Shrimp and Grits

 

 
Dinner-time is approaching, you're in Charleston, SC (or you wish you were) and you're thinking of shrimp and grits. No dish is more quintessential Low Country cuisine, nothing is more Charleston. But where would a native go for shrimp and grits? First off, you're about 12 hours late. Historically, shrimp and grits was breakfast for fishermen and their families during shrimp season (May to December). It makes sense also when you think of how true shrimp and grits is started, not in olive oil, not in butter, but in the fat of cooked bacon. A basic preparation might follow with softening onion, green bell pepper, some garlic, a handful of scallion, saute the shrimp, add a dash of lemon juice, a splash of Tabasco and you're done.

Of course, a host of dining experiences have risen in Charleston with locals and visitors alike ready for a fancier shrimp and grits. You can hardly see a fisherman deglazing his breakfast pan with white wine, or adding chicken stock to make a broth, but both are fine additions. At Husk, a Bon Appetit Best New Restaurant, they cook the shrimp with artisan sausage and ladle roasted tomato broth over the mixture to make more of a soup. Rachel Ray and Anthony Bourdain helped highlight Jestine's Kitchen, which features their own soupy recipe over grits. Southend Brewery will serve you something closer to cheese soup and Poogan's Porch will add a blue crab gravy to its shrimp mixture. The last frequent option is adding mushrooms, found at Hominy Grill and in many recipes you'll see. 

Me? I'm neither a fisherman nor a purist. I'm not even from the South, so I suppose that gives me plenty of room for my own style. I do like things a little saucy, but soupy seems wrong for shrimp and grits. While I like to keep things simple, I also like to take opportunities to capture and enhance flavors. Like any dish, make it your own with your own combination of ingredients and flavors.
   
A note on the grits, this recipe assumes 4 cups of liquid for 1 cup of grits. Instant grits might call for a different proportion of liquid to grits. Make the grits with the volume of liquid directed, and adjust the water, cream and stock mixture accordingly, feeling free to drop any of these ingredients as long as the liquid total is as recommended. Many also add cheese to their grits, but you won't find that here. Serves 4.
   
Ingredients:
2 cups water
1 cup cream
1 cup stock (shrimp, chicken or vegetable)
1 cup quick-cook grits
1 lb shrimp
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt/pepper
6 bacon slices
1 onion, diced
1/2 a green bell pepper, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp flour
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup scallions, chopped white and light green parts
dash of Tabasco 
    
In a large sauce pan over medium-high heat, combine the water, cream and stock. Bring to a boil and slowly stir in the grits. Stir to combine, turn down the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for the length of time directed, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, combine the shrimp and lemon juice in a bowl, seasoning with salt and pepper, and set aside.
In a large saute pan over medium heat, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove the bacon and and drain on a plate with paper towels. Break up the bacon into pieces when cool enough to handle. In the retained bacon fat, add the onion and bell pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds further. Sprinkle in the flour and stir, cooking another minute to allow the flour taste to cook off. Add the white wine and scrape the bottom of the pan, deglazing and loosening the cooked bits. Cook down the wine somewhat and then whisk in the chicken stock.  Bring the sauce to a simmer to thicken. 
When the grits are cooked, add the shrimp and scallions to the sauce mixture. Cook the shrimp until opaque, about 3 to 5 minutes. Mix in the cooked bacon, a dash of Tabasco, if desired, adjust the salt and pepper seasoning, and serve immediately over the grits.
    

Sausage & Fennel Ziti with Pernod Cream Sauce

 

"Absinthe, I adore you truly! 
It seems when I drink you,

I inhale the young forest's soul,
During the beautiful green season."

                                                Raul Ponchon, 1848-1937

These words on the "green fairy," as absinthe is known, are some of the tamer tributes by poets, French or otherwise. Absinthe is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from botanics including the flowers and leaves of the wormwood tree along with anise, fennel and other herbs. Banned during prohibition and for many decades afterwards, it was thought to offer hallucinogenic powers. In reality, it was little more than a highly alcoholic spirit favored by the likes of Gaugin to Hemingway in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This association with Bohemian culture attracted the attention of prohibitionists and absinthe remained banned until its reputed effects were disproved in the latter half of the 20th century. Still, it carries with it that air of counter-culture. One can imagine the poets and painters of Paris sipping away the Belle Epoque in search of the next great work.    

With absinthe banned, Pernod, also anise flavored but without controversial wormwood oil, stepped in to fill the niche. Ouzo, Ojen, Pernod and other anise or licorice flavored liquors also make good additions to recipes, adding an anise flavor and deglazing a pan at the same time. In this recipe, Pernod compliments the fennel, both in its basic form and through the seeds in sausage. That sausage, chicken stock and cream tone down the anise flavoring, and altogether make this an easy dish to prepare and like. This meal may not have been enjoyed in the cafes of Paris, but its fun and fresh use of fennel and Pernod will liven up any evening. Serves 4.

    

Ingredients:

3/4 lb mild Italian sausage

1 cup beef stock

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 pinch red pepper flakes

1/4 cup Pernod

1 fennel bulb, sliced

salt/pepper

1/2 lb ziti pasta

1/4 cup cream

    

Directions:

Remove the sausage from its casings and fry in a large skillet over medium heat. Break up the meat into pieces, stirring frequently about 10 minutes. In a separate small sauce pan over high heat, reduce the beef stock to 1/2 cup. When the sausage is browned, add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for 30 seconds, then remove both to a bowl. Add the Pernod to the pan, scraping up any brown bits. Add the fennel and stock, bring to a simmer and cook until the fennel is tender, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente, about 10 minutes. Reserve a little of the cooking water, drain the pasta and stir into the fennel sauce. Add the cream, stir and adjust the seasoning. Add additional pasta cooking liquid if desired. Serve.

