Tag Archives: grits

May26

My Best Shrimp and Grits Recipe

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grits close up

Living in the Low Country where the best shrimp in the world is harvested, one is soon drawn to a variety of shrimp recipes and there is one dish that is so classically Charleston which always comes to the forefront. This was and still is a great breakfast recipe, but I love it for dinner. There are as many Shrimp and Grits recipes here as there are Charleston kitchens. I play around with the elements, sometimes adding cheese to the grits and sometimes adding chiles or okra to the shrimp element. I always use tomatoes, small shrimp and really good grits.

Grits

Let’s talk about grits for a moment. This dish would be seriously compromised by anything other than the very best stone ground grits you can find. I prefer mixed grits, a combination of yellow and white grits. If you live in Europe, you can use coarse polenta. Polenta is always made with yellow corn. Whereas southern grits are available in yellow and while as well as mixed (my favorite). Speckled grits mean that they leave the hull of the corn on (also my favorite).  I do like polenta for some things, it is not the same as good southern stone ground grits. At the bottom of this post I am adding a few links to what I consider the best online sources for the best grits. I am lucky that I can buy mine from Celeste Albers at the Charleston Farmer’s Market. But you can buy really great grits online now.

shrimp boat

Now, let’s talk shrimp. Buy wild caught when you can. For this recipe I really like small shrimp. Not the tiny ones for salads, but about an inch or two long. Buy them with the shells on and peel just before cooking. If you freeze shrimp, put them in a zip lock bag and fill with water, making an ice block.  There will be no freezer burn. I am lucky to be able to go to the docks and get shrimp caught that day here. You may not be so lucky. Our shrimp season is from June-December give a week or two. This is to promote sustainable fisheries. Our shrimp are born early in the year and grow in our incredible estuaries (a series of creeks, marshes and rivers) and then swim to the sea in late May.

On to the recipe! This is one of my favorites, but I play around with it all of the time.

Shrimp and Grits Sassy Spoon Style

My grits recipe is done in a rice cooker, but if you do not have one, follow instructions on the bag. Here is a link to my recipe: https://sassy-spoon.com/2012/07/19/grits-in-a-rice-cooker-perfection/

Mise en place

Ingredients:

  • One recipe of grits for four, cooked
  • 3/4 pound small shell on shrimp, shelled
  • 1/2 cup of butter &/or olive oil
  • 5 garlic cloves finely chopp
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup of sliced okra (optional)
  • 1/4 cup chives
  • 2 cups tomatoes chopped
  • Pork in one way or another. In this recipe I used a Chinese sausage. You can also add cooked bacon or andouille sausage.
  • Your favorite hot sauce
  • Sea salt and lots of fresh ground black pepper

Method:

  • If using sausage or bacon, brown slightly in a skillet, remove and reserve
  • Put the butter/oil in the skillet
  • Add onion and saute till the onion just starts to turn golden.
  • Add garlic and saute another minute
  • Add tomatoes, herbs, hot sauce and seasonings, cook for 10 minutes on simmer
  • Add shrimp and stir. It will be ready when the shrimp starts to turn pink.
  • Scoop out the grits and top with the shrimp mixture
  • Garnish with chives or parsley

Here are some sources for great stone ground grits.

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Jan14

Husk…. Sean Brock’s Southern Food

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Bon Appetit hailed it as the Best New Restaurant in the US…. accolades have been streaming ever since. It is not all hype, the food is amazing, creative and interesting. Husk is the love child of James Beard Award-winning Chef Sean Brock of McCrady’s and the Neighborhood Dining Group. Since opening Husk in Charleston he opened another outpost of Southern ingredients in Nashville. He recently opened Minero, a taqueria in the high rent district of downtown Charleston. There is word that he is also taking that concept to Atlanta where the Neighborhood Dining Group is headquartered. He transforms the essence of Southern food over and over again. Solid… delicious… promising. Sean is dedicated to bringing back old Southern grains, beans, greens and other treasures that were all but lost. He is the champion of the old non-gmo crops that were grown 200 years ago in the south. His food reflects that without being obvious. It is just delicious food, and then you learn its history and all of the work that went into bringing it to the table.

Led by Brock and Chef de Cuisine Travis Grimes, a Lowcountry native, the kitchen reinterprets the bounty of the surrounding area, exploring an ingredient-driven cuisine that begins in the rediscovery of heirloom products and redefines what it means to cook and eat in Charleston.

Starting with a larder of ingredients indigenous to the South, and set within a building complex dating to the late 19th century, Brock crafts menus throughout the day, responding to what local purveyors are supplying the kitchen at any given moment. The entrance beckons with a rustic wall of firewood to fuel the wood-fired oven and a large chalkboard listing artisanal products currently provisioning the kitchen, but like the décor that inhabits the historic building, the food is modern in style and interpretation.

