Hi friends happy Friday!
Apologies for the lack of posting in the past couple of weeks. The week of the pop-up was a whirlwind. I jumped from working an Arc’teyrx shoot for a couple of days into 15-16 hour prep and service days. And to top it all off, I picked up a quick gig to pick up a few dresses and fly them to LA for an actress… the day after the pop-up. I’m jabbering, I’ll explain more in the next post since there are a few spots in LA that I have got to share with you later.
I want to jump back on track and start with a recipe today. On the plane ride home I watched a Master Class with chef Mashama Bailey of The Grey in Savannah, Georgia. Watched is generous since I was half-awake from having to wake up at an ungodly hour to catch the flight back home. In the episode, she cooked fried trout that sat on top of grits and her take on an étouffée sauce. While watching the video, I was struck with the same urge that many Asian immigrants who immigrated to the south have felt - it only feels right that cajun spices should (need to) be accompanied by mala spices.
Though she did a step-by-step breakdown of the dish, there weren’t exact measurements or any text explaining what ingredients she used in the video. So I wanted to get home and reverse engineer the dish. As a southern boy, I love eating and cooking southern food. Straightforward, deceivingly humble, comforting, and packed with so much flavor.
Normally Friday recipes are for paid subscribers only, but since this is my first post in a couple of weeks, I’ll be blasting this out to everyone!
Fried Trout with a Shrimp Étouffée Sauce on Grits
Serves 4
Tools needed:
2 sauce pots.
One for grits. One for the stock and sauce.
1 sauté pan / cast iron pan
1 wire rack to rest finished trout
1 blender or immersion blender
Ingredients:
Grits
2C coarse ground cornmeal
8C water
6T unsalted butter
salt to taste
Shrimp stock
2# (pounds) of head-on, whole shrimp.
1 onion
3 celery stalks
3 bay leaves
1T coriander seeds
1T black peppercorn
4 garlic cloves
8C water
1T unsalted butter
Étouffée sauce
1/2C unsalted butter
1/2C AP flour
2 white or yellow onions
4 celery stalks
3 red bell peppers (I used Italian peppers from the farmers market instead since they looked great)
1 jalapeno
8 garlic cloves
4C+ shrimp stock
4T+ cajun mala spice blend
3T smoked paprika
3T ground sichuan peppercorns
2T salt
2T garlic powder
2T ground coriander seeds
2T fresh thyme (1T dried thyme)
1T ground black pepper
1T ground white pepper
1T oregano
1T cayenne pepper
1t MSG
2# shrimp
Trout
1 whole trout, filleted, skin on, cut to four pieces.
1C Fine ground cornmeal
1C Buttermilk
2t smoked paprika
2t mushroom dashi powder (optional)
1/2t MSG (optional)
1C AP flour
2-3C canola oil
Directions:
Soak the cornmeal for the grits for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.
If you’re wanting to have dinner at 7, start around 4:30/5.
First, get your shrimp stock ready.
Get your shrimp, take the heads off and remove the shells.
Take the shrimp meat and keep it in the fridge until you need them later.
Roughly chop the onion, celery, and garlic.
Sauté the shrimp heads and shells in the butter on medium-high heat until the shells start turning light red. Add the onions, celery, and garlic and gently sauté until lightly browned.
Add water to cover with the coriander seeds, black peppercorn, and bay leaves.
Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes.
Once the stock has simmered fully, strain the stock into another container, rinse out your pot, and get it ready for your étouffée sauce.
As your shrimp stock is simmering, grab your second pot and bring your water for the grits to a boil. Don’t salt the water just yet.
It’s best to salt your grits toward the end so that you can manage the salt levels. You can always add more salt to a dish, never the opposite.
You can also replace half the water with heavy cream if you want extra creamy grits. Alas, my stomach would be a war zone after that much cream, but if you can handle dairy - all the power to you.
As your stock simmers and as your grit pot comes to a boil, start prepping the étouffée mise en place.
Make the cajun mala spice blend by just taking all the measured spices and mixing them all in a bowl together.
It’s best to toast the coriander seeds and sichuan peppercorns before grinding them down.
If you’re using fresh thyme make sure to keep it separate from the blend and add it separately.
Finely dice the onions, celery, peppers, and garlic.
By the time you’re done dicing your vegetables, your grits pot should be at a hard boil.
Strain your soaked grits and add them to the boiling water.
Mix them well and lower the heat to a low flame… Cook the grits at a low simmer and make sure to stir your pot every few minutes to make sure the grits don’t stick to the bottom of the pot and burn.
Grits are forgiving, but they will burn if left unattended for too long.
Once you got your grits going and your ingredients ready and in front of you, get your roux for the étouffée sauce going.
A roux is one of the building blocks of French sauce making. The beginning step for French mother sauces like béchamels and veloutés. Rouxs are used in cajun cooking to start gumbos, gravy, and… étouffée sauces.
Get your pot and melt the 1/2C (8T) of butter over low-medium heat. Once the butter is melted add 1/2C of flour and mix in well. You can use a spatula or a whisk.
The roux is going to start to bubble and maintain low-medium heat. Stir the roux well to make sure you’re not burning the flour. Take your time to cook the roux. It should take around 4-6 minutes.