    

Lamb and Orange Tagine

 

 
Timbuktu, fabled caravan city, across the dunes and sands of time. Nothing like news of an Islamic insurgency and colonial power-backed interdiction to remind us of exotic locales. Long before there was a war on the West, long before there really even was a West, there was culture in Timbuktu. Scholarly learning, writing and literature, trading, salt, gold, they say two-thirds of medieval gold traveled through Timbuktu to North Africa and on to Europe. 
  
The culinary history, not so much. The current day cuisine of surrounding Mali is based on cereal grains, rice and millet, grown in the flood plains of the seasonal Niger River and supplemented with edible leaves, tomato or peanut sauces and accompanied by grilled meat. However, at the other end of the caravan route is another area of ancient mystery, also held in the West as an exotic locale.
   
Morocco today retains much of our exotic imaginations. The caravans from Timbuktu would travel north across the Sahara, through the Kasbahs of the Atlas Mountains, and into the ancient Moroccan cities of Marrakech, Fez and Meknes. This is the land of the tagine, a meat stew cooked in a conical clay vessel. This is the land of 100 ways to cook chicken tagine, of cumin, coriander and cardamon, where cinnamon mixes with savory meats, the land of couscous. 
  
I love to make tagines, and often make a chicken tagine with apricots and almonds. But tonight, I wanted something different. Lamb, but also something brighter. Winter still holds its grip on us, and so I wanted something to brighten the dark nights. This lamb tagine features oranges in the main, but also honey, ginger, golden raisins, savory and sweet, exotic and comforting all at once. That is the wonderful thing about a tagine, it can remind you of far away, but make you feel safe and at home. Try this lamb tagine recipe, it is sublime. Serves 2.
    
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb lamb, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 tsp cardamon
1 stick cinnamon
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (if desired)
3 cups chicken stock
1/2 can diced tomatoes, drained
zest of one orange
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup golden raisins
slices of 1 orange
1/4 cup toasted almonds
salt/pepper
1 cup couscous
juice of 1 orange
   
Directions:
In a tagine, or dutch oven, over medium high heat, warm the oil, season the lamb with salt and pepper, add lamb to the pan and brown on all sides, in batches if necessary, for 5 minutes. Remove the lamb, set aside, and reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion and soften for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cook for 30 seconds to release the flavor, then add the cumin, coriander, ginger, cardamon, cinnamon stick and red pepper flakes (if desired). Stir and allow the flavors to release for 1 minute. Add 2 cups of stock and scrape up the cooked bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the browned lamb and any juices, tomatoes, orange zest and honey and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat as necessary to maintain a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes.
In a separate small sauce pan, bring the orange juice and remaining 1 cup of chicken stock to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the couscous. Cover and let sit for at least 5 minutes. 
Meanwhile, add the golden raisins and orange slices to the tagine. Cover and let cook 5 minutes while the couscous sits. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper as desired.
To serve, spoon couscous into a bowl. Top with lamb tagine and toasted almonds. Enjoy.
   

Scallops with Viet Cauliflower Puree

 

In most cases the best way to do something takes a great deal of effort. Have you ever looked at recipes for pho broth? They usually involve marrow bones and hours of simmering, something I just haven't yet been willing to do myself. But there are some things you can do in an instant, like a thunderclap, that will totally transform a dish.  For example, some stores now carry pre-made pho broth. No, I'm not trying to say just make pho with pre-made pho broth. That would be heresy, although I do prepare sauces regularly with pre-made chicken and veal broths. But the addition of pho broth to other things, such as purees, can impart all of the delicate, exotic flavors we love in pho.

I like to serve scallops with a puree. Sometimes I make a pea puree, other times cauliflower. The recipe is simple and quick, involving softened onions, garlic, stock, and cauliflower. This evening, however, I wanted something more delicate, something more interesting, something to float my senses away. Isn't that the purpose of an Asian water garden, to gather senses in the middle of a beautiful space: a gurgling of water, the scent of a blossom, the occasional flutter of a fish or croak of a frog, flickers from a lantern. That is what I sought this evening for my puree: less savory, more seductive. By using pho broth, in one simple step I produced the scents of star anise, clove, coriander, cilantro, all of the things that enter your conscious through your sense of smell before your sense of taste. Combine with a chive oil and simply sauteed scallops will transport you away. Serves 2.

   

Ingredients:

5 tbsp vegetable oil
2 shallots, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 head of cauliflower florets
2 cups chicken pho broth
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch chives, chopped with 4 stalks reserved
salt/pepper
10 scallops
    
Directions:
In a medium sauce pan over medium-low heat, add 1 tbsp vegetable and soften the shallots. After a few minutes, add the garlic to release the flavor. Increase the heat to high, add the cauliflower florets and cook for one minute. Add the pho broth and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook 10 minutes or until the cauliflower is soft when stuck with a fork.
In a small sauce pan over medium-high heat, heat the extra virgin olive oil until shimmering. Add the chive, stir and turn off the heat. 

Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. When just about to smoke, season the scallops with salt and pepper and add 5 to the pan. Allow to sear on one side for a few minutes and then turn. Cook 2 to 3 minutes more and then remove to a covered plate to keep warm. If needed, add the remaining 2 tbsp of vegetable oil to the pan and heat. Cook the remaining scallops the same way. Meanwhile, remove the cauliflower with a slotted spoon to a food processor and puree. Add enough of the broth if needed to loosen to a desired consistency. Spoon the puree to plates, rinse, and puree the chive oil. Plate the cooked scallops and then drizzle with the chive oil and top with reserved  chive stalks.