Shrimp and Grits

When the wife and I were in Portland, OR at the beginning of the year, we ate dinner at a very well-reviewed ‘Southern’ inspired restaurant called Screen Door. I ordered shrimp and grits for dinner that night and was served easily the best interpretation of that dish I’ve ever had; the shrimp were perfectly cooked and seasoned and the grits were a rich and creamy masterpiece. I was inspired to replicate something similar at home, however, after doing some research, I came across countless ways to prepare this dish, which originated in the ‘low country’ of South Carolina as a means to provide sustenance to fishermen before they headed out to ‘work the water’ during shrimp season.

Deciding that the robust and complex flavors provided by my own shrimp etouffee recipe would complement the grits somewhat neutral flavor, I knew that the shrimp wouldn’t be a problem for me. My research didn’t provide me with a definitive method for cooking grits; some cooks suggest a 3 to 1 liquid to grits ratio, some said 4 to 1. Some cooks use water exclusively while some use milk, cream or some combination of all three. Some cooks use ‘instant’ grits while some use a coarser ground product. Ugh, a perfect case of there being too many cooks in the kitchen! Since this was to be my first foray into making grits, I combined bits and pieces from different recipes and blazed my own path to grits mastery – sort of.

Good grits begin with corn. I had lots of coarsely ground cornmeal on hand just waiting to be called into action.

The grits are poured into a saucepan filled with a mixture of water, milk, half-n-half, salt and pepper that has been brought just to a boil.

Once the grits have been added to the saucepan, reduce the heat to low and slowly cook until they have absorbed most of the liquid and thickened considerably. Here they are after about 2 minutes of cooking.

While constant mixing is unnecessary, you do want to stir often to prevent the grits from clumping.

After about 30 minutes of cooking and whisking, I was initially happy with the consistency and doneness of the grits. At this point, I added cheese, butter and additional salt and pepper to taste.

Here’s the full list of ingredients for the grits:

1 c coarsely ground cornmeal
2 c water
1 c milk
1 c half-n-half
1 c sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 tbsp unsalted butter
salt and pepper, to taste

While this was a good first attempt, I was a bit unhappy with the final taste and texture of the grits; they were a bit too ‘milky’ tasting and at the same time, not quite creamy or buttery enough. I will definitely be tinkering with this one in the near future.

As mentioned, I paired the grits with a shrimp etouffee recipe that has become a regular feature on our home dinner menu. For the first time, I employed my 12″ cast iron skillet for etouffee-making purposes. The first step for making etouffee is to make a roux -  a thickening agent comprised of equal parts of fat (in this case, canola oil) and flour, cooked over moderate heat until the desired color has been reached.

After about a minute of cooking, the roux hasn’t taken on much color yet.

It’s a very different story after 45 minutes of cooking (and near continuous stirring to avoid burning). This dark brown roux provides much of the complex flavor that is at the very core of Cajun cuisine.

The ‘holy trinity’ (onions, celery, green pepper, all diced into approximately 1/4″ pieces) is added directly to the roux.

After about 10 minutes of cooking, the vegetables will have softened up quite a bit.

Next, liquid, in the form of about 2 cups of shrimp stock, is added.

From what I’ve read on the internet, the adding of tomatoes is somewhat of a ‘controversial’ step. Some cooks do make this addition while others claim that tomatoes, because they were not available to early Cajuns, have no place in an etouffee. Personally, I like tomatoes and I had a bunch of sweet grape tomatoes that I wasn’t going to use for anything else, so I halved them and threw them in with the rest of the ingredients.

I cooked the etouffee for about 30 minutes before adding shrimp. Once the shrimp had cooked through, I added in some chopped parsley and green onions.

The See Dan Cook home kitchen requires lots of multitasking. In addition to the etouffee, the grits are cooking on the back burner and some kale is braising.

Dinner is served.

Please pay no attention to the bandaged finger – it was a minor injury (if you call severing a small portion of one’s thumb tip minor) sustained when I was chopping up some dried apricots while chatting on my cell phone. Knives and electronic devices don’t mix – a valuable lesson learned.

Hooray for shrimp and grits!

Inspired by my experiences at America’s Test Kitchen and based on all of the great feedback I got from my Facebook friends, I may take my grits-making to a whole new level by coming up with a series of different grits recipes to trial and test. I’m not exactly sure why, but I feel compelled to nail this one, thus further substantiating my claim that a Jewish guy from NYC can cook anything if given an opportunity to do so.