At Husk there are some rules about what can go on the plate. “If it doesn’t come from the South, it’s not coming through the door,” says Brock, who has even stricken olive oil from the kitchen. As he explains, the resulting cuisine “is not about rediscovering Southern cooking, but exploring the reality of Southern food.” This modern approach results in playful dishes such as Deviled Eggs with Pickled Okra and Trout Roe, and new classics like South Carolina Shrimp and Choppee Okra Stew with Carolina Gold Rice and Flowering Basil.

Seed-saving, heirloom husbandry, and in-house pickling and charcuterie efforts by the culinary team are the basis of the cuisine at Husk. The restaurant is as casual as it is chic, evoking a way of life centered on seasonality and the grand traditions of Charleston life—one lived at a slower pace, preferably with a cocktail and a wide porch in the late afternoon. It is a neighborhood gathering place for friends, and a destination dining spot for travelers, with a little bite of the South for everyone’s palates.

These photos are from my lunch there with Nathalie Dupree and Holly Herrick, two Charleston based friends of mine than rank in the upper echelons of Food Writers.  And so we were treated to many things that we did not order. On of the most amazing things that day was totally unexpected, the fried chicken skin with honey and hot sauce. It is a dish I have reconstructed at home a few times. I also reconstructed Husk’s Sweet Tea Brined Kentuckyaki Chicken Wings and you can get the recipe here.

Jul20

Crispy Panko Calamari

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 Calamari 1

This is a super easy recipe, the key is finding good quality squid. I bought fresh tubes at the Whole Foods Seafood Counter, if you like tentacles you may have to buy them frozen. Always look for cleaned calamari/squid.This recipe is for a main dish for two or an appetizer for four. It is easily doubled for larger servings. The combination of flour, polenta and panko assure a crispy crust. Furikake adds some umami and the sesame in it adds another element of crunch.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound squid

4 egg whites

1/4 cup milk

2 cups panko

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup grits or polenta

2 Tablespoons Furikake Wasabi seasoning (Japanese seasoning for rice) to taste

4 Tablespoons Sweet Onion Sugar

Sweet Chili Sauce and Seafood Cocktail Sauce for dipping

calamari3

Method:

  • Slice the calamari into rings.
  • I like to soak my calamari in buttermilk before cooking, salt water is another option. Soak for about 30 minutes then rinse and dry.
  • Heat a wok and add canola or peanut oil to a depth of about 2 “. You want it about 350 degrees.

Calamari 2

  • Mix the egg white and milk in one pan/bowl
  • Mix the dry ingredients in another pan/bowl
  • Set up a draining pan or use a plate with paper towels
  • Dredge the calamari through the egg white mixture, making sure to open the rings so they get coated on the inside too
  • Dredge them through the breading mix, also getting the insides coated.

Calamari close up

  • Work in small batches of about 8-10 rings and fry, turning once. When both sides are golden brown, move to draining tray.
  • When finished serve with sauces and chopsticks.

Calamari plated

Jul19

Grits in a Rice Cooker: perfection

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We arrived in Charleston to our new home a little over a week ago, though most of my household goods are still en route. I shipped a few things ahead so we would have some basic items. One of those things was my rice cooker. I wanted to make some grits and though that maybe I could do it in the rice cooker. I did it and it was so easy. No stirring and they stayed warm and ready to eat with the warming function on the rice cooker. Here is the way to do it. I of course recommend stone ground grits from the Low Country, or at the very least from the south. The grits I used were purchased at the Charleston Farmer’s Market from Steve Dowdney at The Colonial Charleston Kitchen. This recipe serves four but could easily be doubled and I am sure it would work equally well with polenta.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup stone ground grits
2 cups milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon course ground black pepper

Method:

Place all ingredients in rice cooker on porridge setting and forget about it till you are ready for dinner.

 

Jul14

Charleston Farmer’s Market

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Today I got to go to my first Charleston Farmer’s Market. My friend Holly Herrick took me through and introduced me to all kinds of wonderful farmers and producers. I took home a full load of fun things to work with from tomatillos to fresh chorizo. I got a half bushel of those great South Carolina peaches and some stone ground grits from the Colonial Charleston Kitchen.

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I had a Vietnamese Five Spice Pork Taco for breakfast

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And, the best thing about going to the farmer’s market is what you make for lunch! Two big slices of a “Pineapple” tomato, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with smoked salt and fresh ground pepper. Image

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 Monday afternoon, James Island has a farmer’s market, so of course I will have to check that out too!