Cooking with cola is a Southern tradition undoubtedly dates back to the days when the first glass bottles clinked onto the shelves of the Piggly Wiggly and the Jitney Jungle.  Frankly, in most parts of the South, cola means Atlanta’s own Coca-Cola, or as we call it Co-cola.  I love to cook with cola, from rich chocolaty co-cola cakes to ribs cooked in root beer.  I have even made red-eye gravy with co-cola instead of coffee. And the magnificent country hams of my childhood were often glazed sticky and black with co-cola.

As for drinking the full on sugar-rush of regular cola straight, it is not something I engage in.  Regular cola makes my teeth itch.  Since my transition into teenage girl-dom, I have followed the crowd, downing first TaB, the pink can my constant companion in those awkward teenage years, followed by an admitted lifelong addition to Diet Coke.  They know my name at Sonic.

But I will admit a fondness for Royal Crown Cola and not just because it is the perfect and fabled accompaniment to that other Southern treat, the Moon Pie.  My grandparents lived in a small town in Middle Tennessee, where there seemed to be a preponderance of RC Cola, why I don’t know.  Or maybe I just remember it that way, because the old-school drink vending machine at the farmers’ co-op in town dispensed RC from behind that narrow glass door that snapped open and closed so fast it took real skill to grab a bottle without getting slapped by the door.  The other option in that machine was Sun-Drop, an even yellower, even sweeter precursor to Mountain Dew.  Our grandfather would let us go to the co-op with him, and we would wonder around trying on old-man hats and marveling at the huge pairs of overalls and long johns on sale.  When Granddaddy needed to get down to business, he’d give us each a nickel (yes, the co-op machine took nickels) so we could go out to the soda machine – sometimes with a no Sun Drop warning.  We’d extract our drinks from the machine and sit on an old bench on the porch outside the co-op, swinging our legs and watching the world go by.  Sometimes, we’d be treated to a bag of salted peanuts to eat, or to pour into the bottle of RC.  And when we spent two weeks with or grandparents every summer to go to camp, my grandmother would tape quarters to the inside of the lid of our metal lunchboxes (I believe one of us had a Dukes of Hazard version) so we could get an RC out of the machine at lunch (but not Sun Drop).

So I wanted to create a recipe to pay tribute to my childhood fondness for Royal Crown Cola.  Something rich and comforting, like my memories.

Royal Crown Short Ribs

Okay, if you can’t get your hands on RC, any cola will do – as long as it is full-sugar.  No diet versions here. Serve these with creamy grits.

3 ½ – 4 pounds meaty short ribs

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

¼ cup bourbon

3 carrots, peeled

3 celery stalks

1 medium onion

6 cloves garlic

12 ounces tomato paste

3 cups Royal Crown cola (or your preferred brand)

2 cups water

3 bay leafs

7 – 8 sprigs of thyme, tied into a little bundle with kitchen string

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Season the short ribs liberally on both sides with kosher salt and black pepper.  Pour in enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a large, heavy Dutch oven. Brown the short ribs in the oil on all sides until nicely browned and some of the fat has rendered out.  Give this time to evenly brown the meat, 10 – 15 minutes.  Remove the browned ribs to a plate.  Don’t crowd the ribs, you may need to do this in batches. 

While the ribs are browning, cut the carrot, celery, onion and garlic into chunks and place them in a food processor.  Grind them to a paste, with no big chunks left.  Now you have a sofrito to season your sauce.

When the ribs are browned, discard the oil and return the pan to the heat.  Carefully pour in the bourbon and scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Cook until the bourbon is mostly reduced, then add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and heat.  Add the vegetable paste, season well with salt and pepper and cook, stirring and scraping the bottom occasionally, until the vegetables are nicely browned and soft.  Add the tomato paste, stir well and cook until it begins to darken.  Pour in the cola and the water, and bring to a bubbling simmer.  Nestle the short ribs down into the sauce, doing your best to cover them with sauce.  You can add a bit more water if needed, just enough so the top of the ribs are not exposed.  Tuck the bay leaves and the thyme bundle down into the sauce, cover the pot and place in the oven.  Braise the ribs for 3 hours, checking occasionally to see that the sauce is not scorching on the bottom of the pot.  You can add a bit more water if it is.  Turn the ribs over in the sauce half-way through the cooking time.

