Shrimp Creole, April 21, 2016

Jeannene's been on kind of a shrimp strike for several years now. She will, on rare occasions, eat it. She loves a friend's shrimp cocktail when he brings it to game night potlucks and she loves it when I make my grandmom's shrimp in beer. She certainly enjoyed the shrimp we had in Savannah last summer. However, other than that, she has avoided it since getting undercooked shrimp two weeks in a row at restaurants.

I decided to make Shrimp Creole, though, after finding it in John T. Edge's wonderful Southern cookbook, A Gracious Plenty. I figured I could just pull some fish out of the freezer for her, if she didn't want the shrimp, but she ended up really loving it. I served it with jasmine rice and a green salad.

The recipe originated with the Louisiana Farm Bureau women of Baton Rouge. I made the recipe almost as they gave it and would make modifications next time. I found it skimpy on garlic & shrimp.  I also couldn't believe they recommended cooking shrimp for 10 minutes. My modified recipe would look like this:

Shrimp Creole

1-2 tbsp. butter or olive oil

1/2 tsp. paprika

1 onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

14 oz. can stewed tomatoes

Salt & pepper

2 cups peeled, deveined shrimp (I chopped it because the shrimp I had were fairly large, but i would use smaller, whole shrimp next time)

Melt the butter in a skillet. Add paprika and stir well. Cook the onion, pepper, and garlic until tender. Add tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes. Add shrimp and cook another 3-4 minutes, until pinkened and cooked through. Serves 4-6. 

Grillades & Grits, March 19, 2015

My wife absolutely adores grits. I never have liked them---until, that is, we tasted Anson Mills grits when we were in Charleston, SC. Oh, my word! Those were great! My tastes are changing on a lot of things, so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that I now like grits. Anyway, when I made grillades and grits last night, with lima beans to accompany them, Jeannene was so thrilled with the grits and the lima beans, she said she could have made a meal of just those. Don't get me wrong. She liked the grillades and their accompanying sauce quite well. I did, too---although I can't imagine eating them for breakfast, as is the practice in New Orleans, where the dish originates.

Grillades

1/2 lb. round steak, cut 1/2" thick (veal is traditional, but I am not a veal guy)

2 tbsp. flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/8 tsp. cayenne (more, if you like spicy)

1 tbsp. oil

14 oz. stewed tomatoes

10 oz. beef broth

1 onion, chopped

1 green pepper, cut into strips

1-2 tsp. cornstarch

1-2 tbsp. water

Cut meat into 4 pieces. Mix flour with seasonings. Pound flour into meat as you flatten it to 1/4" thickness. Roll up and secure with toothpicks. Brown meat in oil. Drain fat. Add tomatoes, broth, onion, and peppers. Cover and cook on low 45 minutes. Set meat aside and keep warm. Mix cornstarch and water, stirring until starch is dissolved. Stir in and cook, continuing to stir, until thickened and bubbly. You could also use a roux as thickener. Serve with meat over hot grits. Serves 2. I suspect you could make a similar sauce, using veggie broth instead of beef broth, and use baked tofu instead of meat, for a vegan version.