Brunch

The quality of the ingredients makes all the difference in this drink, so use the absolutely best vodka and great olives.

The essence of summer, this light and colorful dish goes with just about anything. Prepare the fruit ahead of time, but don’t layer it with the yogurt and granola in the parfait glasses until an hour or so before you plan to serve it. Adjust the amount of honey according to your and your guests’ preferences.

A platter of fresh fruit served with this lemony dip is a beautiful way to kick off brunch. This fruit salad can also be made into fruit kebobs for a different appearance. Just cut slightly bigger chunks and skewer the fruit onto bamboo skewers. You can prepare the fruit and the dip early and have this all ready when guests arrive. When you make the dip, mince the onion very, very finely or purée it, if you like, and be sure to use a neutral oil, such as canola or corn oil. I find that the onion adds a surprising savory flavor, but it’s not at all overpowering.

This side dish is a great accompaniment to Bubby’s Granola (page 206), Crunchy French Toast (page 133), or, even simpler, seven-grain toast and jam. Try to buy Greek yogurt, which tastes richer and creamier than regular yogurt.

You can use honeydew, cantaloupe, or any other firm-fleshed melon for this light and luscious brunch dish. The important thing is that your melon be perfectly ripe and juicy, so sniff, pinch, and choose carefully. Make this a couple of hours in advance, so it has time to macerate in the port.

Serve this as a starter: It’s nice to have on the table as a beginning for a brunch. You might also serve it as a summery dessert.

Hoppin’ John is the must-have dish for southerners on New Year’s Day; it’s widely believed that if you eat black-eyed peas on that day, you’ll have good luck all year. This a great dish for a crowd and can definitely be prepared ahead of time. Since the black-eyed peas need to soak overnight, start this a day in advance. Serve with my variation on Mr. Beard’s Cream Biscuits (page 54).

This rich dish is wonderful at a fall brunch. The tawny color of the squash, when it is baked in a casserole, adds a nice touch to a buffet table. This may be prepared ahead of time and rewarmed with good results by heating it for 20 to 30 minutes in a preheated 350°F oven.

Sweet potatoes make delicious home fries, and with the addition of ginger, these become something really special. Choose small to medium sweet potatoes and use them within a week: They don’t keep as long as white potatoes. Store sweet potatoes in a dark, cool place, but don’t refrigerate them.

Also known as latkes, these crispy, golden treats are a childhood favorite and are best served with caramelized onions, sour cream, and fresh, tangy farmers’ market applesauce. Allow yourself about twenty minutes to soak the grated potatoes in the cold water to remove the starch. Otherwise, they become gluey as the starch cooks in the potatoes and they won’t get crispy.

While the classic fried potato dish served with bacon and eggs in diners everywhere is excellent on its own, the “smothered and covered” variation is more decadent, blanketing the crusty brown potatoes with caramelized onions and cheese. Thanks must be given here to the Waffle House chain for their inspired innovation!

A robust and filling variation on classic home fries, this pretty vegetable dish gets color and crunch from the asparagus. It pairs especially well with Crispy Crab Cakes (page 198) and Scrambled Eggs (page 75), though potato lovers may decide to eat this as a main course. This is a great way to fit vegetables into a brunch without its being too healthy.

Steel-cut oats go through a machine that cuts the whole kernels into tiny bits. Sometimes called Scotch or Irish oatmeal, steel-cut oats are chewier and have more texture and flavor than regular rolled oatmeal. They take more time to cook, but steel-cut oatmeal is well worth the wait. McCann’s makes the best steel-cut oats that I know. They’re available in specialty shops and some supermarkets, as well as at www.mccanns.com. To sweeten the steel-cut oats, add brown sugar, sautéed bananas, raisins, applesauce, berries, or whatever other fruit you like.

What would bacon and eggs be without a side of home fries? These “homers” are too good to be called simply a “side.” Many Bubby’s customers prefer to eat them in great quantities with an accompaniment of bacon or sausage.

For the best grits, choose good stone-ground hominy grits, found mostly at high-end gourmet shops. Good-quality grits can be yellow, white, even blue, and they have a lively, crunchy texture. Just for the record, most regular folks down South use quick grits. And also for the record, that’s what we use at Bubby’s. But at home I cook from a bag of stone-ground hominy grits from Hoppin’ John’s, a small mill in Georgia (www.hoppinjohns.com). The Tabasco in the recipe really adds a zing to the grits, which go especially well with Smithfield Ham with Red-Eye Gravy (page 189).

This homemade cereal is hearty, wholesome, and filled with nutritious ingredients such as walnuts, rolled oats, raisins, and sunflower seeds. Granola is very flexible, so you can add whatever fruits and nuts are your personal favorites. This granola is great with milk or yogurt, or even as a topping on pancakes. Because raisins can make the granola soggy, we add them right before serving. The granola keeps well for a long time, so this is a big batch—it makes three pounds. Just keep it in an airtight container and eat it for breakfast all week, as we do at Bubby’s, or cut it in half to feed a smaller crowd.

Fried oysters are essential in a Hangtown Fry, which also includes eggs and fried bacon. The dish is thought to have been created during the California gold rush in a camp called Hangtown, near Sutter’s Mill in the Coloma Valley. The town acquired its gruesome name because of frequent hangings, often carried out by vigilantes. For this recipe, you can either shuck the oysters yourself or buy fresh shucked oysters from your fishmonger.

A luxurious treat, sweet, crisp crab cakes can be made with lump or backfin crabmeat. Frying the crab cakes just before you plan to serve them will ensure that they don’t get soggy upon standing. Serve crab cakes with scrambled eggs, inside a crusty baguette, or with lemon wedges and Rémoulade Sauce (page 284).

This is an elegant salad in which an abundance of colorful, crunchy vegetables really picks up the flavor of the crab. Spiked with lemon juice and lightly bound with mayonnaise, it can be an entrée served over fresh greens or a great sandwich filling.

The taste of homemade smoked trout is incomparable, making this recipe well worth the effort. Trout, like all fish, must be brined before smoking, so plan on several hours’ worth of brining time before you actually do the smoking. Unlike salmon, trout is hot smoked. Obviously, you’ll need a smoker for this recipe. The choice of wood is up to you: At Bubby’s, we strictly use apple wood. Once you’ve got smoked trout on hand, you may serve it as is or make it into some delicious Smoked Trout Cakes (page 195), a Smoked Trout Scramble (page 101), or Smoked Trout and Scallion Mousse (page 196). Figure that you need to start this recipe about five hours in advance. The salmon is best when smoked the day before you plan to serve it, so that the flavors can blend. To serve, cut the smoked trout into fairly large 2-inch chunks and arrange them as part of a smoked fish platter, along with Smoked Salmon (page 191) and herring (page 196).