Crispy Fried Grits with Buttery Cajun Shrimp | Date Night Dinner

All right, folks, look, I got one question for you. How you like your grits? Do you do your grits sweet or do you do them savory? Let's get it. Okay, so today we're gonna make fried grits and shrimp gravy, right? Now, I'm gonna show you guys how to make it. It's so easy to make. Listen, it's flavor-packed. It's a flavor-packed recipe that's guaranteed to be a hit and become a favorite in the kitchens across America. So trust me, folks, this is one you're gonna wanna watch. Okay, so you know I like to fly over the ingredients, right? So I'm gonna do it a little bit different this time. Everything that you see right here, this is for my grits. Now, look at this cheese right here. This cheese can be, look, I got mild cheddar. We could use gouda. You guys let me know how you wanna do it. You can use stone ground grits. You can even actually use instant grits. I know, forgive me, y'all. You guys use whatever grits you guys have in your cabinet, you know, to make that, right? So let me set this aside and we move on to the next. Now, this section right here is what we're gonna be using, you know, to fry, right? And again, that's right, I did say fry. I know some of y'all are still trying to figure out how he gonna fry these grits. But looking at this right here, you guys gotta have some type of an idea, right? And don't forget the full ingredient list is on my website, that's smokingandgrillingwithab.com and that's W-I-T-A-B.com. And then last but not least, everything that you see right here, this is gonna be for our shrimp gravy, right? And then when we talk about your shrimp, let me go ahead and bring this into play for you. This is it. I know this will be the first time you guys ever seen on this channel that I ever use the shrimp this small, but it'll all come into play in just one second. All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and start, you know, my shredding process, right? This is all part of the prep. Along with, you know, like you guys see that I went ahead and measured all of my ingredients, right? All of my seasonings and everything. That's done. That makes the cooking much, much easier, right? So when I shred, I like to always use like the smaller size. This right here works. Since it's gonna be grits, you know, it's gonna be nice and hot, but I'm gonna go ahead and still hit it this way. It just makes it melt a little easier, right? And don't forget, you guys wanna always grade your cheese. We don't want that little wax film that you get when you buy, you know, shredded cheese. So when you're at the grocery store, if you can, I know you can, because if you can buy a bag of shredded, you can buy yourself a block of cheese. You know, we just gotta put in the work. Okay, so look, we start off by making our grits, right? Especially if you're doing stone ground grits, you know what I mean? Because that's gonna take you about 30 minutes, 25 to 30 minutes to make them, right? So what we wanna do is, I'm gonna go ahead and turn my fire on, right? Let's see, we run with like a medium flame. I hope you guys are able to see that. You know what I mean? So it should be, I'm trying to put something, you know, dark so you guys can see the flame. That right there, right? Now, I already told you guys how I did it. I have everything separated, you know, separately, right? So this is everything for the grit. So if I put these grits right here, it get real simple, folks, because now I can just add my butter. This is really like the dump and go part, right? As you can see, this starts to melt, right? As you know, it get hot. Then we add, you know, our broth. And just for you guys that don't know, this is for all the new people that's new here and they never been here before and might not have ever heard this. Listen, whenever there's water, we always suffer too tight with flavor, right? So that usually means chicken broth or anything of that nature, you know. And a lot of times, listen, I'm gonna tell you something. I'm gonna give you guys a heads up. Even if it says, you know, you think we gotta put chicken broth and we go in there to look for it and we don't have it, you know, you guys can use it, give it a little bit of a different profile. You can use vegetable broth. And then if you looking for something that's really, really different, you know what I mean, they're still super over the top, you can use beef broth. A lot of people get stuck in literal on that chicken broth, right? So now I'll add, right, my milk. Now I'm gonna raise my flame to high. And what I wanna do is I wanna make sure that my butter is melted. And I wanna get it to, you know, roll. Once it starts to boil, right, then we add the grits and we stir. All right, so you can see, it already has started to boil. You know, I already reduced it down to a simmer. Now check this out. We don't wanna get no lumps, right? I can use a whisk, but if we just pour our grits in here like this, you know, and then constantly just keep stirring, right? If