A Southern-Style Barbeque Menu
Entertain Guests With an Easy Dinner Party Featuring Southern Foods
Jun 29, 2009
Southern-style foods have gained popularity over the years, and for good reason. Simple dishes like pulled pork smothered in your favorite barbeque sauce are enough to make anyone's mouth water.
This menu, featuring pulled pork sandwiches, roasted potato salad, grilled corn, and sweet tea makes an excellent dinner party for six. Not only will your guests love to experience different flavors, but the cook will also enjoy the ease of preparation and serving. These recipes will serve 6 people.
The Day before the Party: Sweet Tea
Prepare the sweet tea. Southerners love their sweet tea, and northerners have been turning their noses up at it forever. Encourage your guests to expand their palates if they are not used to this southern classic.
Sweet Tea Recipe
Makes 1 gallon
- Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan.
- When it boils, add 4 family-sized tea bags and a pinch of baking soda.
- Cover and let sit for 10 minutes.
- Remove tea bags and add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of sugar, depending on taste, stirring to dissolve.
- Pour tea concentrate into gallon-sized pitcher and add ice and water to make one gallon.
- Refrigerate, and serve with a slice of lemon and mint garnish.
The Morning of the Party: Pulled Pork
By roasting the pork shoulder for a long time at a low temperature you are practically assuring that it will melt apart, and melt in your guests' mouths.
- Heat oven to 250 degrees F.
- Place a boneless pork butt or pork should roast (6-8 pounds) in a roasting pan, seasoning generously with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
- Cover and cook for 6-8 hours until the roast begins to fall apart.
- Remove from oven and let cool for 10-15 minutes before pulling the pork.
- To pull the pork, simply take two forks and work the meat apart into long strands. This should be very easy to do.
- When the meat is all shredded, put it into a slow cooker and store it there until the party.
- At this point you will want to add your favorite barbeque sauce. One suggestion would be to use mustard and vinegar based sauce, a tomato-free combination that works quite well with pulled pork.
- Once the sauce has been added, keep the meat warm until the guests arrive.
- Serve on buns or on a bed of lettuce if your guests are carb-conscious.
The Afternoon Preparation: Roasted Potato Salad
Although it isn't typically southern, a good roasted potato salad makes a delicious side dish to this meal. The fact that it isn't mayonnaise based allows it to sit comfortably in the summer heat. In fact, it needs to be served at room temperature.
This dish can be prepared in the morning or throughout the day of the party.
Ingredients:
- 4 pounds russet potatoes, cleaned and thickly diced
- Olive oil
- 1 teaspoon coarse salt
- Fresh rosemary, a few springs, chopped
- 7 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 3 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup chopped green onions
- 1 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
Directions:
- Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Spread diced potatoes onto baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine 7 tablespoons olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper to taste, and rosemary. Bake for one hour, stirring occasionally, or until potatoes are golden. Remove and cool. When potatoes are cool, transfer them to a large bowl.
- To prepare sauce, first scrape any of the drippings left from the roasting pans into a measuring cup. Add enough olive oil then to make 1/2 cup. In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar and mustard, and then whisk in the 1/2 cup of olive oil. Then add the green onions before dressing the potatoes themselves.
- Refrigerate, but bring to room temperature before serving. Add fresh basil just before serving.
At the Party: Grilled Corn
There really is no need to soak ears of corn before grilling, although it seems to have become a painfully annoying must-do for outdoor cooks. Instead of messing with the dripping ears, try this much easier --and tastier-- way of grilling corn.
- Peel the husk almost completely off of the corn, leaving one layer of husk left. You should still see the kernels underneath, but they should be covered. Use scissors to snip off the tassel of silk.
- Grill the corn on a medium-high preheated grill for about 2 minutes a side, for a total of 10 minutes. You may want to add more time if you prefer darkened corn.
- Serve with your favorite toppings, perhaps going beyond the old salt and butter tradition and trying various spice mixtures or herbed butter.
Because the preparations are practically finished way before the party even begins, this menu gives the host or hostess the freedom of enjoying their guests. The flavors all go together very well, with the mustard from the pork matching with the mustard of the potato salad, and freshly grilled corn is a summertime treat that no one can deny. Washed down with a mason jar filled with sweet tea, it's enough to make anyone go back for seconds.
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