roof.

Then once you do that and you cut it out, leave it on the sheet pan.

'Cause a lot of times if you try to rework or remove the dough, it'll, it'll cause the dough to cut or split.

So you want, once you cut it out, you wanna remove all the excess from it, then you wanna score the house.

If you want to look like brick work, you can score it up, put it in the oven for about eight to 10 minutes, let it lightly 350 to 375 degrees and just bake off.

You don't want to overcook it.

'Cause if you overcook it, you can burn the house.

On the same token, you don't want to undercook it 'cause it could be too light of a cookie dough.

Once it's cooked and you cool the house off, usually I like to let it sit for at least 24 hours.

That way, the sugar, if you notice in the, in the dough itself, it had a lot of sugar and molasses and stuff like that.

One egg, well all that sugar and molasses come back to a crystallization of itself.

Baking is a process of science, of chemistry, and therefore it is chemistry.

Unlike cooking where it's an art, baking is a science, but because we're making gingerbread houses, it comes from the science back to art.

(upbeat music) To bring it all together, you have to then do what we call royal icing, icing- however you pronounce it- which is powdered sugar, meringue whites, or egg whites and cream of tartar.

And you can use just a little bit of water to get it to mix up in the mixing bowl.

And once you get that, you then put it in your piping tool or your piping bag and you come up the sides of the house and on the inside of the house, so to speak, with a, with a, like a seam in it, so to speak, so you can join the two sides together.

(upbeat music) Once your house is construction-constructed together, you wanna let it sit.

That way the sugar can come back and, like I said, crystallize again, and become very hard.

From there you take and you start laying down a little layer of sugar in different places to add in all you your decorations, whether it's pretzels, whether it's gingerbread or gingerbread snaps, or whether it's, you know, candy canes, gum drops, whatever the case may be.

- And we're back with Ms. Charlotte Jenkins, the Gullah lady and her Gullah chicken stew.

And we're almost there.

There's one more step that we need to take, right?

Ms. Jenkins, what are we doing finally here?

- We're gonna add the peas and that only takes about five, 'bout five more minutes and then your stew is done.

- Okay.

So the stew has cooked for how long already?

- Well, we've had it cooking for about 45 minutes.

So that's, that's about the time it takes and you give it another five minutes, so it's 45 minutes to an hour.

So that's the stew's in there.

- Okay.

Wow, that looks beautiful.

So we're gonna cook this another five minutes after we add the green peas.

- Yes.

- The total cooking time is at 45 minutes to an hour.

- Correct.

- Right.

Okay.

And guys, through the magic of television, we have this beautifully complete dish over here.

And I get the fun job of tasting Ms. Jenkins' Gullah chicken stew.

And I tell you what, it looks so good, I almost want to just, I'm not gonna bite into a piece of chicken.

I'm just gonna take, get a bite of the veggies here and get a good taste of it.

Hmm.

Even the peas taste good.

(both laughing) This is really, really good.

And I love this because this is a great cool weather meal.

- Yes.

- It really is.

And the good thing too about this is the next day it's even better, right?

- Oh yes it is.

- Absolutely.

And again, Ms. Jenkins, thank you so much.

And I know you have a book with all these recipes in it too, right?

- Yes.

It's, the book is called Gullah Cuisine by Land and by Sea and it's sold at Barnes and Noble.

I think it's on- - Amazon.

- Amazon, and I sell it in the restaurant.

And it has all these great recipes and, and it's a book of art and history and recipe.

So we got three for one.

- Answer me, what's the name of the book again?

- Gullah Cuisine By Land and by Sea.

- Okay.

Delicious.

Delicious.

And you'll enjoy every minute of it.

So take advantage of that wonderful book and we really want to hear from you.

Our mailing address is Connections at CETV, Post Office Box 11000, Columbia, South Carolina, 29211.

Our email address is connections@scetv.org.

And for more information about the show, go to the Connections website at www.scetv.org/connections.

Now from the site, you can also join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Well that's our show.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And remember, stay connected, I'm P.A.

Bennett and I'll see you next time right here on Connections.

(upbeat electronic and orchestral music)