Shrimp 'n' grits, makeover edition

So, the moment has come. We have hit the Southern Cooking shelf. Recall the premiss of this blog: we are working our way through all the cookbooks we have, which are shelved on a baker's rack Katherine bought 18 months ago.

The book collection has expanded since then, principally on that second row of the rack:

The lower rows have been 'Evelyned'

But the basic idea remains: first, the general recipe/cooking books, then the books written by specific chefs, then cookbooks by region, culminating in the bottom row of Southern Cookbooks and all the wonderful issues of Cooks Illustrated that Judy gave me. Our last recipe was from Alton Brown's cookbook, which had been classed as being Southern because he is from the South. But really, today's book is the first of the strictly Southern ones. And what a success it was! Read on...

It's the Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook. Katherine had bought it for Judy, but then liked it so much she bought it for herself. A good example of the principle: always buy presents for someone that you yourself want! We had done a few recipes from the book before: their meatloaf (delicious with chopped pickle), and famous chicken bog. Our chicken bog was good, but not as good as Judy's: that was the first meal I ever had at Beaver Creek Drive, and it was very memorable. I had three helpings, prompting murmurings of 'Hey, Mikey!'.

Anyway, back to the book. Here it is:

The recipe itself spans three pages. Uh oh!

No wait, FOUR pages!

First, shell the shrimp. Boring!

Make some shrimp boil:

Add to shells to make the stock:

Meanwhile, assemble the grits:

Yes, there is something else in this picture other than the grits.

'Stir grits into a bowl of cold water and allow to settle':

'Corn hulls may float to the surface'.

Then cook the grits with milk, nice and slow:

Meanwhile (there are a lot of 'meanwhile's in this recipe), take some tomatillos:

Blacken them under the broiler, and blend, adding jalapeno:

OK, they're not that black.

That's better.

Press through a food mill, and you have an amazing flavour enhancing pulp:

Meanwhile, fry some bacon!

Now you're talking!

Chop up onion and green pepper:

On the right: the shrimp broth.

Fry the aromatics in the bacon fat:

But what about the bacon? Hmmm. What can one do with bacon bits? It's like when a recipe calls for part of a bottle of wine; the only thing you can do is throw the rest away - it's such a waste! But then Katherine had a brilliant idea: WE COULD PUT THE BACON BITS IN A SALAD!

Meanwhile, whisk together some flour with the shrimp broth to make a thickener:

Now for the final act. Mix the paste in with the vegetables, and add the broth:

Reduce down to a gloopy consistency:

Then add the shrimp:

Now that's looking good. But how do you make shrimp like this look even better? Answer, put them over grits:

Look at them glisten!

OK, so that was a complicated dish to make, but it was worth it. The tomatillo and jalapeño gravy was tangy and delightful, and went very well with the grits. It was 'classy' shrimp and grits. Dinner party material (but maybe not for really fancy dinner parties; it's hard to serve prettily).

Chicken thighs again!

Next up is one of my favourite cookbooks, Alton Brown's 'I'm only here for the food':

It's not just a book of recipes - in fact, I take it back, it isn't a book of recipes at all. It's a cookbook: it's a book which tells you how to cook. It's got a wonderful introduction in which Alton describes his approach to writing about cooking. He contrasts giving someone directions to your house with giving them a map: in the first case, they might arrive safely, but they wouldn't know what to do if a tree had fallen in the road and they couldn't follow the directions any more.

Anyway, there were lots of recipes to try. As a teaser, we made 'Scampi 2.0', a quick fried shrimp recipe with roma tomatoes and persillade added at the last moment (I like the description of persillade on that Wikipedia page: 'when it is added at the end of cooking or as a garnish, it provides a garlicky jolt'):

But the main recipe we did was 'Chicken in Garlic and Shallots':

The principle behind this recipe is that you bake chicken thighs with lots of olive oil, garlic (ten cloves), shallots (ten shallots), fresh parsley and thyme. The baked garlic and shallot are nice and mild, so he recommends adding them to mashed potatoes, which is what we did.

Start, as usual, with one baby and one mother:

Then take some seasoned chicken thighs:

Brown them, add garlic, shallots, and herbs, and you have a beautiful pan ready for the oven:

Well, it looks beautiful now. But at the time, I was very annoyed, because once again the chicken thigh skins stuck to the pan as I was browning them. This happened to me once before, when I was doing Thomas Keller's chicken thighs. I still don't know what the explanation is, but I think it might have something to do with trying to brown the thighs in oil alone (rather than with a little butter). Anyway, when the thighs came out, I separated out the pan juices, reserving the scented oil for another time and keeping the chicken jus for this dish:

As I said earlier, the mashed potatoes have garlic stirred into them. We also had the ubiquitous broccoli:

Verdict: good, but not spectacular. I blame myself for not browning the thighs properly. And Katherine didn't really like the shallots. Other than that, a great success!

Postscript: we also did Alton Brown's Melanzane alla Parmigiana, which was absolutely delicious. So out of the three dishes we did from the book, two were excellent, and one was good. Not a bad hit rate. But what else would you expect from good old Alton?