Sean Brock Makes Shrimp & Grits – How To

Legendary Southern chef and author of the new cookbook “South” Sean Brock shares a cherished shrimp and grits recipe fit for a white tablecloth restaurant. Sean starts with the grits, using a thorough technique he’s perfected over the course of his life.

Once the grits are complete, Sean cooks country ham, seasons shrimp with salt and pepper, and dredges them in flour. Next, Sean slices button mushrooms and scallions. He adds the shrimps, mushrooms, and vegetable stock to the pan, allowing the liquid and flour to thicken into a broth. He sprinkles the scallions over the top, along with a little seasoning and hot sauce, and finishes with diced butter, stirring everything together. Sean plates the dish by spreading the grits evenly across the plate and topping it with the mixture of shrimp, mushrooms, country ham, and scallions.

Check out the recipe here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kz4k33/traditional-shrimp-and-grits-recipe

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-Making grits in the South for your family is a rite of passage. When you visit someone’s house, and they didn’t cook their grits properly, you probably shouldn’t marry into that family. ♪♪ Hey. I’m Sean Brock, and I’m here today to celebrate the release of my new book, “South,”

And I’m going to be making one of my favorite recipes in the book, very traditional and simple version of shrimp and grits. This recipe is really important to me, and I wanted to include it in the book because it’s a tribute to one of the most iconic Southern chefs.

His name was Bill Neal. He was one of the first chefs to have the courage to take these simple rural kind of home-cooked dishes, these old traditions of the South, and say, “These are worthy of a white tablecloth restaurant.” We’re going to do something that I’ve been practicing

Since I was a little kid and still try to do better — the simple act of making grits. These are real grits. This is an old heirloom varietal grown by my friend in South Carolina. So many factors that you have to keep in mind when cooking grits and buying grits

Because if you start with a varietal of corn that tastes like nothing, your grits are going to taste like nothing. You can see the coarseness. You can do them finer. You can get a creamier grit, or you can do them even more coarse than this

And get something very, very rustic, like a porridge. This is something that really changed the art of grit cookery for me, and that is soaking the grits overnight so that the grits get a little head start. There are different parts of the corn kernel,

And during the milling process, they all get busted up, and they all kind of go in the same place. And, you know, we’ll cook the grits for, like, 4 hours. That used to drive me crazy. Which is how you get overcooked, tasteless grits, and it’s these little devils in here.

All that will rise to the top. You just take a skimmer, and anything that floats, you want to skim off the top. We’ll let this soak overnight. That’s what I prefer, but at least 8 hours, and you’ll see more rise to the top. This pot has been sitting overnight.

You can look at it now. Compared to what it was before, there were tons of different specks. That’s the endosperm. That’s the outer hull. That’s really pretty. That’s really nice. Another step is making sure there’s none of this stuff on the sides, and so take your hand or spatula

And wipe that back down in there or off. Now, we’re going to crank the heat. Wait for this to come up to a boil. The boiling’s starting to happen, starting to get creamier. Man, that smells good. When you’re cooking grits, there’s a lot different ways

You can go with the liquid that you choose. Some people use milk. Some people use cream. Some people use different stocks. I am such a purist. I like just to use water. To me, if you just dump a bunch of milk in here, it’s going to taste like milk and grits.

This is just pure, honest-to-goodness grit flavor. Now it’s all starting to come together. We’re going to give them a little chance to meditate and rest. Okay. So these have some time to kick back in the La-Z-Boy and relax a little bit, and you can see, they’re much happier.

I like to change the pots out because it gets stuck on the side, gets stuck on the bottom, and once it gets stuck, you’re screwed. Leave no grit behind. We’ll bring them back up, and then we’ll find that perfect temperature. This is a really important flavor profile for Southern cooking.

Bay laurel grows all over the South everywhere — side of the road, along the beaches. This has always been a primary backdrop flavor for Southern cooking, starting with Native Americans. And I always tear it a little bit. I mean, I like to imagine this smell,

This flavor goes back as far as grits can go back. No matter how low you can get this simmer, it’s still going to stick. There’s no way around it. We cook grits in enormous pots, which makes it even more difficult.

