Fish House's Grits a Ya Ya

My hometown favorite, shrimp n' grits like you wouldn't believe.

Photo courtesy of fishhousepensacola.com

OK guys, I know you've all had shrimp n' grits before, but I can assure you, all those dishes of shrimp n' grits are garbage compared to The Fish House's. This recipe hails from the great city of Pensacola, Florida, my hometown. The Fish House is a famous restaurant in the Gulf Coast of Florida and their Grits a Ya Ya dish is world renowned. (Don't believe me? Check it out here: https://fishhousepensacola.com/recognition/)

It's one of my favorite dishes ever, and probably one that I have the most difficulty recreating... We'll get into that later...

First thing, although this recipe is from the Fish House, it's actually posted on Emeril Lagasse's website here: https://www.emerils.com/127937/grits-ya-ya

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

Being that this recipe is from the restaurant owner, I believe there are many differences in this one compared to the one you get at the actual restaurant. That being said I'll post this recipe and add my own annotations (in this color) to try and bridge the gap between the two. (See differences in photos)

This recipe is for 4, so were basing our annotations on this as well. FYI, it makes a lot of grits...

Ingredients

For the Grits

• 4 cups chicken stock

• 2 cups grits, such as Dixie Lily (Jim Dandy works too)

• 1 cup heavy cream

• 4 ounces unsalted butter

• One 14- to 16-ounce can creamed corn

• Shredded smoked Gouda cheese, to taste

For the Shrimp Ya Ya:

• 8 strips applewood smoked bacon, diced

• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (I used far more than 1tbsp and I always encourage more garlic)

• 1 tablespoon minced shallots (again, more is fine here)

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

• White wine (I wanted to drink red wine the night I made this dish therefore I used red wine, still came out delish, but maybe try sticking to white wine here)

• 1 pound peeled and deveined jumbo shrimp (JUMBO. GET THE JUMBO SHRIMP.)

• 2 cups chopped fresh spinach

• 1/4 cup diced scallions (I forgot the scallions this time, you might notice it missing in photos so this is me reminding you don't forget the scallions!! More flavor is better)

• 1 portobello mushroom cap, sliced (I diced mine, pretty sure the restaurant does too. I prefer it that way but ya know do what feels right)

• 2 cups heavy cream

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

• Hot sauce to taste

Directions

For the Grits:

1. Add the chicken stock to a thick-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. 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.

3. After the grits are finished cooking, add the butter, creamed corn, and drizzle in the rest of the cream. Stir until combined. (OK here's the deal, the cream corn in my personal opinion is too sweet so I halved the can of cream corn, and added about 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of pepper)

4. Add the shredded cheese to taste and stir until smooth.

For the Shrimp:

1. 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.

2. Add the butter and a splash of white wine and cook until the butter is half melted, then add the shrimp.

3. This recipe calls to add the shrimp to cook with the sauce. They do not cook the shrimp like this in the restaurant... They blacken it. I think it tastes so much better with blackened shrimp, however, I followed the recipe this time but added about 3 tsp of cayenne to add more spices because I chose not to blacken. Having done both, I would recommend blackening your shrimp separately for a more finished look and taste.

4. Cook until the downsides of the shrimp become white, then flip them and add the spinach, scallions, and mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes. (If you blacken shrimp separately here you still can follow the remaining directions. Also, reminding you I forgot the scallions at the grocery store. Don't forget the scallions!!)

5. 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. (I used cayenne and Cholula hot sauce)

6. Return the shrimp and stir to combine.

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

I plated mine as close as I could to the Fish House's actual dish. This is what I came up with:

Seen with toasted baguette here.

Tips and Tricks

Shrimp:

If you can find jumbo shrimp, definitely get that instead of your regular shrimp. Shrimp cooks down so small so starting with a bigger shrimp is obviously better here. And like I listed in step 3, PLEASE blacken your shrimp. I swear it will make a world of difference. I would recommend using cayenne, paprika, salt, pepper, and cajun/creole seasoning. It is very easy to overcook shrimp, so make sure to really look at the color of your shrimp, you want a nice white color with firm texture, not rubbery. I kept the tails on specifically for aesthetic purposes here.

Grits:

Like I mentioned before, I would 100% half the can of creamed corn and still add salt and pepper. I would also add half your butter and half your cheese and then add remaining butter and cheese to your own discretion because it can get a little oily. We want a nice and fluffy consistency, stiff enough to hold its shape, but creamy enough to stay moist. I also like to slowly add the cream throughout the cooking process to avoid grits drying out and potentially burning on the bottom of the pan.

Plating:

It's no surprise that I hate plating (my dishes usually look like shit), but for this i will say adding a nice couple o' toasted baguette slices (drizzled with olive oil) really makes this dish go the extra mile! I try to plate this as close to the Fish House as possible, which means grits, sauce, then shrimp on top, and finally with the toasted baguette, I don't believe they toast their baguette but I like a nice little crunch here. The Fish House also adds fried sweet potatoes as a garnish (as seen in the photo), I obviously didn't do that because ya know sometimes enough is enough... I'm not trying to be that extra...

YUM.

Overall

This recipe is definitely different than the Grits a Ya Ya served at Fish House, but it is a close second, and still really fucking delicious. Also, I'm not completely convinced that they don't just mix the sauce with the grits too... So maybe try that out for me and let me know how it goes...

Just one last photo of this stunning dish