Normally, I wouldn’t have given football’s biggest day a second thought but this was no ordinary Super Bowl. New Orleans, my favorite city-away-from-home, was represented and we had to celebrate. (OK, truth be told, we would have made this meal either way—my sister was visiting that weekend, and that’s what we do when she’s here—we eat fabulous food and mix vintage cocktails.)
A recent e-newsletter from the Southern Food and Beverage Museum included recipes from Beau Chene Country Club’s Chef Hosie Bourgeois: BBQ Shrimp and Truffle Bleu Cheese Grits. The lusty spread of ingredients was enough to jumpstart the anticipatory salivating: fresh rosemary, beer, butter, garlic…bleu cheese, truffle oil, heavy cream…A little Food 101: BBQ Shrimp New Orleans-style is neither cooked on a grill nor coated in sticky red sauce. It’s closer to scampi and may have been based on that dish back in the 1950s when a restaurant customer, who’d had something similar in Chicago, tried to explain it to a chef down south.
Though I’ve tried many versions, this new one may be my favorite for its lush sauce, perhaps because it conjures up one of my other favorite NOLA dishes, Crawfish Etouffee with its thick, slightly tomato-ey gravy. Typically, BBQ shrimp calls for butter, white wine, Worcestershire, lemon juice, hot sauce and a drift of black pepper. And, typically, you’d use heads-on shrimp, which is fattier and also soaks up more sauce, but I’m lazy and I’ll admit I don’t always feel like making a big greasy mess when I eat.
But the results…Five star all the way. Paired with a simple green salad tossed with homemade Meyer lemon dressing and a fresh baguette for dragging through the juice, this was one plateful of intense flavor.
For dessert…what could be better than a sweet Super Bowl win for the Saints, toasted with clinking glasses of Rosa Regale?
Here’s my adaptation of the recipes:
New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp
2 lbs large shrimp (peeled or heads-on, your call)
1 C tomato sauce
¼ C Worcestershire sauce
¼ C lemon juice
2 t. Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (it’s salty, so use to your taste)
1 bay leaf
5 fresh rosemary sprigs (take a big deep whiff of these before you throw them in!)
6 oz beer
4 T butter
2 oz extra virgin olive oil
A hearty dose of fresh ground black pepper
A few lemon slices
---Combine all ingredients (except shrimp) in a large sauté pan and simmer for ten minutes.
Add shrimp and cook for about 3-5 minutes, till done.
Truffle Bleu Cheese Grits
8 oz quick grits
8 oz heavy cream
2 C water
1 oz white truffle oil
3 oz bleu cheese crumbles
½ tsp salt
---Bring cream and water to a boil. Whisk in grits and salt. Stir over low heat for about five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in truffle oil and bleu cheese.
