Best-ever Shrimp and Grits

I've heard that no two people make shrimp and grits exactly alike. Heck, I don't even make it the same way twice in a row, mostly because I don't tend to follow recipes. Funny, huh, since I write recipes? But those are mainly for the folks who don't prefer to wing it, as I do. At any rate, most of the time I throw stuff together with what ingredients I have on hand. In this particular case, I really only had the basics: shrimp, and grits. I also had some andouille sausage--albeit a mild but still flavorful rope of Johnsonville brand--and a batch of homemade Emeril's "Essence," aka Cajun seasoning. Alas, I didn't have any fresh bell pepper or celery, two-thirds of the holy trinity of Creole and Cajun cooking, but I did have an onion. A decent start, but not quite enough.

I scrounged in the cupboard, hoping I had a jar of roasted red peppers. What I found was one jar of sundried tomatoes and another of Trader Joe's Sweet Picante Peppers with Creamy Cheesy Filling. Hoping these wouldn't be too sweet, I cracked open the jar and popped one into my mouth. MMmmmm! Not as sweet as Peppadews, a bit softer in texture. These would work! I squeezed out the cheesy filling to use in the grits, and chopped up some smoked gouda--who doesn't like cheesy grits? There were some leftover mushrooms in the fridge as well. Why not? 

I wasn't really surprised that the finished dish was tasty. While the elements were thrown together somewhat haphazardly, none of them were particularly weird. There were lots of good textures: smooth grits, perfectly cooked shrimp, soft mushrooms and onions, the slight chew of sundried tomatoes. Since most of the ingredients were pre-seasoned, I really only needed a pinch of salt to draw out the moisture while cooking the onion and mushrooms. It all worked amazingly well, enough for Mr Minx to declare the dish "restaurant quality." 

Shrimp & Grits

This was so good, I'm recording the recipe so I could maybe make it again some day. Not that I'll ever have this same perfect storm of ingredients on hand. But maybe?

For the shrimp:

1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning

extra virgin olive oil 

1/2 large onion, sliced

4 ounces white mushrooms, sliced

pinch salt

1/2 13.5-ounce pack Johnsonville Andouille sausage, sliced about 1/3" thick

6-7 Trader Joes Sweet Picante Peppers with Creamy Cheesy Filling

3-4 sundried tomatoes in oil, roughly chopped

For the grits:

2 1/4 cup water

1/2 cup regular or old fashioned (not quick) grits

2-ish ounces chopped smoked gouda

the cheese from the picante peppers

garlic powder

Chopped parsley for garnish 

To make the shrimp:

Toss the shrimp in a bowl with the Cajun seasoning and a healthy drizzle of the olive oil. Cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.

Put the onion and mushrooms in a saute pan with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Cook over medium heat until the veg have given up their liquid and have softened and browned a bit. Scrape into a bowl and set aside. 

Add a touch more oil to the pan and brown the sausage pieces.

While the sausage is cooking, squeeze the cheese from the peppers. Chop the peppers roughly. Add the peppers and the sundried tomatoes to the onion and mushrooms. Add the browned sausage to the bowl. Deglaze the saute pan with a bit of water--half a cup or so--and add that water to the bowl, too.

Cook the shrimp in the same pan over medium-high heat, turning once, until all shrimp are opaque on both sides. A tip: don't walk away while you're cooking shrimp. They cook FAST. You just need 3-4 minutes. After that, they're on the fast track to rubber-town. Once the shrimp are opaque, pour in the veg and water, turn the heat up to high, and bring to a boil. Cook until everything is hot, just a couple minutes. Taste the liquid for seasoning and add more salt and Cajun seasoning if you think it needs it.

To make the grits:

Bring the water to a boil. Whisk in the grits, then turn the heat down to low. Cover the pot and cook until the grits have absorbed the water and become tender, stirring occasionally, 15-20 minutes. Add the cheeses and the garlic powder and stir until the cheese is completely melted.

Dollop the grits onto plates, spoon shrimp mixture on top. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Serves 3-4, depending on appetite.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Sucre King Cake Giveaway

New Orleans' famed Sucre A Sweet Boutique asked me to give away a King Cake to one lucky Minxeats reader--how could I turn that down?

If you're not familiar with King Cakes, they are danish-like cream cheese-filled cinnamon-flavored pastries typically eaten between Twelfth Night and Mardi Gras. They're a huge tradition in New Orleans, where they decorate the cakes in the traditional purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras colors. Sucre uses luster dust, which gives their cakes a subtle sheen that's almost too pretty to eat. Within each cake is a small plastic baby. Tradition has it that if you get the piece with the baby, you’ll be crowned king for the day. Winning is not without a catch, however--the person who finds the baby has to buy the next cake!

