What a beautiful dish, huh?
Last night, on the spur of the moment, I decided to tackle one of my favorite southern dishes: shrimp and grit cakes. I looked in my fridge, rummaged through leftover veggies and such and determined that I had everything to make this, so why not? One key ingredient for this dish that I happened to have are leftover grits in some type of mold. How perfect. So, I read Mrs. Rombauer's instructions (that's Joy of Cooking if you're not familiar - we're like old friends now) and I assembled my ingredients. Working quickly, I peeled my shrimp, made a broth, prepped my side dishes, and sliced and fried my grits.
Oh my. I have never fried grits before. Not only that, but I am a big fan of real old fashioned grits - Daniel Boone Stone Ground Yellow Grits - to be exact, which are really coarse compared to what you get in most grocery stores.
Find these wonderful grits at http://boonvillemill.com/products.aspx
Well, all I can tell you is, this recipe is definitely not for that caliber of grit. Those big, coarse-ground pieces of corn started popping like popcorn right out of the pan! I grabbed my splatter screen and covered it up thinking that as they browned on that side, it would settle down. I was wrong. I lifted the screen to turn them and splats and splatters went every where! I actually had to hold the screen up to my face to protect my eyes while I reached with the spatula to flip them. Meanwhile, stuff was flying everywhere! I eventually got them out of the pan and scraped it clean, ending the fiasco. I looked around my kitchen and my stove, counter tops, floor, cabinets, wall -- everything -- was covered in grits and grease. My splatter screen had dripped oil all over the floor while I was covering my face. It was absolutely horrendous. I had to stop everything I was doing and clean up just so I could get to the stove to make my shrimp and sauce! By the time the dish was ready, I was proud of how pretty and delicious it looked (and it tasted even better!) and so I took a picture. What I should have done was capture a shot of the messy kitchen - but I'm more of a columnist than a breaking-news reporter. My advice to those who seek adventure is, turn to the kitchen. Here's a little gem of old Savannah wisdom:
kissin' don't last . . . cookin' do
1 comment:
I love your story!! It reminded me of when I was pregnant with Mary and made brownies at 10:00 at night. I lifted up the pan to see if the bottom was down and DROPPED it!! I had hot gooey brownies ALL OVER my kitchen. I swear we still found little specks of brownie a year later. I love to cook but I mam not very good at it. Thank God for my darling husband Tim!
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