you control this right here, you don't get no lumps. I know some of y'all be like, man, I get these lumps, AB. Just, I'm giving you guys all the gems to making it. Right? Now, look at that right there. No lumps, nice and smooth. All right, so this is how we gonna do that. I'm gonna go ahead and hit this now with some fresh black crack. I put that in everything, folks. I don't care if I'm using my seasonings, your seasonings or whatever. We gonna always add a little bit of this fresh black crack, right? So, get that going. And then these gonna take a little bit of salt. So I give it a generous pinch and that's all I need. Right, right there. Just to wake up whatever that we put in here. Whatever spices that you put in there. You guys can make your grits however you want to. Right, now what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna take this and transfer this over to my stove. You know what I mean? Let this go ahead and cook. I'm gonna put a top on it. Obviously my top will have a little hole in there. Let some of that steam out of there. And we cook this super low, folks, for about 25 minutes. All right, so look, this is the consistency that I like my grits to be when I eat them, right? They gonna thicken up a little bit more as it cools, right? But now I'm gonna add myself just a little bit of cheese to it. I got more cheese than I need, right? But we gonna let this heat, you know, melt this cheese, you know, properly. Now, I told you guys, you guys can use whatever cheese you would like. Gouda, all of that. You know, I have some gouda. I don't always use gouda. You know what I mean? I don't always want to have that smoky flavor to it. You know, taste to it. But you guys do whatever you want to do on your end. But you see how it just disappears? Look, I got no fire underneath the bottom of it either. Now, I'm using a casserole dish, right? If you guys don't have one, and I'm spraying a nonstick spray, right? This is avocado oil, right? So I'll put this back. This is the way I cook, folks. When I'm doing this, I'm always putting things back. You know what I mean? So when I'm done out of the kitchen, my dishes are already done. And you know, everything is put back. And then those who eat, they can worry about it. Now, I take a paper towel. Look, and I just wipe the bottom, and I get down the sides too. Reason being, is we finna pour these grits in here. Now, if you guys don't have no little small casserole dishes like this, you can put it in a 13 by nine, but you'd have to make more grits because there'd be, you know, the volume. They'll be like pancakes, right? So now we take this, look at the consistency again, right? That's good. With the cheese, that's perfect. Now I just add this. You know, add it to it. Grease, keep it where it don't, you know, it quit sticking, right? Okay, so some time went by. I'm about three hours in. It's time for me to go ahead and set up my breading stations, right? So I'm gonna do it like this. Let's start with this right first. I'm gonna go ahead and make my wet, right? So we're gonna go with milk. We're gonna do two eggs. All right, now we whisk. Now, with me adding panko chips, listen, they make panko chips all kind of ways. You know, Italian, plain. You know what? You guys can use Ritz crackers, break them down. And then one of the things I like about Ritz crackers, you can buy in flavor. You know, you can get them flavored, right? So you don't wanna get yourself enough, right? So when I mix all of this together now, look, you can see how it comes up over the top after I'm whisking it together. Ah, yeah. You just wanna make sure it's got a complete, you know, where you can see in here the same ingredients that you put in there. You can see the color change, right? So as I do this, and by me using a glass bowl, I can always raise it up, look around, and see if I have any pockets. But, here we go. Put this here. Starting to make sense to y'all now, how we gonna fry it. All right, so I always leave foil, and this is what it'll look like, right? You see that? See, I remember I was telling you guys, there's a drawback, you know, from the eggs. Whew, this is gonna be fire, folks. If you guys ain't never had fried Ritz before, most of you guys probably never even heard of it. Hmm, I ain't got nothing to say. I just want you guys to make it, and then come back, run back, and tell me what you guys think about it. All right, so I got myself a butter knife, because this is what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna cut this into the sizes that I wanna do, right? So, as far as this go, I got my skillet. Start bringing this up to heat. I got it on high right now, but I'm just gonna hurry up and get it going. And what I wanna do is I wanna just pour this in there. Now, I know about volume, so anything that I put in here is gonna rise it up a little, you know, raise it up a little bit. I could've used my Dutch oven, but anytime I can use my cast iron, I do it. All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and