Lowcountry Shrimp and Grits
If you go all out on this - make your own pimiento cheese, blanch and peel those tomatoes, get some top-shelf bacon - it will possibly be one of the best things you’ve eaten in your life.
If you half-ass it, it will still be awesome.
Grits require a brief discussion. At some point in the last ten years, someone figured out that the trendy, upscale polenta served in so many fine dining establishments was actually the same concoction as supposedly-trailer-trash grits. But grits are arguable better because they’re made by grandma (and don’t you never-ever throw shade on Nanna’s cooking).
So now grits are experiencing a renaissance of trendiness, riding the tide of buttermilk biscuits, banana pudding, and…pimiento cheese. Not only do all these Southern dishes deserve our attention, they always have.
I feel a personal connection to these dishes, in part because that’s my ancestry - all my great-great-great grandparents were poor dirt farmers in the Carolinas and Kentucky - and in part because these kinds of dishes inspire connection. Period. We stand on the shoulders of culinary giants in this country, and many of these giants were women in Southern kitchens. Many, if not most, of these women were black. And all of them cooked delicious food with what they had, no matter how meager. Because what wasn’t meager was the love that went into every pot, pan, and batch.
And that makes all the difference.
Shrimp and grits is a Lowcountry specialty, just like pimiento cheese. If you’ve never heard of it, the Lowcountry is the coastal region of South Carolina, just eking across the border into the sea islands of northern Georgia. It is beautiful there, with Spanish moss-draped live oaks and scrubby palms, pristine marshes, and tidal rivers filled with shrimp, oysters, and redfish.
The oxymoronic jumbo shrimp.
As you can imagine, seafood is king there, and shrimp and grits might be the supreme ruler of them all. Adding pimento cheese to those grits? Genius. I don’t know who thought of it first - it probably sprang from the collective consciousness of countless Southerners who know a good thing when they see it. Or taste it. But if you are one of those strange creatures like my friend Martina who doesn’t like cheese in her grits…I will pray for you.
Speaking of pimiento cheese. The recipe inspiration that most deserves recognition here is from the Red Truck Bakery Cookbook. I took a pie-making workshop with the author a year or two ago. I signed up for it because of the word “pie” in the title. It did not disappoint. There was indeed pie at the end, and it was excellent, but so was the author’s pimiento cheese - from a recipe handed down in his family.
In this recipe, can just toss some of the components of the cheese into the grits, or you can follow the link and make the actual pimiento cheese. Not only will you be able to use it in your grits, but you will have plenty left over to spread on some Ritz crackers for an amazing meal - I mean snack - later. I love options. Especially when they involve pimiento cheese.
One one last note. You might think, looking at the ingredient list, that the “garnishes” of tomato and scallions are optional. They really aren’t. Shrimp and grits tend toward the heavy side. The tomato and scallions lift the dish out of sink-into-your-couch-never-to-arise territory and make it fresh and sublime.
Blanching, peeling and seeding that there tomato? Not strictly necessary, but 100% advised if you want to take the dish into savage, classy, bougie territory. Because you are that bitch, are you not?
Shit You Need
For the grits:
1 cup quality stone-ground grits, such as Anson Mills
4 1/2 cups water
2 teaspoons crushed Calabrian chiles
2 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 ounces (1 1/2 cups) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 ounces (3/4 cup) shredded pepper jack cheese
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Or, omit 3-7 and add 1 cup Pimiento Cheese instead.
For the shrimp:
1 tablespoon olive oil
12 ounces thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and de-veined
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon crushed Calabrian chiles
1 bunch green onions, chopped, white and green parts separated (slice at a steep angle if you want to impress your friends)
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
one large heirloom tomato, blanched/skinned/seeded*, and sliced
*Drop the tomato into boiling water for one minute. Plunge into ice water, then peel by teasing up the skin with a paring knife. (Strangely satisfying, no?) Then cut the tomato in half crosswise, and give it a gentle squeeze over the sink to expel most of the seeds.
Smoky, spicy, delicious pimiento cheese.
Keep Calm and justeffingcook
Bring the 4 1/2 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add a teaspoon of kosher salt and a few grinds of pepper, then whisk in the grits. Turn the heat to medium low, cover and cook 15 minutes, whisking occasionally.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a skillet and cook the bacon until golden and starting to crisp at the edges. Set aside on paper towels to drain.
In the same pan, cook half the shrimp in the bacon fat until just pink, about one minute on each side. Set aside, cook the other half of the shrimp, and set these aside with the first batch.
Add the garlic, chiles, and white parts of the scallions to the skillet and cook over low heat until fragrant.
When the grits have cooked 15 minutes, whisk in the chiles, cheeses, paprika and cayenne (if you are using the pimiento cheese you made, congrats! And whisk that in instead.)
Return the shrimp and bacon to the skillet with the aromatics, and heat through. Add half the parsley and green scallions and combine.
Serve the shrimp and bacon over the grits, garnishing with the rest of the parsley and scallions.