Carolina Shrimp & Grits

This week’s Throwdown category is "Deep South". I considered grilling up a hot dog or a McRib or something and claiming terroir since I was going to be cooking it in the Deep South, but then I thought that would be a poor reflection on my southern roots. So I endeavored instead to create one of the most classic deep south dishes of all time: shrimp & grits.



I started out by roasting garlic. Once that was ready to squeeze out, I mixed it with the shrimp. The shrimp were marinated in butter, lemon, Cajun spices, saffron, Turkish paprika and black pepper.



Here are the grits and the peeled, roasted garlic:



I have yet to get a Dutch oven, so I just threw the yellow stone-ground grits in a pot on the coals of my fancy new fire pit. I was using good ol’ southern hickory and pecan wood.



Once those were on their way, I combined the shrimp and roasted garlic in one Spitmate basket and I filled a second Spitmate with…wait for it….collard greens and fat back! I also tried putting some of the shrimp on the Squeezeloc skewers to see if it made any difference.



Once the shrimp was ready, I combined it and the roasted garlic plus some grated cheddar and jack cheese in with the grits. Time to eat!



The view is Lake Murray, in the heart of South Carolina. I didn’t have any fresh mint handy to make a real mint julep, so instead I decided to serve my dish with Coberg eggnog (please do not anyone attempt to claim that there is a better eggnog in America. There isn’t.) in a Carolina Gamecock cup to celebrate USC going to the SEC title game for the first time ever.


Deep South enough?


Here’s my entry pic:




---Jonny Rotisserie