Shrimp and Grits with Gumbo Sauce

Deep Run Roots

Shrimp and grits is one of my husband's favorite "special" meals that I make. I've been cooking a specific sort of recipe for a few years now, and I chose this recipe to make for him first from the THREE we have in cookbooks we're cooking from currently because it is the most like the one I know he likes...even though there's okra, which he's not really happy about unless it's fried. But it has andouille!

Given that this is three separate recipes in the book, and I felt like the grits were fiddly all by themselves, I decided this couldn't be "easy"...but it's not that bad. And you can easily make the shrimp stock and the gumbo sauce the day before. It makes way more gumbo sauce than we needed for this recipe, so I used the leftovers for other things; you could freeze it in two batches and probably get enough for four people out of each batch, easily. (It also suggested we needed way more grits than we needed for the amount of shrimp, in my opinion!)

This is served over her Foolproof Grits which we've already featured here: https://cookwithheather.com/Deep-Run-Roots-Foolproof-Grits/

And here's the shrimp stock used in the sauce: http://cookwithheather.com/Deep-Run-Roots-Shrimp-Stock/

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with heather
[00:07]: today we are making shrimp and grits
[00:10]: with gumbo sauce
[00:12]: from vivian howard's deep run roots
[00:13]: cookbook and
[00:16]: we had a lot going on here because
[00:19]: the grits the foolproof grits are
[00:21]: another recipe which hopefully you'll
[00:23]: have seen
[00:23]: before this or at the same time this one
[00:25]: comes out but we have those going right
[00:28]: here because they take about half an
[00:29]: hour at least
[00:31]: we've made some shrimp stock from a
[00:33]: different recipe that should be out
[00:35]: already
[00:36]: but now we're finally actually making
[00:38]: the gumbo sauce for our shrimp and grits
[00:40]: so i have a dutch oven here um
[00:44]: i have a it's a relatively small one it
[00:46]: doesn't need to be huge
[00:47]: um and i've got a little bit of
[00:51]: huh it's got it's pretty small i know
[00:53]: you can't see it from that direction
[00:55]: but sorry about that we had to make a
[00:58]: double batch of grits it's huge
[01:01]: um so we have a little bit of oil in our
[01:04]: in our dutch oven here and i'm going to
[01:06]: add
[01:06]: some sliced andouille so this is a
[01:10]: kind of spicy cajun sausage and i need
[01:14]: something to
[01:16]: turn it with which i have forgotten um
[01:20]: and it's sliced into 1 3 inch just
[01:25]: rounds
[01:26]: and we're just going to brown this a
[01:28]: little bit this is
[01:31]: i think fully cooked but you want to
[01:33]: heat it up before you eat it anyway
[01:36]: this will get well cooked in the sauce
[01:38]: though
[01:40]: so we're just browning our sausage
[01:43]: to to release some of the seasonings
[01:47]: into the pan and release some of
[01:49]: its um oil into the pan because we need
[01:52]: a little bit more oil to
[01:56]: handle the vegetables but we want to get
[01:58]: the seasoning from the sausage
[02:00]: in here you could also use just smoked
[02:03]: sausage
[02:04]: if you don't like it very
[02:08]: it the spice from this really um
[02:12]: goes throughout the whole dish and it's
[02:13]: not usually overpowering the ambulance
[02:16]: so
[02:18]: she says to brown this over medium heat
[02:22]: we our medium is usually a little bit
[02:25]: too low
[02:26]: to get things really brown so i've got
[02:28]: it a little bit higher
[02:30]: than my actual medium
[02:34]: so yeah we're just going gonna brown
[02:35]: this and i'm gonna
[02:37]: be stirring this and stirring that and
[02:43]: just waiting until it's brown and then
[02:45]: we'll have another
[02:46]: step for you um yeah
[02:50]: okay uh if you can see me through all
[02:53]: the steam
[02:54]: uh my i think my undo is brown
[02:57]: enough so i'm just gonna take it out uh
