Shrimp and Grits

Last April, Tony and I went to New Orleans during the French Quarter Festival and had plenty of amazing food on top of a very good time.  This dish is our effort to recreate the shrimp and grits served at one of those restaurants.


To make this dish you will need:

1 pound medium shrimp, peeled & deveined
1 cup of sliced okra
1 roma tomato, chopped
2 green onions
4 slices thick bacon
1 cup pork/prosciutto cracklins
cayenne pepper to taste
1 packet original recipe Ranch dressing, prepared as instructed
1 chopped, seeded jalapeno pepper
1 cup of grits prepared as instructed on package, replace 1/2 water with chicken broth

Prepare packet of ranch dressing as instructed on package.  Chop and seed the jalapeno, then stir the chopped pepper into the ranch dressing.   Put in the refrigerator until needed.

Prepare grits as instructed on packaging, substituting half the amount of water with chicken broth.

Cook bacon until crisp.  Remove from pan and place on plate with doubled paper towels to absorb excess bacon grease.  Put your pork/prosciutto pieces in the hot bacon grease and allow to cook until quite crisp, turning frequently to prevent burning.

While your pork/prosciutto is cooking and keeping an eye on it, roll your okra slices in corn meal and fry in hot oil in a separate pan.  Place cooked okra in a colander lined with a paper towel to absorb excess grease.

Once the cracklins are ready and in the colander with the okra, place the shrimp in the bacon grease, season with cayenne pepper to taste, flipping frequently, allow to cook until shrimp turns a bright pink.  Just before you remove the shrimp, add the tomato and green onions and saute for 3 to 5 minutes.

To serve:  Place a serving of grits in a bowl (or on a large plate), sprinkle with a layer of fried okra, bacon and cracklins; add shrimp, tomato and green onion; and, drizzle with the jalapeno ranch dressing.

Notes:  The restaurant used prosciutto.  We had a strip of crispy fat from the back of a pork roast we seasoned  and slow cooked on the grill all day a few months before that we fried up for the cracklins.  Because the cracklins we made were so spicy, we did not have to add any heat to the shrimp when it cooked.

While we served this as two servings, it could easily be four.

The shrimp cost $7.99 on sale at Publix.  The tomato, jalapeno, and green onion may have cost $1.60 (and that was the entire bunch of green onions), thick-sliced bacon was on sale for 7.99 a pound (you wll have plenty left over), ranch dressing about $2.50 (that doesn't count the mayonnaise needed to make the ranch), chicken broth a little over a $1.00 a can, and I really don't know about the grits as they are staples in my house.

Tony's rating:  5 stars
Sandy's rating:  5 stars

It's hard not to like shrimp and grits.  This dish can be spiced up to suit your own individual taste buds, which in or house is quite spicy.  We determined we could not serve this dish to just anyone the way we made it.  It cooks up pretty quickly, but requires a lot of pots and pans.  It's a good dish to have when you need a little something to warm you up, both physically and emotionally.

We paired a rather potent Game of Thrones Belgian-style tripel ale with our meal, although a sweeter white wine would work, too.  Valar Dohaires.