How to Make Shrimp and Grits

Dan Lichens: Hi, my name is Dan Lichens of FireFlies Restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia. Today, we will be making shrimp and grits. So today I will be walking you through all the steps to make the shrimp and grits and we will be starting with the garlic compound butter. The next step will be preparing the shrimp. For the shrimp, we will be butterflying them and skewering them so they saute nicely in the pan. The next step of the process will be cooking the grit cakes. It is a two part step and it can be broken up into two days. The first, we will cook the grits till they are nice and dry using a heavy bottom saucepan and let those chill, then we will be cutting and pan frying the grits for the plate. The last step for our dish is going to be sauteing our baby spinach and the presentation with sauteing the shrimp and the garlic butter and plating the dish. The tools and materials are going to be a heavy bottom saucepan, saute pans, nonstick preferably or a cast iron, we are going to cook the entire dish in our oven that we use here at the restaurant, but you can cook it at home on your stove top or a combination of your stove top or your oven just like we do here. You are also going need very sharp knife to cut the shrimp with, a cutting board, a steel bowl and a wooden spoon to make your garlic butter. The ingredients used in this dish are going to be stone ground white grits, baby spinach and fresh shrimp. A word about safety with this dish. There are two steps that you want to be very careful with. One is actually cooking the grits. As the grits thicken, they tend to boil and as they boil in a very thick mixture it is very hot and they can bubble over into the kitchen. So you really want to pay attention and watch while you are cooking the grits especially when they start to thicken up. The other safety issue that we want to be concerned about is the butterflying of the shrimp. There are several ways to do it. To get a nice, clean cut on the shrimp you need to use a razor sharp knife, so just be careful as you are handling knives and shrimp. When sauteing and cooking in the oven like we are doing today, you want to also be mindful of the pan handles. When you are sauteing on the stove top you may get comfortable with the handles of the pan not being hot, but when we are placing them in the oven to do the saute, the pan handles are always going to be hot. Before we begin, I would like to tell you a little bit more about myself and my restaurant FireFlies in Alexandria. My wife and I opened FireFlies restaurant about six years ago where we are serving let's say eclectic American food and Southern dishes just as the shrimp and grits we are making today. So let us get started making shrimp and grits.