Cookbook shares Atlanta restaurant favorites

Reese is dining editor at Georgia Trend magazine. Before that, she wrote restaurant reviews and food features for Atlanta magazine and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She mines those experiences to cull more than 100 recipes from 56 Atlanta restaurants.

There are dishes from some of the city’s most venerable Southern cooking institutions, such as Busy Bee Cafe and Mary Mac’s Tea Room, including six takes on fried chicken.

Chef-run places such as Rathbun’s and Shaun’s that have made Atlanta a fine-dining destination are represented with more sophisticated fare, like the corn milk-poached lobster tail recipe from Restaurant Eugene.

The diversity of today’s local dining scene shows up in the Ethiopian doro wot chicken stew from Queen of Sheba Restaurant and the Gravity Pub’s infamous Vandross Burger, served on a split Krispy Kreme doughnut.

But as she was finishing “Atlanta Kitchens,” Reese had to face the fact that several restaurants she wanted to include were closing, including soul food landmark Son’s Place.

“It was disappointing,” Reese said in a recent interview. “But I realized that keeping those recipes, like Son’s fried chicken, might prove even more valuable.”

That pushed Reese to do additional research on Atlanta’s dining history. Those discoveries give the cookbook a social-meets-culinary context. “Restaurants are at least as valid a map of history as census charts and demographic maps,” she writes.

In one section, Reese points out that several Atlanta restaurants of the 1950s and ’60s became stages for the civil rights movement. For instance, the young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed for his protest at the Magnolia Tea Room. And, of course, Paschal’s served as a strategic headquarters for civil rights leaders such as future U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

“How could you not talk about the civil rights struggles?” Reese said. “As it happened, in 2009 Lewis proposed that two historic fried chicken restaurant sites, Pickrick and the original Paschal’s, should be preserved and linked by a trail. I thought that was such a great idea.”

Atlanta has a dynamic, constantly changing restaurant scene, Reese said. And though “Atlanta Kitchens” is aimed at home cooks, the recipes, with color photographs by Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn, also can serve as an Atlanta restaurant guide.

“I really love restaurants,” Reese said. “There’s nothing more exciting to me than finding a great restaurant. To me, that means that a restaurant is doing what it aims to do. Whether you’re aiming to be a great neighborhood place and you’re succeeding, or you’re aiming to be a fine-dining establishment and you’re succeeding at that goal, that’s my measure of success.”

Book signings

“Atlanta Kitchens” by Krista Reese

6:30-8:30 p.m. March 23. Free. Manuel's Tavern, 602 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta. 404-525-3447, www.manuelstavern.com.

7-9 p.m. March 26. Free. Heliotrope, 248 W. Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur. 404-371-0882, www.heliotropehome.com .

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The following recipes (with author Krista Reese’s introductions from “Atlanta Kitchens”) include fine-dining takes on two Southern-fried classics, catfish and okra, and a surprisingly sophisticated spaghetti squash salad from a pizza joint. When Reese conceived the idea for “Atlanta Kitchens,” she hoped to call the cookbook “Atlanta’s Best Dishes.” By any name, Reese’s choices of restaurants and recipes are like snapshots of what makes Atlanta’s dining scene dynamic.

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Spaghetti Squash Salad With Aged Ricotta and Toasted Walnuts

Hands on: 20 minutes Total time: 2 hours (includes an hour for cooling the squash) Serves: 4

Who would expect a hip little pizza joint to offer such an uptown dish? The savvy regulars at Shorty’s, that’s who.

2 medium spaghetti squash, halved and seeded

Olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces baby arugula

1 lemon, cut into wedges

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

1/2 cup grated ricotta salata

1/2 cup diced plum tomatoes

To prepare the squash: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat the inside of the squash with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place squash skin side down on a baking sheet and bake 30 to 40 minutes, until the squash is tender. Let cool. Scrape the flesh from the skin with a fork and put into a bowl. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

To serve: Place a handful of baby arugula on the center of each of 4 plates. For each plate, toss 1 cup squash with 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt and pepper and the juice of a lemon wedge. Mound the mixture in the middle of the arugula. Sprinkle the top of the salad with 11/2 to 2 tablespoons toasted walnuts, 11/2 to 2 tablespoons grated ricotta salata and 1/2 to 2 tablespoons diced tomatoes.

