recipes

BBQ Shrimp with Neapolitan Grits

John Walley · May 16, 2015

A little brunch inspiration for you. We made bbq shrimp and served it with Anson Mills white, yellow, and blue grits.

Recipe

Grits

Cook grits per their instructions (if you're using Anson Mills check their site). We cooked 1 cup of each. Be forewarned, if you're using Anson Mills you'll probably want to soak them overnight. The key would be to not make them a soupy mess as you're going to cut them into squares. Go ahead and get your BBQ shrimp going too.

Pour the grits into non-stick pans after they're done.

You want to give the grits time to set and cool off enough for you to touch the pans (probably 45 or more minutes). We used a square cutter, brushing the inside with melted butter to make our grit squares.

You should end up with a bunch of grit cakes.

BBQ Shrimp

Ingredients

2 lbs head-on Texas shrimp

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 lemon, juiced (discard seeds)

4 cloves minced garlic

2 springs Thyme

1 Tbsp horseradish

1 Tbsp sun-dried tomato paste

1 Bay leaf

1 tsp Tony Chachere's seasoning

2 tsp Old Bay seasoning

1 tsp Bayou Blast

1 Tbsp Crystal hot sauce

1 Tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce

1/3 cup of White wine (Justin Wilson might have suggested Sauternes)

Instructions

Mix everything except shrimp in a baking dish

Add shrimp

Place in uncovered in a 400 degree oven

Stir after 5 minutes

Cook until desired shrimp doneness (don't walk off, it probably won't take more than 10 minutes).

Plate and garnish to the best of your abilities. Don't eat the Bay leaf, lemon rind, or shrimp heads.

Pizza Night

John Walley · February 7, 2015

We fired up the Big Green Egg this evening for a pizza session. Aside from the standard pepperoni pizzas we made a couple special pies. First up is a Longhorn Bulgogi Pizza. We used a Sirloin from Dear Run Land & Cattle Company.

Bulgogi Recipe

1 lb Sirloin
1 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
3/4 cup ponzu sauce (optional, you can just use soy sauce)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup diced white onion
1 tablespoon garlic
fresh cracked black pepper

Make the marinade by combining the soy sauce, ponzu (optional), brown sugar, onions, pepper, and garlic. Thinly slice the sirloin and cut the slices into smaller pieces. It helps to have the beef really cold while cutting. We covered the sliced beef with the marinade in a FoodSaver Marinating Canister for 20 minutes, but you can marinate it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

After you've marinated the beef, pour the liquid in a skillet over medium high heat. Reduce this down considerably, and then add the beef. Cook to your desired doneness. At this point you could serve it with rice, but we're going to use it as a pizza topping.

John is into pizza a little more than most people. He keeps 2 different strains of Italian yeast cultures going. The pies below are on John's secret dough. For the Bulgogi Pizza we used a spicy Korean BBQ sauce instead of standard pizza sauce. Top with your Bulgogi, shredded white sharp cheddar, and brush the crust with sesame oil. We like to run the Big Green Egg so the dome temperature reads around 550 degrees. Let it run at this temp for a bit so your pizza stone gets to a decent temp as well.

After about 8 minutes we had our pizza. Top with green onions and sesame seeds.

We also knocked out a BBQ pizza using meat from Stiles Switch. They have a sandwich called Buford T's Diablo Sandwich (think Smokey and the Bandit). Anyway, this is the pizza version with their brisket, jalapeño & cheddar sausage, sliced jalapeños, white cheddar, and bbq sauce.

You're welcome.