[03:00]: and put it in this back in this bowl
[03:02]: it's going back into the hot stuff
[03:04]: anyway
[03:04]: so i'm not worried about if there
[03:05]: happened to be any
[03:07]: raw meat germs in there um
[03:12]: i'm gonna take all of this out i'm gonna
[03:14]: turn it back down a little bit
[03:17]: all right so i took my sausage out and
[03:19]: she says to pour out
[03:22]: um if you have more than two tablespoons
[03:25]: of
[03:25]: oil to go ahead and pour out until you
[03:28]: think you have two tablespoons i don't
[03:30]: think i have
[03:31]: more than two but i'm probably just
[03:33]: about right and so now i'm gonna go
[03:35]: ahead and add
[03:36]: another ingredient
[03:42]: in here i have some just green bell
[03:45]: pepper
[03:47]: and some yellow onions both sliced
[03:50]: thinly
[03:55]: and now i'm going to add the salt that
[03:58]: she calls for in this part of the recipe
[04:00]: the gumbo sauce
[04:04]: and so we're going to brown these over
[04:06]: medium heat
[04:07]: for approximately 15 minutes we want
[04:09]: them to be browned and
[04:11]: shrunken and basically cooked so
[04:15]: we'll see in about 15 minutes so
[04:18]: my peppers and onions been cooking for i
[04:21]: don't know 20 minutes or so
[04:23]: they're definitely nicely browned and
[04:26]: cooked and
[04:27]: she says reduced by about half which
[04:30]: seems to me uh about what mine are at
[04:34]: and so now we're going to add some
[04:36]: sliced garlic cloves
[04:38]: does not say to mince these just slice
[04:40]: them
[04:41]: and we're going to add some
[04:45]: dry white wine
[04:48]: so there we go
[04:51]: now we're going to cook this
[04:54]: down until we think there's only about a
[04:57]: quarter of a cup
[04:59]: of liquid in this pan so
[05:03]: that's definitely something you have to
[05:05]: just judge by eye so this
[05:06]: is a cup we want it to be three quarters
[05:10]: gone so that'll be a judgement call
[05:18]: she does not give a time a suggested
[05:21]: time for that so
[05:24]: i'll let you know how long it takes for
[05:25]: me we've got about a quarter of a cup
[05:28]: left of our um wine in here of our
[05:32]: liquid
[05:32]: and now i'm going to add the rest of the
[05:34]: things that we need to and i've got some
[05:36]: okra
[05:36]: sadly it is not okra season here so i
[05:40]: have some frozen
[05:41]: sliced okra it's like slightly
[05:45]: thicker than she says and it is still a
[05:47]: little bit frozen
[05:49]: but it will be fine because it will cook
[05:52]: in
[05:53]: it's all going to go in the sauce and
[05:55]: cook down like that anyway so frozen is
[05:57]: not a bad
[05:58]: option here for this application
[06:01]: i'm going to add our sausage back into
[06:04]: the pan or on dewy
[06:05]: that we browned earlier
[06:08]: i'm going to add tomatoes now this is
[06:12]: the one recipe that i did not make
[06:15]: because i didn't make it back when it
[06:16]: was tomato season um
[06:18]: so she says to use her tomatoes in jars
[06:21]: i am just using
[06:22]: um canned diced tomatoes
[06:26]: with no seasonings or anything but
[06:28]: including
[06:30]: the liquid it's slightly less than
[06:34]: by you know volume than she calls for
[06:37]: but i'm sure it will be
[06:38]: just fine so this is quite a bit of our
[06:41]: shrimp stock
[06:43]: going in here oops
[06:46]: pour it all over the place
[06:50]: got a little bit on my stove but that's
[06:52]: okay
[06:54]: and then we have just a little bit of
[06:58]: chili flakes red pepper flakes
[07:02]: and we're going to bring this to a boil
[07:06]: and we're going to simmer it uncovered
[07:10]: for about 25 minutes
[07:13]: and so that will thicken a lot being
[07:15]: uncovered and
[07:17]: simmering it will release it will get
[07:20]: rid of a lot of the water
[07:22]: and it will thicken so because we don't
[07:25]: really want
[07:28]: a gumbo that is you know as thin as this
[07:30]: so
[07:31]: i guess we'll see when about 25 minutes
