FOOD

By Anne Ruisi

Open the menu at Helen, Emily and Rob McDaniel’s downtown Birmingham restaurant, and you’re likely going to see items that are literally family-approved.

Creamer peas and middlins, a type of heirloom rice grown in South Carolina, is a dish he created with help from his staff but tested on his family at their Vestavia Hills home. It’s served with a black walnut, vinegar-like sauce with bay leaf. McDaniel, Helen’s chef, said his family, which includes the couple’s 5-year-old twin girls, liked it and it’s been popular on the menu since it debuted in September.

Butternut ragu made with dried mushrooms and San Marzano tomatoes is another family favorite. It also came about because of McDaniel’s experiments with his family’s palate. He put together ingredients in his kitchen.

“I cooked it and it was delicious. I said, alright, we’re gonna put this on the menu,” and it’s been a popular item for two years, McDaniel said.

The in-laws enjoy tasting the dishes, and their feedback has helped determine what ends up on Helen’s menu. McDaniel’s father-in-law usually comes over on Sundays, and on occasion his brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their daughter will drop by and he’ll cook for the whole clan. Steak is a family favorite. Even the twins, Rosemary and Amelia, love steak.

“We try to get them to eat what we eat,” their father said.

Helen, at 2013 Second Avenue North, is upscale and serves 180 to 250 people a night. McDaniel described it as a very Southern restaurant, kind of like a meld between a barbecue place and a steakhouse. The kitchen has a smoker and a wood grill, with all the meat cooked over hardwood.

At lunch you’ll find Iceberg and Bacon Salad with pecans, crispy onions and buttermilk basil dressing; blackened catfish; Fripper’s Bologna Sandwich with cheese, pickle, mustard and Duke’s mayonnaise; or smoked chicken thighs.

Dinner will feature steaks, fish, pork chops, chicken and a list of vegetable dishes such as Celery and Blue Cheese Slaw made with crispy potatoes, sweet onion and Gremolata, braised collards and Yukon Gold potatoes.

“It’s all approachable food, things people are familiar with, like butternut squash and collard greens,” he said, adding Helen uses mostly locally sourced ingredients.

That means the restaurant works closely with local and regional farmers, fishermen and meat producers to use the freshest, high-quality ingredients in the kitchen. Helen’s in-house butcher carves the meats into cuts.

Dishes can be tweaked, even daily, to reflect seasonal changes, and the restaurant rotates different dishes on the menu. Beef and fish menu items depend on what suppliers have available for delivery.

The Tennessee farmers who supply meat might offer bone-in pork loin and ribeye steaks one week, while the fisherman in Destin sometimes uses traditional fishing techniques but also uses a spear gun while scuba diving. Amberjack, small barracuda and snapper are among the fish harvested.

Vegetables are plentiful, offering vegetarians and vegans more variety than they might be used to when dining out. A braised button mushroom dish is a steady presence at Helen, which the restaurant’s namesake, McDaniel’s late grandmother, Helen Fruitger of Oneonta, made.

Sometimes Mother Nature drives menu changes. The hard freeze the South experienced just before Christmas ruined the carrots, so the restaurant had to find an alternative source. What they got were multicolored carrots in hues of orange, white, yellow and purple that looked “beautiful on the plate,” McDaniel said.

And while the menu changes regularly, staple items that customers love – such as warm Angel Biscuits served with whipped butter with cane syrup and sea salt – remain to be ordered time and again.

Home Made

Family-Tested Menu Drives Diners to Helen

Photo by Elise Ferrer

Emily and Rob McDaniel, owners of Helen restaurant, like to test new recipes on their family.

Sausage Pinwheels

Courtesy of Chef Rob McDaniel of Helen

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound of your favorite breakfast sausage 3 cups White Lilly Self-Rising Flour plus extra for rolling out 1-1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter 1-1/2 cups cold whole-fat buttermilk 1teaspoon kosher salt

Non-stick spray

INGREDIENTS:

Mix the flour and salt together in a medium bowl, using a box grater to grate the cold butter into the flour. Using your hands carefully toss the butter in the flour to coat the outside of the butter slivers. This should be done rather quickly, then form a well in the center of the flour and pour in the cold buttermilk.

Using a floured hand and turning the bowl with the other hand, carefully fold the flour into the center of the buttermilk. Once the flour and buttermilk come together, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and lightly flour the top of the dough then roll out the dough into even squares that are about ¼ inch thick.

Cut two pieces of parchment paper slightly larger than your square of dough. Remove the sausage from the wrapper and place between the two pieces of parchment paper that have been lightly sprayed with non-stick spray. Using a rolling pin roll sausage out into a sheet that’s slightly smaller than your sheet of dough. Remove the top sheet of parchment and place the sausage onto the dough, then remove the remaining sheet of parchment.

Starting with the edges of the dough closest to you, roll the dough and sausage, forming a log. Trim the edges off the log then cut in half. Wrap each piece separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or freeze for up to two days.

To bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice the log into ½ inch round pinwheels and place on a cookie sheet. Bake until bottoms start to brown, about 15 minutes, then turn over to brown the other side 5-10 more minutes.

I like to enjoy the pinwheels with yellow mustard or favorite preserves.

FOODIE NEWS Just a Taste

Viva Vestavia Food and Wine Tasting Set for Jan. 24

Tickets are on sale now for Viva Vestavia, an annual fundraising event on Jan. 24 that will offer a taste of Vestavia Hills restaurants and fine wines.

The event will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the new Vestavia Hills Civic Center. Food and wine tastings along with a silent auction will be part of the event.

Proceeds are to benefit the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Tickets are $50 and must be purchased in advance. Participants must be 21 or older. For ticket information, go to business.vestaviahills.org, click on events and then Viva Vestavia XVIII.

Journal file photo by Jordan Wald Viva Vestavia in 2021 drew a large crowd of food and wine enthusiasts.