So we have a rule — if you can see it with your eyes or walk by it, scrape the bottom. Give it a stir. We’ll allow it to cook for at least an hour, but my rule is to check it every 15 minutes. What I’m looking for is bubbles evenly,

Not just around the side. And no, there’s no way to save it once you scorch it. I’ve tried every possible thing you could imagine. Now that the grits are cooking, we’re going to do the really fun part, and that’s to make the topping for the grits. We’ll start with country ham.

This one is heavily, heavily smoked with hickory. Our tradition of curing pig legs and smoking them is one of the great sources of pride for us Southerners. When you’re cooking these one-pot dishes in the South, you will see, a lot of times, starting off with fat that has some umami to it.

And so that’s what this does for this dish, but this can be any sort of smoky, funky, fermented, salty, fatty anything. Cooking slowly, render it out, and then crisp it up. If you add the tiniest, tiniest touch of just another fat, it just kind of jump-starts that process, helps it along.

You just let it sit, do its thing. I think listening is such an important part of cooking. So while that’s dancing around, we’ll put some of these in there, and we’ll season them. Salt and pepper and flour. You know, you want get just the right amount of flour on there.

Serves two purposes — one, the flavor, the flour will brown and have a different flavor if the shrimp were just in the pan, but also, this is a really quick way to use this flour if you would a roux. I love button mushrooms. I don’t care what anybody says.

I will eat these raw. Slice them kind of thick. Where I’m from, when these are growing, they’ll be — every dinner, every lunch, there’ll just be a pile of these on the table. You’re eating, and you’re literally like… In between bites, you’re just crunching, crushing. ♪♪ We’ll kick this out to the side.

I’ll lay them carefully… in the pan and not mess with them. ♪♪ If you just close your eyes and listen to that, imagine if this was just, like, in your — Like, every bathroom in your house, you just go into and listen to that in your shower, in your sleep.

There’s where I want to take it off the heat so that it doesn’t continue to cook, and I’m going to carefully turn each one of these. We’ll add in some mushrooms. Okay. So now, I want to add the liquid transfer of heat and energy. It’s going to finish cooking the shrimp.

Save some for the top. It’s starting to thicken up from the shrimps, nicely cooks. I’ll season it quickly. It doesn’t need much salt. Hot sauce. ♪♪ We’ll add some butter. So while that’s melting, we’ll adjust our grits. Grits are finished and beautiful and creamy. Salt, white pepper, butter, hot sauce.

So now, here is where grits get really personal. I like for it to fall just like that, just like this wave crashes. Yep. That’s the way I like it. Right before serving, that’s when I’ll always add lemon. So I’ll just add a tiny bit to that, and the same thing here

Right at the very, very, very end. The grits go and cover the bottom so that you’re guaranteed to get a little bit of grits with every bite. Whew. God bless America. Look at that. ♪♪ This is the purest, most honest version of shrimp and grits

In the restaurant world, and so easy to make. ♪♪ That’s soul food. That’s the soul of our region. When I taste this, I have no doubt that Southern food is amongst the best in the world. It’s not only how delicious this food is, but it’s…

This reminds me of why grandma food is so good. It’s like grandmas know the secret, how to build those flavors to make you feel a certain way, and that’s why you crave those things. That’s why I love this. For the recipe, click the link in the description below,

And you can buy my new book, “South,” which has other shrimp-and-grit recipes and other shrimp-and-grit ideas and many, many, many other wonderful Southern traditions. How fast do you think I can eat this? There aren’t many dishes I could eat every single day. Eating this every day, never get tired of it. Bye-bye.

[ Indistinct conversation ] I could eat another one. Addiction is a scary thing. [ Laughter ] I’m not even eating this because I’m hungry. [ Chuckles ] We all just want to feel good. Mm, I just swallowed an entire shrimp. [ Laughs ] Thanks to that flour coating, it just went right down.