NEW YORK -- Restaurateur Sylvia Woods wants you to try her mother's Absolute Best Southern Fried Chicken.
Sylvia Woods exudes hospitality. At Sylvia's Restaurant, a landmark soul-food dining spot in Harlem, she makes a point of seeing you're well fed. She stops by tables to chat with diners, plies a photographer with fried chicken and corn bread, brings an interviewer juicy peach cobbler and banana pudding to taste.But now she wants cooks to try such staples of her Southern cuisine in their own kitchens.
Her mother's chicken recipe is in "Sylvia's Family Soul Food Cookbook: From Hemingway, South Carolina, to Harlem" (Morrow, $25), among a collection of dishes that has its roots in Woods' Hemingway birthplace.
Recipes for the book come from family and friends, seasoned with personal memories and community tradition. They have been assembled to give home cooks a first-hand taste of what Woods calls her soul-food heritage.
"The book is passing on ideas just like I learned them, handed down in the family," she says, sitting down for a rare break during her daily oversight of the restaurant.
Woods, 73, was recently described as "Harlem's grande dame of soul food." She established the restaurant in 1962; she bought the place eight years after coming to the city and getting a job as a waitress in the luncheonette that it then was. She opened a second restaurant in Atlanta in 1997 and has a line of canned and bottled food products sold at supermarkets nationally.
"I come from a long line of cooks," she says. In fact, she adds, from a whole community of great cooks in rural Hemingway, where most people grew their own food, cooked and shared recipes.
"We didn't go to school to learn how to cook. We learned from our mothers and grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors."
Through generations of these exchanges, "we found ways of making the food we ate taste even more delicious, go further and look better."
A cook-off in Hemingway helped the family collect and choose recipes for the book, which has a writer's credit for Melissa Clark. The cook-off brought out a wealth of recipes to add to Woods' own.
And even some nontraditional ideas.
"One new thing came from the cook-off that's in the book and now on our menu -- the black-eyed pea salad," she says. "We always had black-eyed peas as a hot vegetable, a side dish." Here they are used in a spicy salad, suggested for picnics or buffets.
The key to good soul food? There are no complicated formulas, Woods says, just experience and the accumulated knowledge of how to make tasty meals out of really simple things.
"In the South our 'spices' were salt and pepper, basically simple. We couldn't afford or get hold of a lot of fancy seasonings. I don't go all fancy here, our seasoning is still simple . . .
"You add onions and green peppers to your pot, perhaps, and you make a gravy from whatever you've been cooking -- the oil you fried the chicken in, the browned bits from the meat, and you salt and pepper it."
Desserts follow tradition, too.
"We don't open the door without peach cobbler on the menu," Woods says. There were always plenty of fresh peaches in Hemingway, she recalls, and they canned their own fruit so they could have cobblers and pies all year long.
She laughs as she recalls the two weeks in July when her food was featured in the elegant delegates' dining room at the United Nations, in a series on regional American specialties.
Barbecued ribs had dignitaries licking their fingers, and down-home fried chicken, catfish and cornbread were a big hit.
"We served them things they don't usually get there -- imagine, collard greens and oxtails at the U.N."
But Woods is used to the idea that soul food goes down well with a wide range of people. She's watched foreign visitors from as far away as Korea and Japan taste it and come back for more.
"Soul food in another 10 years is going to be all over the world," she predicts.
She says she cooks very little at home now that Herbert, to whom she's been married for 55 years, does it all.
"But I'm always in and out of the restaurant kitchen. I like to be back there, working beside people, telling them how to do things. This is how I learned. My mother always taught me, whatever you do, be the best at it you can do.
"So now, I know I know how to cook. That's what I want to last long into the future, especially what my mom taught me."
The book includes chapters of family history, and family photos are scattered through it. Recipes range from soups and relishes to sugar cookies and lemonade.
The Absolute Best Southern Fried Chicken recipe comes from Julia Presley, Woods' mother. One of her secrets: "She would always shake the chicken in the coating, never dredge it." And fried chicken makes the most delicious sandwiches imaginable, between slices of white bread covered with mayonnaise, Woods adds.
THE ABSOLUTE BEST SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN
3 1/2-pound chicken, cut into eighths
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon plus 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 cup vegetable oil
Rinse the chicken and pat dry. In a small bowl, combine the salt, 1 teaspoon of the black pepper, and the garlic powder. Sprinkle over the chicken. Let stand at least 20 minutes or, even better, overnight in the refrigerator.
Place the flour, the remaining 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and paprika into a plastic bag. Add the seasoned chicken and shake until each piece is covered with the flour.
In a large skillet, heat the oil over high heat until it bubbles when a little flour is sprinkled in. Add the chicken pieces and reduce the heat to medium. Cook for 7 to 10 minutes or until the chicken is nicely browned on the bottom. Turn and cook on the other side for 7 to 10 minutes or until cooked through. Remove from the skillet and drain on paper towels before serving.
Makes 4 servings.
BEDELIA'S SPECIAL OVEN-FRIED CHICKEN
In this recipe from Wood's daughter Bedelia, the chicken is baked with a cornbread coating and no added fat.
2 skinless and boneless breasts, halved (about 1 1/2 pounds total)
1 tablespoon seasoned salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 large egg whites
2 cups cornbread crumbs
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Rinse the chicken breasts and pat dry.
In a small bowl, combine the seasoned salt with the black pepper. Sprinkle over both sides of the chicken breasts. Let stand for at least 10 minutes.
In a bowl, beat the egg whites lightly. Dip the chicken breasts into the egg whites to coat. Dredge the chicken in the crumbs to coat. Place in a greased baking pan.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until cooked through.
Makes 4 servings.
BLACK-EYED PEA SALAD
1 1/2 cups cooked or canned black-eyed peas
3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
In a large bowl, combine the black-eyed peas, green pepper, celery and both onions.
In a small bowl, combine the oil, sugar, vinegar, garlic, salt, black pepper and hot sauce. Pour the dressing over the beans. Toss. Let stand overnight in the refrigerator for the flavors to meld.
Makes 4 to 5 servings.
PEACH COBBLER
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup water
4 cups peeled and sliced peaches
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups self-rising flour
1/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish.
In a 3-quart saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the all-purpose flour and nutmeg and stir until absorbed. Add the water. Stir in the peaches, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the vanilla. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and spoon into the casserole. Set aside while you prepare the crust.
In a large bowl, combine the self-rising flour and the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the shortening into the flour until crumbly. Stir in the milk, a little at a time, until all the flour is moistened but not too wet. Using your hands, work the dough into a ball, but don't overdo it. Place the ball on a floured work surface and pat into a 3/4-inch-thick shape. Cut into 2-inch circles. Place the circles on top of the peaches in the casserole.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is browned. May be served plain or topped with vanilla ice cream.
Makes 4 servings.