[07:36]: our gumbo sauce has been simmering for
[07:38]: quite a while in fact it's been pretty
[07:40]: much
[07:40]: boiling um i think about 45 minutes
[07:44]: maybe closer to an hour um and probably
[07:47]: check the time
[07:49]: maybe and see how long exactly but it's
[07:51]: finally looking like
[07:53]: a sauce instead of a soup so i'm
[07:56]: much happier with it now she says to
[07:58]: reduce it by about half so i
[07:60]: think we're about there and we're ready
[08:02]: to finish the sauce
[08:03]: so i'm going to add some sherry
[08:06]: vinegar
[08:11]: and
[08:13]: go ahead and cut this up into a couple
[08:16]: pieces
[08:20]: some unsalted butter
[08:25]: of course they all start to stuck
[08:27]: together and we're just going to stir
[08:28]: this up
[08:29]: and then she says just keep this warm
[08:33]: while you make the final portion
[08:36]: of the shrimp and grits which is
[08:40]: the shrimp that's what we're missing
[08:41]: right here we have everything
[08:43]: except the shrimp here um
[08:46]: in our gumbo sauce so we'll be making
[08:49]: that next
[08:51]: so we're ready to finish our shrimp and
[08:52]: grits so the next thing we have to cook
[08:54]: is our shrimp um those are going to be
[08:57]: served separately they're not
[08:58]: in the sauce i have
[09:02]: she says a 12 inch skillet or a cast
[09:05]: iron skillet
[09:06]: um i just have my stainless steel one
[09:08]: with some butter
[09:09]: melting over high heat uh my
[09:18]: okay so she says to
[09:21]: pat your shrimp dry
[09:25]: i've been just i've had them in this
[09:27]: bowl in the refrigerator so like the top
[09:29]: is dry and whatever
[09:30]: um bottom has been sort of absorbed by
[09:32]: the paper towel
[09:34]: and we're gonna put this in the um
[09:38]: in this skillet and we're gonna let them
[09:40]: sit for three minutes
[09:45]: spread them out a little bit just make
[09:49]: sure
[09:50]: we go let them sit for three minutes
[09:54]: this has been about three minutes and so
[09:56]: now we're going to season
[09:58]: our shrimp with the salt
[10:08]: yeah dumped a bit on my stove
[10:13]: i have just a little bit of cayenne
[10:17]: pepper i
[10:17]: maybe even went i went a little bit
[10:19]: light on what the recipe called for
[10:21]: because kids and then
[10:24]: a little bit of lemon juice
[10:33]: now we're going to sort of scrape these
[10:35]: up and toss them around
[10:40]: put it back in
[10:47]: and she says to go ahead and turn the
[10:49]: heat off i'm going to let these cook a
[10:51]: little bit longer
[10:53]: because one side hasn't gotten
[10:57]: cooked at all so
[11:01]: i'm just concerned i know they don't
[11:03]: take long to cook but
[11:04]: just to let it cook for just a second
[11:10]: there we go
[11:14]: you don't want to overcook shrimp
[11:18]: but i also don't want it to come out of
[11:22]: the pan
[11:26]: all right i'm pretty good here
[11:31]: they look pretty much all done
[11:35]: turning the heat off and now we just get
[11:38]: to serve it
[11:39]: thank goodness this took a while um
[11:42]: so we're gonna serve grits
[11:46]: with gumbo sauce on top
[11:50]: and then top it with some shrimp and
[11:52]: we'll show you what that looks like
[12:03]: on this episode of cooking the books
[12:04]: with heather you watched me make vivian
[12:06]: howard's
[12:06]: shrimp and grits with gumbo sauce
[12:11]: from her deep brown roots cookbook now
[12:14]: this recipe took a really long time
[12:17]: because in actuality
[12:19]: it is shrimp stock
[12:24]: grits so those are two separate recipes
[12:27]: and then in this recipe there are
[12:29]: two other things to make which is the
[12:31]: gumbo sauce and then the shrimp
[12:33]: so it just it felt like i was cooking
[12:36]: forever because i was making
[12:38]: these all i didn't have the shrimp stock
[12:40]: made and ready to go
[12:42]: i was making them sort of all at once
[12:43]: before we could have dinner and it took
[12:45]: a really long time
