Southern Food: Boiler Peanuts and Fried Okra

Category : boiled peanuts, fried okra, southern food

Boiled peanuts have recently been promoted to South Carolina’s official snack food. More importantly, it’s a snack food I really love, and a few weeks ago, when I was at a farmer’s market, I decided to give them a try.

Having tried making them once a long time ago, and failing, I searched a lot online to make sure I was doing them right. Anyways, I used mostly water, salt, and some veggie broth. I threw the peanuts int here and let it boil for quite a while.


And after a while, it just kept boiling over and making quite a mess.


And they didn’t get soft. So I kept boiling. In total, a ridiculous amount, like 16 hours. In the end, I just gave up. They didn’t taste bad–they were just a little too hard.

So I kept asking around at work what I did wrong, and the answer, I finally got was that I was that I was boiling it at too high of a heat. So a week later, I tried it again, and instead of boiling it at a high heat for so long, I got it to a boil and then simmered at a low heat for a long time. It took about 6 hours to get the peanuts soft, which is about right according to the recipes, so the low heat must be the secret. And with that came great success as the boiled peanuts made a great snack.

Another food I’ve come to like more and more despite moving away from the South is okra. Usually it’s in bhindi masala here, but in South Carolina, the way most people eat it is fried.

Looking up recipes online, I cut up the okra and threw it around in some corn meal and flour mixture. Then I threw it in the cast iron fryer.

The first batch was a little overcooked, but the second one was much better.


Overall it was pretty good. The bhindi masala that I eat around here seems like a better use for okra and is something I’ll try next time. As far as fried okra is concerned, I’ll try using an egg wash next time to give it a little thicker coating.

BBQ Throwdown

Category : barbeque, southern food

When I go home to South Carolina, there are a few places I’ll probably eat at, but there’s only one place I must eat at–Duke’s Barbeque. It’s Southern food at it’s best.

In the spirit of Bobby Flay, I had a bbq (pulled pork) throwdown with another Adobe employee, Joann, who’s from Texas. We went to split a Boston Butt (Pork Shoulder) from Costco, got our respective sauces flown in from our states, and went to cooking.

I just put mine in a Crockpot overnight for about 10 hours on low with a little bit of water. In the morning I took it out.


I then shredded it up and put it back in the crockpot.


And the piece da resistance.


I just poured some sauce in and let it all simmer for another 2 or 3 hours on low in the crockpot.

During the “throwdown” we took an informal vote, and it came out about 50/50. It’s hard to beat the real-deal from South Carolina. This one was a tad too moist in my opinion, and that came from cooking it in the crockpot versus a smoker or even the oven. However, I have to say the bbq definitely hit the spot, and I had a great time at the party.