This recipe was embedded in an old post and deserves to be top posted. If you have trouble finding fresh shrimp in your area, use IQF frozen raw or pre-cooked shrimp. Thaw under slow running cool water before using. If they still have the shells, be sure to remove the shells before using.

Shrimp Grits

This is an old southern favorite from coastal areas. Many people save this recipe for special breakfast events, but we eat it for our evening meal all the time. Once you try it, you will also want to enjoy it as often as possible.

Ingredients:

Grits - Stone ground (cooks in 30 minutes), or quick grits (cooks in 5 minutes), or instant grits (cooks in 2-3 minutes)

1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 stick unsalted butter
4 strips thick sliced hickory smoked bacon
6 ounces hickory smoked link sausage - I use mild and add heat later
1/2 cup onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic fine chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
20 -30 raw peeled shrimp
1/4 cup heavy cream
Red Cayenne pepper - to taste
Salt to taste

Make grits per box directions with quantity enough for four people. When grits are done, add 1/2 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and 1/2 stick butter, mix in and set aside. The grits need to be a little thick. You will have better grits if you do quick grits and not instant grits. For classic Shrimp grits find stone ground grits (The kind that must cook for thirty minutes) and use them. Remember to check seasoning and salt your grits to taste before adding cheese and butter.

Cook four strips of thick sliced bacon and 6 ounces of sausage. I like hickory smoked link sausage, but any country sausage will work. It doesn't need to be hot sausage, because you will add heat to taste later on and I never thought this was intended to be a spicy dish. However, if you like it hot, go for it.

Cut the bacon and sausage into small 1/4 inch pieces. If using link sausage, cut it into 1/4 inch pieces, or remove it from the casing and separate into 1/4 inch chunks before cooking. Set aside the cooked bacon and sausage to drain on paper towel.

Remove the bacon and sausage grease from pan and add 1/2 stick butter. Sauté 1/2 cup onions, 2 cloves garlic (minced and added when the onions are clear), 1/4 cup fresh parsley. Peel and add fresh shrimp to the butter and tender cooked veggies and cook until shrimp turn pink. What I have here might use about 20 shrimp or 30 if small. Salt the shrimp lightly and add a little - a very small dusting of red cayenne pepper as they cook. Taste the mixture and add more heat if desired. This is not necessarily a spicy hot dish.

When the shrimp have turned pink, add 1/4 cup heavy cream, the bacon and sausage and a heaping teaspoon of tomato paste or puree.

Cook for two minutes and serve over the cheese grits in shallow bowl, with crusty buttered garlic bread and a cold beer.

A simple salad would be a nice accompaniment.

Hello m2 -

This recipe sounds like the Shrimp & Grits one finds in the low country of South Carolina, but I do not remember the cheese in the grits. I have sniffed my screen several times to find out if we're talking about the same thing, but I don't think your aroma virtualizer was on while you typed. I reckon you've been to Charleston, is this akin to the S & G served there?

Yes I have been there and no I did not have shrimp and grits while there.

But I think it would be the same. I'll do research when I have some free time and find out.

Regardless, this is good stuff. I am not sure if BOTF would survive if I turned on the smell function, so I leave it off when I post recipes

There seems to be nothing that walks, crawls, slithers, or jiggles that a coon-ass will not eat.

Jack

In the time I spent thinking about this, I should have been buying shrimp. However, I am going to guess that your sauce ain't as brown as I am remembering, and that your grits are kinda orange with a half-cup of cheddar in there. I am compelled to make and eat these, as regional research.

The sauce isn't brown at all, actually more white or light pink (from the teaspoon of tomato paste).

We usually use white cheddar, but yes the grits would be somewhat orange if orange cheese were used and that wold be ok if it turned out to be the color you achieved.

I admire people willing to do the product evaluation grunt work with little hope of acknowledgment when accolades are given out.

Don't skimp on the grits and make certain they are not runny. they need to be somewhat thick to stand up to the sauce. This is usually an eat with a soup spoon dish.

Did I mention buttered crusty bread? You can never have too much buttered crusty bread.

earthworms, and I detest those brown garden snakes. Rattlesnake is pretty good. There is no way that I know of to make any water snake taste good. They have too much of a dirty taste to even season away with chili powder and cumin.

Some bugs are actually tasty, but I always thought that caterpillers was an acquired taste.

However ....... If you never tried this dish, you owe it to yourself to eat good shrimp grits one time so that you will understand all that you have missed for over 60 years. A life without shrimp grits is a life poorly lived. Sausage/bacon/onion/shrimp/but­ter/garlic/heavy cream/cheese grits - Eating doesn't get much better than shrimp grits.

I have eaten alligator meat in Lafayette LA, M2, and I'll bet you've eaten it somewhere in the south as well. All I really tasted was the deep-fried flavor (with a hint of chicken, of course).

As for Jack Dallas's Texas, I've heard that a bull's testicles are a delicacy, but I've only tried a cow's brains and heart -- not even sweetbreads.

Only brains and hearts, MA? Damn, try a tenderloin sometime. Some would argue that the muscles are even tastier than the organs.

Yes I have had alligator, most recently at the National Shrimp festival in Gulf Shores, AL back in October of last year.

I am ambivalent about the taste and appeal of alligator. I will eat it, and the taste, consistency and palatability it is fine, as far as breaded and fried small pieces of reptile meat goes.

Here is a shock, I have no recipes for alligator, and have never cooked it at home. Like you mentoned, the only way we have had it is breaded and fried, ususally consumed from a small to go paperboard container while walking down a row of food vendors at some shrimp festival type event.

I do not eat any bovine (or Porcine) organs, except for "Calf liver", but I probably have had all of them when eating sausage. I will only buy "All Meat" sausage, but sometimes I eat sausage that I didn't purchase, and when doing that, one never knows. I do know that some sausage recipes take advantage of the things from an animal that I would never eat if they were not ground and spiced up into mystery meat then shoved into a casing and cooked.

Lafayette is one of those interesting Louisiana towns. I know there are some good places to eat there. I just can't think of any at the moment.