Grits-a-ya-ya

Recently featured on Emeril's Florida: Pensacola.

Ingredients

GRITS:
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups grits, such as Dixie Lily
1 cup heavy cream
4 ounces unsalted butter
One 14- to 16-ounce can creamed corn
Shredded smoked Gouda cheese, to taste
THE SHRIMP YA YA:
8 strips applewood smoked bacon, diced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced shallots
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
White wine
1 pound peeled and deveined jumbo shrimp
2 cups chopped fresh spinach
1/4 cup diced scallions
1 portobello mushroom cap, sliced
2 cups heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Hot sauce to taste

Instructions

For the grits:
Add the chicken stock to a thick-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the grits, and stir vigorously. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. If the grits look dry, you can add a bit of the cream.

After the grits are finished cooking, add the butter, creamed corn, and drizzle in the rest of the cream. Stir until combined.

Add the shredded cheese to taste and stir until smooth.

For the shrimp:
While your grits cook, bring a large saucepan to medium heat. Add the bacon and cook for about 3 minutes, then add the garlic and shallots and saute. Add the butter and a splash of white wine and cook until the butter is half melted, then add the shrimp. Cook until the downsides of the shrimp become white, then flip them and add the spinach, scallions, and mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes.

Remove the shrimp. Pour in the heavy cream and let simmer, stirring, until reduced by one-third. Add salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste. Return the shrimp and stir to combine.

To serve, spoon the sauce and shrimp onto heaping mounds of the cheese grits.

Yield: 4 servings

Notes:
This recipe was provided by a chef, restaurant or culinary professional and may have been scaled down from a bulk recipe. The Food Network Kitchens chefs have not tested this recipe, in the proportions indicated, and therefore, we cannot make any representation as to the results.

Recipe courtesy Jim Shirley, The Fish House, Pensacola, Florida