The first issue at hand was choosing the cornmeal for the grits. I looked at several different brands, and immediately eliminated both instant and quick cooking grits. I wanted some texture. Finally, I settled on Red Mill whole stone-ground cornmeal, medium grind.
to make grits, you don't have to buy something labeled "grits"--
just get the best quality corn meal you can find
Since the cornmeal was medium grind, it was going to take awhile to cook. I started with a cup of cream and a 26 ounce carton of chicken broth. I really like Swanson's new unsalted cooking stock. It leaves me in control of the salt content. I stirred in a cup of grits, and whisked to get rid of lumps. I left the mixture over medium low heat for about an hour, stirring every few minutes, adding water as needed to keep it from getting too thick. I wish in hindsight that I had covered the pot. As the grits thicken, they shoot off occasional little molten droplets of cornmeal, which aren't fun to clean up. Better yet, next time I'll just toss everything into a slow cooker, and let them cook on their own for several hours. After the grits are soft, add in anything you want for flavor. Cheeses are great, as are herbs and spices. Taste for salt and pepper and serve as creamy grits, or pour in a pan and refrigerate to slice and saute as grit patties later.
here I used pecorino romano cheese, chives, a dollop of butter,
and a grating of fresh nutmeg
First lesson in grit patties--make the grits a little stiffer than you would if you were serving straight from the pan. Mine were too loose, and never set up very well, so the patties were difficult to fry.
these were a bit too soft, and difficult to brown, but they
tasted good
The "shrimp" part of the equation was easy. I just gently sauteed the shrimp and set them aside, crisped up some spicy kielbasa sausage, and made a Parmesan cream sauce, which was just Parmesan and cream with a little salt and pepper. The Crabdaddy menu describes the dish as having mushrooms and tomato, so I added a bit of diced fresh tomato and a cup or so of sauteed sliced mushrooms. Though the menu description didn't include onion, I pulled one up from the garden, minced it and sauteed it along with the mushrooms, and chopped the greens for garnish.
it isn't traditional to use a cream sauce for shrimp and grits,
but a little bit of heresy never hurt the Southern sensibility
My second mistake with this dish was to not thicken the cream sauce by making a roux at the beginning. When making something like this for a pasta, it's desirable to keep the sauce on the lighter side (yes, I know this is not "light" from a caloric standpoint--I am referring to the body of the sauce), tossing in the slightly undercooked pasta and letting it finish in the sauce, and absorb and thicken the sauce. That isn't how it works with polenta (grits and polenta are literally the same thing, despite what confusion you run into out there on the web.Corn meal mush is the same thing, too.) The sauce was a bit runny.
first try at this amped version of shrimp and grits was
tasty, but if I go round two, I'll tweak a few things
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