From Shorty’s, owners Bryan Wilson, Brian Hogan and Michael Murphy

Per serving: 240 calories (percent of calories from fat, 71), 9 grams protein, 10 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 20 grams fat (4 grams saturated), 16 milligrams cholesterol, 46 milligrams sodium.

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Fried Okra

Hands on time: 30 minutes Total time: 30 minutes Serves: 4

“You can have strip pokra,” wrote Roy Blount Jr. “Give me a nice girl and a dish of okra.” Although I’ll take it any way I can get it — stewed, simmered, roasted, braised — this lacy-edged fried cornmeal recipe from Cakes & Ale is the crowd-pleasing favorite. (Nice girl not included.)

For the ranch dressing:

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup crème fraîche

2 tablespoons buttermilk, or as needed

1 clove garlic, pounded into a paste

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the okra:

8 ounces okra, cut in half lengthwise

Vegetable oil, for deep-frying

1 cup medium-grind cornmeal

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

To prepare the dressing: In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise, crème fraîche, buttermilk and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add additional buttermilk if needed to thin.

To prepare the okra: In a large bowl, soak the cut okra in cold water for 5 minutes. Drain well.

Pour 4 to 6 inches of oil in a tall saucepan or deep-fryer and heat to 375 degrees. It is important to use a large enough pot so that the oil fills it only halfway.

In a bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour and salt. Add the okra and toss to coat. Fry the okra in the hot oil until golden. Drain well.

Serve the fried okra with the ranch dressing.

From Cakes & Ale, owners Billy and Kristin Allin

Per serving: 568 calories (percent of calories from fat, 65), 7 grams protein, 44 grams carbohydrates, 5 grams fiber, 42 grams fat (8 grams saturated), 23 milligrams cholesterol, 647 milligrams sodium.

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Catfish With Green Tomato Ragout

Hands on: 45 minutes Total time: 45 minutes Serves: 4

Forgetting the taste of good fried catfish is something like forgetting you’re Southern. Take a bite of this recipe from Wisteria and remember.

For the catfish:

2 cups yellow cornmeal

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sweet Spanish paprika

2 tablespoons salt

2 teaspoons white pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Buttermilk

Vegetable oil, for frying

16 ounces catfish fillets, cut into 1-inch strips

For the Green Tomato Ragout:

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons butter

4 green tomatoes, diced

1 onion, diced

2 large beefsteak tomatoes, diced (or substitute 2 small tomatoes)

2 red bell peppers, diced

2 poblano peppers, seeded and diced

2 teaspoons Old Bay Seafood Seasoning

Pinch dried red pepper flakes

Pinch kosher salt

Pinch white pepper

2 tablespoons minced fresh herbs (parsley, sage, thyme and rosemary, in equal proportions)

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 shallots, minced

1/3 pound cleaned crawfish tails, shrimp or catfish

To prepare the catfish: In a shallow bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, paprika, salt, white pepper and cayenne pepper. Fill a second shallow bowl with buttermilk.

Fill a cast-iron skillet with 1 inch vegetable oil and heat to 325 degrees. Dip the catfish strips into the buttermilk and drain off excess. Then dredge in the cornmeal breading and shake off extra breading. Carefully place the catfish in the skillet and fry until golden brown, turning once about halfway through, after 21/2 to 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels and serve hot with Green Tomato Ragout.

To prepare the Green Tomato Ragout: In a large saucepan, heat the oil and butter over medium-high heat. Add the green tomatoes, onion, beefsteak tomatoes, bell peppers and poblano peppers. Sauté 4 to 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent. Add the Old Bay seasoning, red pepper flakes, salt, white pepper, parsley, sage, thyme and rosemary, garlic and shallots. Stir through, then add the crawfish tails, shrimp or catfish and simmer until warmed, about 3 minutes.

From Wisteria chef Jason Hill

Per serving: 717 calories (percent of calories from fat, 48), 34 grams protein, 62 grams carbohydrates, 8 grams fiber, 38 grams fat (8 grams saturated), 122 milligrams cholesterol, 644 milligrams sodium.