[12:47]: so i have to admit that was that was
[12:49]: that was a thing for me
[12:51]: um but we we really like shrimp and
[12:54]: grits
[12:55]: and we chose this recipe because it is
[12:57]: the closest
[12:58]: to sort of what i when i first made
[13:01]: shrimp and grits i chose a recipe that
[13:03]: had andouille in it and had some
[13:05]: um some vegetables i think it's bell
[13:08]: peppers
[13:09]: and some onions and uh just a little bit
[13:12]: of a sauce
[13:15]: and so we chose this to make
[13:18]: i chose this one to make first out of
[13:21]: the three recipes that
[13:22]: were in books that were we're cooking
[13:25]: from for this channel so far
[13:27]: uh because it is it was the most like
[13:29]: that and it was the one i thought my
[13:31]: husband would like the most
[13:33]: so it was a lot
[13:36]: but i think it was worth it now i do i
[13:39]: did like that the shrimp is cooked
[13:41]: entirely separately
[13:43]: so for this recipe you make a gumbo
[13:46]: sauce
[13:47]: and then you just saute your shrimp and
[13:49]: you serve the gumbo sauce and put the
[13:51]: shrimp on top so
[13:52]: that makes it very easy to not overcook
[13:56]: the shrimp so the shrimp were actually
[13:58]: very tasty very well cooked not
[14:01]: overdone at all and i
[14:04]: i think we all kind of like the gumbo
[14:06]: sauce honestly it was not
[14:09]: it was not overly spicy and i'm sure it
[14:11]: depends on the andouille
[14:13]: or the the sausage that you choose
[14:15]: because that contributes
[14:17]: a lot of the um
[14:20]: of the spice to this i don't think yeah
[14:23]: there's you put a little bit of cayenne
[14:25]: on the shrimp themselves but in the
[14:27]: sauce the only spice you get is from the
[14:29]: dewey so that was good kids loved it my
[14:31]: daughter
[14:32]: requested the leftovers and then um
[14:36]: we had a lot of the gumbo sauce left
[14:38]: over and a lot of grits left over
[14:39]: actually
[14:41]: um and i ended up
[14:45]: having some of the gumbo sauce with uh
[14:48]: i baked some eggs in it which was
[14:50]: actually really good over top of some of
[14:52]: the grits so that was a great use of
[14:53]: that when we had no more shrimp left
[14:55]: over
[14:56]: could have made more shrimp but you know
[14:58]: whatever
[14:59]: um so it does make an awful lot of the
[15:02]: gumbo sauce oh yeah
[15:03]: it also calls for the canned or the
[15:05]: tomatoes and jars
[15:07]: that she makes but i did not make those
[15:10]: and if i had it would not have been that
[15:12]: day so
[15:13]: anyway if you make all of the recipes
[15:17]: that are contained in this recipe it's a
[15:20]: lot of work
[15:21]: but i think it was really delicious and
[15:23]: if you if i were to make the grits sort
[15:25]: of my own way
[15:27]: and make the gumbo sauce if i already
[15:30]: had the the shrimp stock
[15:32]: and just use canned tomatoes like i did
[15:35]: this time
[15:35]: [Music]
[15:38]: i think it'd be not that hard but making
[15:41]: everything the way that she
[15:43]: and all at once and the way that she
[15:46]: lays out with the with the grits
[15:48]: particularly i just
[15:51]: thought the grits were a little extra
[15:53]: for me
[15:54]: um then i would i would definitely make
[15:58]: this recipe again
[15:59]: make the the shrimp and the gumbo sauce
[16:01]: and serve over
[16:03]: grits that i make sort of my own way um
[16:06]: and i have the shrimp stock and if i
[16:08]: didn't i would probably just use some
[16:11]: vegetable broth probably
[16:14]: from a a stock or a bouillon or
[16:18]: a i usually keep sort of a soup base
[16:20]: sort of
[16:21]: sort of things in the refrigerator just
[16:23]: for when i need a little bit of that
[16:26]: and with those modifications it would be
[16:29]: a lot
[16:29]: less work
[16:33]: so if you enjoyed watching me make this
[16:35]: please give me a thumbs up
[16:37]: hit the subscribe button and come back
[16:39]: and watch me make something else