Sucre will be selling their King Cakes from now until March 3, the day before Mardi Gras. If you'd like your very own but can't make to to the bakery's New Orleans location, you can order one here. Or, even better, you can win one from Minxeats! To be entered in the drawing, simply leave a comment on this post with a valid e-mail address so I can contact you if your name is chosen.

The Rules
Winners must be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the 48 contiguous United States.
A valid e-mail address must be included.
Contest ends 12am, February 1, 2013.
Winner will be notified via e-mail.

Good Luck!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Red Beans & Rice

Back in the early 90s, my friend Marshall and I decided to throw a grand Mardi Gras party. We actually expected our guests to wear black tie, because we were pretentious like that, plus we lived in Guilford (with our parents), where most people already own formalwear. But neither of us had any money, so we decided to be frugal with the eats. Red beans and rice is cheap poor people food, but it tastes great, and if we spent the bulk of our pennies on alcohol, who would notice that they were eating stewed beans and ham hocks?

So the two of us spent one early February afternoon cooking up a huge vat of red beans, enough to feed 20 people or more. We carefully packed the beans into Tupperware containers and put them in the fridge for the big day. All we'd need to do for the party is dump it all back in the pot and reheat it, plus make rice. Easy peasy.

But when the day of the party arrived, so did major ice storms. We had sleet for a day or two prior to the party, and on the day of, the neighborhood was glistening with ice. Everything sparkled. Truthfully, it was very pretty. Pretty annoying. Marshall's sidewalks and front steps were glazed with an inch or so of the stuff, and as soon as the buckets of hot water we poured on to melt the ice hit the ground, it froze, too. We didn't have any salt on hand, and didn't want to venture out into the mess to get some. Neither did we want our guests to risk their necks in high heels and evening slippers to attend our fete.

Sadly, we cancelled the party. Not postponed, cancelled. Some of our less-pretentious friends were annoyed that they had to return party clothes to the store, unworn. I had purchased a black, strapless, floor-length gown and was looking forward to showing off my newly-svelt bod. I had purchased it on a deep, deep discount (I think it cost me $36 bucks) so I kept it.

In addition to the the bottles of alcohol we had purchased for the occasion, we also had several gallons of red beans that weren't going to be eaten. Not by party guests, at least.

For months afterward, whenever I got a call to join Marshall and his family for dinner, I knew I'd be facing a feast of red beans and rice. Fortunately, the family had a chest freezer in the basement, and the beans went to live down there until we managed to finish them off. Eventually, it got to the point that I never wanted to see red beans and rice again. In fact, I didn't eat them for 19 years, until I decided to make them for dinner one Sunday evening.

Some recipes involve tomatoes, andouille sausage, and all sorts of extraneous ingredients, but I think it's best to keep it simple: just trinity, beans, and ham hocks.

Red Beans & Rice

2 onions, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound dried red kidney beans
3 smoked ham hocks
3 bay leaves
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Hot sauce
Steamed white rice
Chopped green onions

Place the onion, bell pepper, and celery in a large stock pot with the olive oil. Cook vegetables over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they are softened. At that point, add the beans, ham hocks, bay leaves, and enough water to cover beans by an inch or so. Bring mixture to a boil, then cover the pot and reduce the heat to low. Simmer the beans for 2-2.5 hours, stirring occasionally, adding additional water if necessary to keep beans covered.

When beans begin to fall apart and the cooking liquid has become creamy, the beans are done.

Remove ham hocks and bay leaves. Cut the meat from the bones and chop it into small pieces. Add meat back to pot.

Season beans with salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Serve with white rice and garnish with green onions.

Makes about 2 quarts.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

Today is Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras, so it seems appropriate to celebrate with some Cajun/Creole dishes. Here are a couple of recipes from the Minxeats archives. Personally, I'm in the mood for some Cajun Kate's gumbo! Luckily, we have a couple of quarts in the freezer....

Blackened Shrimp with Corn Three Ways

King Cake

Seafood Etouffée

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Seafood Etouffée

Back in the summer of 2000, my then-fiancé Mr Minx and I took a trip to New Orleans with a group of people whom I had "met" via an Internet chat group. Emeril Lagasse was still climbing the peak of his popularity, and our gang of avid fans planned an excursion to dine in the city that made him famous. Originally a large group of 20 or more, squabbling between the individuals who each believed they were in charge of the party led to splinter factions. We ended up traveling with a bombastic woman named Lynne who claimed to have lived in the Big Easy for a time, and knew Emeril and his chefs personally. We initially trusted her authoritative nature but soon found out that she was a bit of a dictator.