When the ribs are ready, the meat will just peel away from the bones.  Remove the ribs from, pull away the bones and serve doused in the sauce.

Serves 4

The Italian Grandmother in My Head

I do not have a particularly ethnic background.  Basic Anglo-Scots stock.  Okay, a WASP.  I cherish my Southern heritage and all the great culinary traditions I have enjoyed, inherited, and try to preserve.  But I’ve never had a Bubbe teach me to make latkes or an Abuela to show me how to roll tamales.  No Greek uncle schooling me on spit-roasted lamb or Czech relative mastering the technique for kolaches.  But I have often wished that I could pick up some of those traditions – draft on the experience of my more diverse friends.  I developed this deep desire to make Italian gravy – real meat sauce, what I would call Bolognese.  The kind that someone’s Nonna used to make.  So I asked a friend from a large, widespread Italian- American family if she could show me how to make a good sauce. Alas, her family lived next door to the city’s great Italian restaurant family, so they just bought theirs from the neighbors.  Another friend of Italian heritage held more promise.  She assured me her grandmother made fantastic sauce – really easy, but authentic and she sent me the recipe.  It wasn’t what I had expected.  Cheap, fatty beef, canned tomato sauce, canned tomato paste, dried Italian seasoning, powdered garlic and onions.  Now, it was a good sauce, but not really what I had in mind.  I could imagine her grandmother explaining the recipe.  What a joy it had been to create a sauce that didn’t require hours of chopping and mincing and peeling.  But my desire was really for something a little more traditional – or at least how I envisioned traditional.

So I went to work, researching and testing, tasting and starting over.  I read old Italian cookbooks and new Italian cookbooks.  I flipped through community cookbooks looking for any remotely Italian names as contributors.  I tried many, and failed often.  So I just sat back and thought about all I’d read, all I’d tried and what I imagined the finished product would taste like.  Then I got to chopping.  First off, I do use quality canned tomatoes, because they are packed at peak freshness and do cut down on the amount of work.  Other than that it’s all me. 

Having a good meat sauce recipe up your sleeve is a real blessing.  Make a huge batch, it will keep in the fridge for several days and can be frozen in whatever quantity you are likely to use (one family-sized bag and several single-serves maybe).  Use straight over noodles, as a layer in lasagna, stuffed into manicotti, or any way you can imagine.  The best thing about making your own meat sauce is that you know exactly what’s in it – no preservatives, unnecessary chemicals, you can limit the salt and fat amounts.                

Bolognese Sauce

Italian Meat Sauce

This recipe makes a huge batch, which is fabulous because it freezes beautifully and has a wealth of uses.  By all means half the recipe, but I can’t imagine why you would!

1 large yellow onion

2 celery ribs

2 carrots

3 Tablespoons olive oil

5 cloves garlic

1 pound ground chuck

1 pound mild Italian sausage, bulk or casings removed

2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes

1 cup red wine

1 cup beef broth

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon nutmeg

Salt and pepper to taste

½ cup chopped fresh oregano

½ cup chopped fresh basil

Finely chop the onion, celery and carrot – you really want small pieces here and you can use the food processor in a few pulses if you’d like. Finely mince the garlic seperately. Pour the oil into a large Dutch oven. Add the onion and sauté until soft.  Add the celery and the carrots and continue to sauté until soft and slightly browned, about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook a further minute.  Add the beef and sausage, breaking the meat up with a spoon.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the meat is no longer pink and beginning to brown.  Make sure all the meat is nicely crumbled.  Drain off any accumulated fat.

Add the tomatoes, wine, broth, sugar and nutmeg.  Stir to blend then bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low, add salt and pepper to taste.  Stir in the chopped oregano and basil.  Cover the pot and simmer over low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking on the bottom of the pan.  Remove from the heat to cool if not serving immediately

Scoop the cooled sauce into freezer bags or rigid freezer containers.  Refrigerate for up to a week or freeze for up to 3 months.  When ready to use, thaw overnight in the fridge or for and hour submerged in a bowl of cold water.  Pour into a saucepan and reheat over medium until bubbling and heated through.  Serve over noodles.