Southern · Lowcountry · main

Breakfast Shrimp over Stone-Ground Grits

Breakfast Shrimp over Stone-Ground Grits reads umami 6.5, richness 6.2 and salinity 5.6 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Southern · Lowcountry main, about 1 hr 36 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 7.6 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 2.6 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 6.2 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 3.9 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 6.3 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 4.1 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 6.5 · Richness 6.2 · Salinity 5.6 · Citrus 4.8 · Sourness 4.5 · Smoke 3.6 · Allium 3.6 · Marine & Briny 3.1 · Heat 2.6 · Sweetness 2.3 · Funk & Ferment 2.0 · Herbaceous 1.9 · Warm Spice 1.4 · Earthy 1.1 · Fruity 1.0 · Bitterness 0.8 · Floral 0.6

What's in it (15)

• grits — 200 g
• water — 1000 g
• regular milk — 240 g
• unsalted butter — 60 g
• salt — 10 g
• shrimp — 700 g
• bacon — 170 g
• yellow onion — 140 g
• all-purpose flour — 15 g
• shrimp stock made from the reserved heads — 360 g
• worcestershire sauce — 10 g
• hot pepper sauce — 5 g
• lemon juice — 30 g
• spring onions — 60 g
• black pepper — 5 g

Time & effort: about 1 hr 36 min · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 86.5 kcal, 8.1 g protein, 3 g fat, 10.8 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

1. Charleston breakfast shrimp is the original of the dish the rest of the country now calls shrimp and grits, and the original has no cheese in it, no cream, and no andouille sausage. It is small creek shrimp in a thin brown bacon gravy, spooned over grits, eaten before nine in the morning during the autumn shrimp run. Everything added since is somebody else's restaurant idea.
2. Use whole coarse stone-ground grits, white if you can get them, from a mill that ships fresh — Anson Mills, Geechie Boy and Marsh Hen are the ones that keep the germ in. Instant and quick grits are a different food entirely and will give you wallpaper paste in twenty minutes.
3. Rinse the grits in a bowl of cold water and skim off the chaff that floats. Bring the water and milk to a simmer with the salt, rain the grits in while whisking, and cook at the barest blip for 50 minutes, stirring every five minutes and scraping the corners. Add hot water if they stiffen before they are tender. Beat in the butter at the end.
4. Make the stock while they cook: put the shrimp heads and shells in a small pan, cover with 600 ml water, and simmer 20 minutes, pressing the heads with a spoon. Strain and reserve 360 ml. The heads are where the flavour is; if you can only get headless shrimp the dish loses a third of itself and you should say so.
5. Render the bacon in a heavy skillet over medium, 8 minutes, until crisp. Lift it out. Cook the onion in the fat 5 minutes until soft, sprinkle over the flour and stir 2 minutes until it smells toasty.
6. Whisk in the shrimp stock, Worcestershire and hot sauce and simmer 5 minutes until it is a thin gravy that just coats a spoon. Slide in the shrimp and cook 3 minutes only, until they turn from grey to pink and curl loosely — a shrimp cooked past a loose C is ruined.
7. Off the heat stir in the lemon juice and black pepper and return the bacon. Spoon over the hot grits and scatter the spring onions.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Shrimp and Grits — Southern
• Salmon Chowder with Dill and Potatoes — American
• Cajun Blackened Salmon with Remoulade — Cajun/Creole · Cajun
• Spicy Shrimp and Chorizo Tacos — Mexican
• Crispy Salmon Cakes with Lemon Aioli — American

Keep reading: what umami, richness, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.