cut these. Remember, I told you guys can cut these any type of way you want to. You know what I mean? I'm just looking at this. I'm gonna make a little mark here, and a mark there, and that look like that's about even, right? So, and then, you know, because we greased this already, look at this. You see how this moves? That's what you wanna have, right? So, we'll just come across this way, bring this over here, just cut them complete. They're not gonna be perfect. I almost really wanna give myself a ruler and do it, right? So, then we can just come down the middle. There we go. Then you can pick them up, and they come out just like that. Now, with this being this way, I'm gonna go ahead and just do it. I'm gonna start off this way. I'm gonna start on the dry side, because this is the side that was up at the top. What we wanna do is we wanna get flour on all sides, right? The bottom part, you see how it's wet down there? That's gonna absorb it. Pick it up and look real nice. Then we take it and we hit the wet. All right, so this is what we're gonna do. Let me go ahead and get myself a spoon, but this is kind of like help it out. If you guys take one of these, you know, and then just add it on the top like that, right? It just helps, right? We still gonna flip it over and do all of that with it. You know, I really should have doubled this recipe. You know what I mean? But I'm not into wasting. So you guys are just, you know, you guys figure that all out on your end. But everything that you see that I'm doing right now, this is exactly what's on my website. And again, it's smokingandgrillingwithab.com, and that's W-I-T-A-B.com, right? So I'm gonna get in here, I'm gonna work on my hand. I got gloves on. You know what I mean? I still like to make sure it's, here we go. Look at that right there, folks. Yes, sir. Now I'm gonna take it. All right, one more flip. Take this. And look, I'm gonna put it on my cooler rack. You know, just to stage it, right? Let me go ahead and finish this one. Flip it over. Ooh. All right, now we'll do this one. I'll bring this one over here. We'll just do the same thing. Now, if you guys made your grits the right way, and the right way is the way you guys wanna make yours, you know? So if they made the way you like them normally, only difference is it's gonna be nice, hot, cold, thick. This, with this shrimp gravy that I'm gonna put on top, gonna be incredible, folks. All right, so now that I have my, you know, my oil up to temp, now we just go ahead and add these. I shouldn't be reaching across the way I'm doing, folks. Just do as I say, not as I do. All right, and then we drop this in here like that. Now, I like to make sure I keep over my temp, my oil temp, right? So I was a little bit high. I was about 370. Now we gonna see where it'll settle down at, and then we want it to come back, right? So then we'll just, you know, I lowered it. Once I get that about 350, I raise it up just a little bit, and I go continue to cook it. All right, with as thick as these are, I let these go for about eight, eight minutes. I'll just go ahead and stage these over here. We wanna still keep them a little bit crusty. They nice and hot in the inside, right? Let me just set them right there, and look at that right there. Now, just imagine this, but whatever you wanna serve with, you know, for like brunch, right? Sausage, smoked sausage, and dewy sausage, you know, eggs, more so like for me, a nice ham and cheese omelet or something like that, right? But, and we still getting ready to add, you know, the shrimp gravy on top. So let me go ahead, and we gonna, so I'm gonna go ahead and pour this out, strain this, right? And we gonna use just a little bit of this. This already got flavor from the, you know, from being a frying and the grits. So we wanna use this oil right here, and this is gonna be our base so that we can go ahead and get this shrimp gravy going. All right, so now we just go ahead and add this, right? You know, it's to our pan, our skillet. Now, this don't take long, folks. Now, with this seasoning, you're not gonna be able to see it really turn pink, right? So we'll watch the characteristics of it. As they heat up, you'll start to see, they start to, you know, become circles, right? They start to ball up. All right, so look, small shrimp like this, after about a minute, I can see the way they're starting to tighten up. That's it. All right, so we just wanna, you know what? I'm not even gonna flip them over like that. They're so small. It's okay to get in here with your spatula. And look at this right here. All right, so you can see this. It might seem like a lot of seasoning to you, but listen, we wanna get that in there because we want the skillet to go ahead and heat it all up, right? So you guys come in here, take a look down here. I've taught you guys and told you, you know, for all the new people that's new to cooking, this right here, what you used to probably like, wipe out and start all over, this is the fond and this is the flavor. Now you heard, I