The roux is the foundation of this sauce. It will thicken the sauce, provide depth in color to the sauce, and it will add a buttery nuttiness to the sauce.
You’re going to want to cook the roux until it starts turning into a nice shade of brown. Think of Nesquik chocolate milk or the last several sips of a cappuccino.
Once the roux is at the color that you want, add the onions, celery, peppers, and jalapeno directly into the roux. Bring the heat up to a good medium level and mix the vegetables well into the roux.
Sauté the vegetables well and cook until the onions start to turn translucent.
Once they’re at this point, add the garlic and 4T (you can add more if you want more of a kick) of the cajun mala spice blend. Sauté for a couple of minutes to toast up the spices but not too long so you don’t burn your aromatics.
Add the 4C of shrimp stock once everything has sautéed together, harmoniously.
Bring it to a simmer and feel free to add more stock to adjust the thickness of the sauce. It should be ever so slightly runnier than gravy that you would have over biscuits or a chicken fried steak.
Once it has simmered for about 10 minutes check if the vegetables are fully cooked.
If they are, it’s time to blend the sauce. Throw the sauce into a blender if you want a super smooth sauce, but an immersion blender can do the job. You could also skip the blending altogether if you want a more rustic sauce. The world is your oyster, do what you want.
Get your étouffée sauce back into your pot and keep it over very low heat.
Get the shrimp out from the fridge and dice them up. Once they’re prepared, throw them right into the étouffée sauce and let the cook low and slow as your get your trout cooked.
We’re almost there. Home stretch. Don’t forget to keep stirring your grits throughout this whole process.
Take your trout filets out of the fridge, slice the filets in half, lay them out on a plate or tray, and lightly salt both sides. Put them aside and let them hang out while you get everything else ready.
Pour the canola oil into your sauté pan and place the pan over medium heat.
As your oil gets hot, get three different bowls for your battering station.
One for the AP flour, one for the cornmeal, and one for the buttermilk.
Add spices for the fish into the buttermilk so they stick to the fish well.
Battering 101. One hand stays dry. The other stays wet. Please make your life easier and don’t use both hands for dry and wet parts and end up with clumpy fingers and a messy workstation.
Place one filet into the flour first and make sure every crack and crevice touches the flour.
Place the floured filet into the buttermilk and use your other hand to coat the filet.
Place the filet into the corn meal and use your first hand to fully encrust the filet. Make sure to apply some pressure and make sure the cornmeal is packed on, this will make sure that the batter sticks to the fish.
Once the filet is battered, place it back onto your wire rack/plate.
Your oil should be ready by now. You can check if it is ready by throwing a pinch of cornmeal from the battering into the oil. It should sizzle and fry right when it goes into the oil. But it shouldn’t brown and burn. If it does brown, your oil is a bit too hot - lower the heat and wait a few minutes. If the cornmeal sinks to the bottom without much action, raise the temperature and wait a couple of minutes.
Once the oil is at the right temperature (around 350-75 if you have a thermometer) Gently place a filet into the oil. Cook only two at a time to make sure that the oil stays hot.
If you try to cook all four pieces at once the oil temperature will drop too much and the fish will not crisp up as you want it to.
For crispy crunchy batter take your time.
Cook the filet for about 3-4 minutes on each side before flipping. Watch the edges to make sure they don’t brown too quickly. If it is, adjust your heat to prevent them from burning.
Once you’ve flipped them and the batter takes on a light brown color after a few minutes pull the fish and let them rest on a wire rack.
Once all four were done, I wanted them to be extra crispy so I cheated and threw them all into the pan again for a couple of minutes.
Once they’re all done, let them rest on a rack and sprinkle a little salt while they’re still hot.
OKAY. I KNOW THIS IS A LOT. We’re pretty much done.
Once all your fish is cooked, check on your étouffée sauce. The shrimp should be cooked through and ready. Taste the sauce and double-check your salt levels.
Right before you serve, toss in and mix the remaining butter into the grits. Mix well until the butter is fully melted in and incorporated. This is when you want to slowly add salt to taste.
Once the sauce and grits are ready, you’re ready to plate.
I had some leftover scallions so I sliced them up to garnish, but you can garnish with anything. Parsley, cilantro, scallions, and/or Thai basil could work great with this dish.
Scoop a good amount of grits onto your plate, add a good bit of sauce on top, and then your trout on top of it all.
Feed your friends and enjoy it with a glass of white wine
.
As I was writing this all out, I realized… it’s a ton of information.
BUT… you just cooked grits + a great sauce + fried fish. A full-ass meal for four people in a couple of (or a few) hours. Take your time when you cook. Pour a fat glass of wine, turn on some music, and enjoy the process. This was my first time making this dish and I was stoked about the outcome. The fish was perfectly cooked - crunchy breading, tender flakey meat, and seasoned through. The sauce was crazy. Incredible depth, smokey yet gentle heat, and great consistency. The grits, even without cream, turned out creamy and comforting.
My favorite elements of southern comfort food meets mala spice in one meal. Pop off.
Thanks for taking the time to read through the recipe. If you get a chance to cook this meal, let me know! I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
All love,
Edmond