Show me a control freak, and I'll turn rebel right quick. After suffering through a slog around the French Quarter in the blistering heat and humidity, Mr Minx and I broke away and had lunch at NOLA, a restaurant that was not sanctioned by Dictator Lynne. We had possibly the best meal of our trip, parts of which we can still experience today if we're lucky enough to have a quart of Cajun Kate's gumbo in the freezer.

Apart from that meal, I subsisted largely on crawfish, which I had grown to love in the 90s. My closest friend back then had parents who hailed from Louisiana; there was always a stockpile of crawfish tails in their basement freezer. I love their funky, somewhat-lobstery flavor and texture and thrilled when we'd cook up a big pot of gumbo in the Walker's kitchen. On one occasion, the two of us prepared a rather ambitious multi-course meal to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of mutual friends; crawfish mousse served in a scallop shell and garnished with a whole mudbug served as the fish course. In New Orleans, I ate as many versions of crawfish etouffée as I could get my lips on, and a crawfish po' boy for good measure.

Like crawfish tails, but paler in color.

Back in Baltimore, I found that it's near impossible to find crawfish, so when I have a hankering for etouffée, I usually have to settle for shrimp. Trader Joe's sells frozen langoustine tails that are pretty similar to crawfish. Alone, or with the addition of other shellfish like shrimp or scallops, they make a terrific Shellfish Etouffée.

Shellfish Etouffée

1/4 cup flour
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/8 cup canola oil
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup chopped celery
2 teaspoons Creole seasoning, or to taste (I used Emeril's Essence)
dash Tabasco sauce
1 lb raw shrimp (peeled), or scallops, langoustine tails, crawfish tails, or any combination
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 cup sliced scallions
hot steamed rice

Preheat oven to 450F. Line a small baking tray with aluminum foil and add the flour, distributed as evenly as possible. Toast flour in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes, checking and stirring every 5 minutes or so, until the flour is evenly browned and approximately the color of cocoa powder. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large saute pan, add butter and oil, heat on medium until butter is melted and has stopped foaming, 3-4 minutes. Slowly stir in toasted flour. The roux should turn a deep chocolate brown almost instantaneously. (Yes, I know it's cheating, but who has 45 minutes to stir roux?) Cook roux over medium heat, stirring constantly, for about 15 minutes.

Add vegetables to hot roux and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften, about 10 minutes.

For me, one of the greatest culinary fragrances in the world is the smell of
chopped "trinity" hitting smoking hot roux. Heaven!

Turn heat to low, add the seasonings and stock, and cook for about thirty minutes.

Add shellfish, butter, and scallions, and cook an additional 10 minutes or so, until shrimp are opaque and other shellfish are heated through.

Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary, adding salt, pepper, more hot sauce, and maybe a squeeze of lemon, if desired.

Serve over hot rice. Serves 2-4.

King Cake

I had only eaten King Cake once before, at a friend's party. After hearing that it was de rigeur for a Mardi Gras celebration, I had it built up in my head as some grand fancy pastry. It was a little disappointing to find that it's actually a ginormous Danish, either braided and plain or filled, in the style of the French galette de rois, with an almond paste, or even a cream cheese mixture. Now that I'm a bread-baking fool, I thought I'd try to make my own version by altering a sweet bread recipe from my current favorite cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

To the book's basic brioche recipe, which I halved, I added 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg. It's a very sticky dough, so rather than trying to roll it out, I decided to arrange a series of flattened dough blobs in an oval shape on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I then applied a thin layer of pistachio paste (cuz almond is just so done, plus - pistachio!) down the center of the oval, and covered that with the rest of the dough. A whole hazelnut was inserted at random, to stand in for the traditional plastic baby or bean.

After an hour and twenty minutes of rising time, the oval was baked at 350F for 35 minutes, then set on a rack to cool.

When cool, it was frosted with a mixture of powdered sugar, milk, and lemon juice in the form of True Lemon powder, and topped with the traditional purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras colors in the form of coarse sugar.

The verdict? It was good - like a glazed brioche. The pistachio paste was delicious, but it could have used a lot more. (I was afraid to add too much because it might leak out; during the rising, some of it did, but I pinched the dough back in place over the leaks.) A cream cheese filling would have been nice, too.

According to tradition, the one who finds the baby (or in this case, hazelnut) gets to throw the next Mardi Gras party or at least supply the cake. Since I found it in my second slice, I suppose that makes me "it." :)

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Throw some beads, eat some oysters, pinch heads and suck tails!

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

How about a big bowl of homemade gumbo to celebrate Fat Tuesday?