said, we making a gravy, right? So we still got some residual heat in here. I'm gonna go ahead and just drop my butter in here like this. You'll see it starting to melt, but this right here is gonna be key. I'm gonna put the fire back on. Matter of fact, let me do it now, but I just wanna talk to you guys and show you one thing. As it's melting, it's mixing with all of the fond, right? So now our butter is like Creole or Cajun infused. You see that right there? And this is gonna be the base of the gravy, folks. All right, so I just loaded up my press, got my garlic, right? Now I usually like to, you know, I like to put it on top of something, but since we just got butter in here, I'm gonna go ahead and put it on the edge, right? Because the least amount of heat is over here, right? So let me quit talking, let me move faster. Now we go ahead and let it hit like towards the center, right, and then we let it cook. The objective is not to burn it. You know, burnt minced garlic tastes a little bitter, right? Not really like a taste that we're looking for, right? So I'll do this right here to let it at least sweat so it can have butter infused, you know, Cajun or Creole, you know, butter, right? Don't forget it's got that garlic in there. Let's just move around like this. I'm keeping it towards the outside, right? Now we're gonna add everything else. I'm gonna come with my hot sauce, lemon juice, that's fresh lemon. All right, so what we're doing is reducing it, right? We're reducing it down. So if you wanna know, is it getting thick? I'm gonna just take my spatula and just run this across like this, and that'll tell you it's starting to thicken up, right? But there's no need for us to try to get this like too much more thicker than that. It's gonna thicken up again once I add this in there. Look at all that seasoning that we had on there. We wanna get everything in here, folks. All right, and now when we take it, that seasoning start acting as a thickening agent as well. This reheats our shrimp, right? Now look at the shrimp. All right, so look, look at that right there. This is what you wanna have. You know what I mean? When I say gravy, I know you guys think of a whole lot of gravy, but look at the size shrimp. Go ahead and get some of that sauce, and then we just pour this right here over the top. You know, that's all you're gonna need to do, right? Now these are some big, thick ones. I suggest you guys make some. You try them any kind of way you want to. I like mine to be the way they are. You know, look at that right there. And then that green you see, I did that off camera. I went ahead and chopped up some green onion and some parsley. You know what, I don't wanna overdo it. I'll just add that there, and we call it a day. You guys let me know what you think about that. That's fried grits. Shrimp gravy. So we always knew about shrimp and gravy. You know what I mean? So there it is. Okay, folks, look. Ain't nothing left to do but to go ahead and eat some. You know what I mean? I've been tasting some of this shrimp. You know what I mean? Let me just get a couple more pieces. The shrimp is fire, folks. Cheers. You guys let me know down in the comment section below what you think about it. You guys can scale back on some of the seasoning. If it got a little bit too much heat for you, you can adjust it by, you know, adjusting your hot sauce. Right now, this got a nice, smooth blend for me. I usually tell you, you know, if I think things are kid-friendly, I'm gonna say this might be right at the edge of being kid-friendly. But if you're looking for something that's way different, whew. Shrimp. Now we're gonna go ahead and hit that fried grit. Mm. They always talk about, it's really the combination of the grits. Ooh, that crust on it, too. The cheese, look. I made my favorite grit. That, along with this shrimp, it just changed the whole dynamic. Remember, I told you I was eating the shrimp already on my own. But together, ooh-wee. All I can tell you guys is this not finna last long. Now, again, remember I asked a question at the beginning of this video. I said, do you guys like your grits sweet or savory, right? I'm gonna let you guys know that I like mine sweet, but the truth is, I like mine sweet and savory, all in one bowl. So you make the grits that you wanna make, right? Once you put them in the refrigerator, you get them right once they set. And when you fry them, I promise you this right here will make you get up and click your heels, right? So you guys let me know down in the comment section below, what would you serve this with? And would you consider this more on the side of brunch? For me, it's just an everyday meal. With that being said, listen, if you're new to my channel, let me take this time to say thank you for watching this video. Don't forget to like, smash that subscribe button, and tell everybody out there. There's a channel right here that's simplifying these recipes and checking the mystery out of cooking. That's right, folks. Fried grits, I'm out. Peace.