+ A
A -
NYT Syndicate
Andrew Ticer met Michael Hudman on the basketball court in the sixth grade. Back then, when they played for rival Catholic schools in Memphis, no one could have predicted they would become the city's restaurant royalty, winning national recognition for one of their restaurants.
Hudman has always been bigger, louder and gregarious. Ticer is quieter, gentler and more of a tactician. But they share the Italian gene, the one that is fiercely loyal to friends, food and family. (Ticer's roots go back to Sicily, Hudman's to Tuscany.)
They discovered a mutual love for restaurant life after attending different colleges. Together, they headed to Johnson & Wales University in Charleston, South Carolina, and picked up culinary degrees. Then it was on to Calabria to study Italian food.
Over the years, they have been to each other's weddings, celebrated the births of each other's babies and shared countless family Sunday suppers. And they still play basketball together several days a week.
People who work for them say they move through their days running four restaurants in Memphis and one at the Ace Hotel in New Orleans like a single organism.
"That's pretty much true," Hudman said."When we have coffee in the morning, it's usually like we were both thinking about doing the same thing. I run with the idea, but Andy is the guy who actually makes it work."
The two have also opened Porcellino's, a butcher shop and breakfast place, and, most recently, Catherine & Mary's, a restaurant in a revitalised part of downtown Memphis that people now call South Main.
The big, lofty building is a short walk to Beale Street and was home to WHBQ, the AM radio station where the DJ Dewey Phillips was the first to broadcast an Elvis Presley song. (In Memphis, these details matter.)
It is the most directly Italian of their restaurants, named after their Italian grandmothers and heavy with pasta. Still, they haven't stopped building Italian food with the Southern ingredients they love. Leftover biscuits become the base for gnocchi. Smoked catfish stands in for bacalao, or salt cod. Thick slices of sweet potato spend an hour slowly cooking in fat until they become almost custardlike but still hold their shape.
The idea for that dish came from their mutual love of the pecan-topped sweet potato casserole that Ticer's mom makes.
Slices of the sweet potato confit are crisped on a griddle, then coated with pecans and butter.
"This is really Andy's dish," Hudman said."The guy eats sweet potatoes three or four times a week."
Headline Sweet Potato Confit
Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients:
1 (8-ounce) container cr'e8me fra'eeche
2 tablespoons lemon or yuzu juice
2 pounds sweet potatoes (about 2 or 3)
Kosher salt
Ground black pepper
About 3 cups olive oil, depending on the size of the baking dish
1/2 cup fat (optional)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped
1/4 cup mint leaves, torn
Method:
1. In a small bowl, mix together cr'e8me fra'eeche and citrus juice and refrigerate until you are ready to assemble the dish. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Scrub but do not peel the sweet potatoes, then slice into 1/2-inch-thick disks. Place in a single layer in one large baking dish, or in 2 smaller baking dishes if all the slices won't fit. (A few slices can overlap, but keep this to a minimum.) Season well with salt and black pepper. Pour in enough olive oil to just cover slices. If a few edges are exposed, don't worry. If also using fat, pour or spoon it over the slices.
3. Bake for 1 hour or until fork tender. Remove the baking dish from the oven, let the oil cool slightly, then carefully remove the slices with a slotted spatula, letting most of the oil drip back into the baking dish before placing the slices on a plate or sheet pan. (At this point the slices can be refrigerated for up to 5 days.)
4. Heat another large saut` pan, or a griddle over medium-high heat, and add the sweet potato slices in batches, frying a couple of minutes on each side until they start to crisp and caramelise. (The sweet potatoes can cook in the pan without additional fat, but if they are sticking, you can use a bit more of the reserved oil.) Add sweet potatoes and pecans to the pan and gently turn the slices a few times until they are well coated, being careful not to break them.
5. Remove sweet potatoes to a serving plate, spoon remaining pecan evenly over the slices, then add small dollops of cr'e8me fra'eeche. Sprinkle with torn mint leaves. Serve immediately, with any remaining cr'e8me fra'eeche on the side.
