Shrimp and Grits, Italian-Style
To honor our Italian ancestors and friends, let's call it gamberetti con polenta.
When I lived in Charleston, I helped reestablish this “national” dish of South Carolina. This is my version of a classic that is both Charleston and Liguria. You can use grits, cornmeal, or polenta in this recipe, but if you use the finer grits, you’ll have to carefully and slowly add the meal to the pot of boiling water, or it may clump. I prefer more coarsely ground grits of dent corn because it is softer, less gritty, and more flavorful than Italian polenta, which is closer to cornmeal in grind.
Italian cookbooks often tell you that you must stir polenta relentlessly, and that’s true if you are using degerminated flint corn polenta. Wholegrain, heirloom dent corn is full of fat and won’t stick to the pot, and cooks up perfectly in about a half-hour, though you can cook it for an hour or more. The longer you cook it, the more it falls apart and the creamier it becomes. Allow ½ cup grits for four people if the grits are a simple side dish; double the amount for a plate of grits topped with sauce as the main course. As the liquid cooks out of the grits, add water or stock (or whatever you have on hand to keep the pot from drying out). Some chefs like to add milk or cream, but when making shrimp and grits, I use only water in the grits so that the corn flavor is an earthen counterpoint to the intense shellfish sauce finished off with a little butter. Butter is not traditional in much of Ligurian cooking, but in the hinterlands closer to the Lombard plains, and on the Riviera di Ponente, close to France, sauces, even pesto, are often finished with a bit of butter swirled in. I also put a little in with the grits as they are cooking.
As a nod to the polenta cooks of Liguria, I season the grits with a bay leaf as they cook. You can also cook them in a slow cooker set on low for about eight to 10 hours. You can also cook them in a rice steamer, using only three parts liquid to one part grits.
Remove the head and shells from the shrimp, dropping them into an enameled or stainless steel stockpot.
If you are planning to serve the dish within a couple of hours, sprinkle the shrimp bodies with the lemon juice and salt and cayenne to taste, cover, and refrigerate. If waiting until later, put the shrimp on ice and wait to season them until about an hour before you plan to eat.
Add the celery, carrot, the onion, and the herbs to the pot and cover with the water. Cook, uncovered, at a low boil until the onion is transparent, the carrots are soft, and the stock is pleasantly infused with the shrimp flavor — about 45 minutes. The liquid should be reduced by a third.
Strain out the solids and discard. Cool, then freeze what you don’t plan to use immediately.
For the shrimp and stock:
— 1 pound fresh head-on shrimp
— Freshly squeezed juice of one lemon
— Sea salt and cayenne pepper
— 1 celery rib, broken into pieces
— 1 small carrot, broken into pieces
— 1 small onion, unpeeled, and quartered
— A handful of fresh herbs such as thyme, parsley, oregano, and basil
— 6 cups water
While the stock is cooking, bring 4 cups of the water to boil in a heavy stockpot that has a lid. Drop in the bay leaf, the butter, and the salt. Stir in the grits, return to a boil, and reduce the heat, allowing the grits to cook on a low boil for 10 minutes or so, until the grits are very thick and have absorbed most of the water, stirring the pot occasionally to prevent the grits from sticking. Add about a ½ cup more of water to the pot, cover, and turn down the heat, allowing the grits to simmer another 10 minutes or so. As the liquid cooks off or is absorbed, add more water, cooking the grits until the desired consistency is reached, a total cooking time of about an hour. The grits should be piping hot when served, slightly soupy but full-bodied enough that they do not run on the plate.
For the grits:
— 4 to 6 cups water
— 1 bay leaf
— 2 tablespoons salted butter, or 2 tablespoons unsalted plus 1 teaspoon salt
— 1 cup stone-ground, whole-grain corn grits
Remove and discard the bay leaf before serving. The grits will remain hot for long after you have turned off the heat, so go ahead and divide the portions into the serving dishes while you are finishing the sauce.
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and sauté the shallots until they are soft and translucent, about five minutes. Add the wine, raise the heat, and cook until the liquid has disappeared and the oil begins to sputter.
Add the tomato, stirring, and continue to cook over fairly high heat until almost all the liquid has evaporated. Add the shrimp stock and reduce until just shy of serving consistency, then whisk in the butter and the reserved shrimp.
Keep stirring, tossing the shrimp around in the buttery sauce until they are just barely done and the sauce is shiny and silken, about 2 to 3 minutes. Serve immediately over the grits.
Makes 8 appetizers or 4 mains.
For the shrimp and sauce:
— 3 tablespoons olive oil
— 2 shallots or ½ small onion, peeled and chopped, about ½ cup
— 1 cup dry white wine or Vermouth
— 1 large ripe tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped
— 1½ cups hot shrimp stock
— 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
— Reserved shrimp
About the author
- John Martin Taylorhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/john-martin-taylor/
