Grits and Grillades. Simple. Complex. Delicious.

I know, I know, I know....You don't have to tell me.  I've been away for awhile and the moment that I come back...BAM!  I have the nerve to drop something like this on you.  Ah well, the fact is that I won't apologize for working hard  on my other projects any more than I will for rolling out one of my all time favorite dishes as I embark on my comeback.  For the folks that don't know about it, bless your soul...let me introduce you to your new favorite soul food brunch item, Grits and Grillades.

Lets get the obvious out of the way right here and right now.  This is another of what will certainly become DOZENS of recipes with origins  from the deep south, particularly Louisiana.  Seeing as it is my opinion that all authentic soul food (American) can be classified as southern food, but not vice versa (all southern food is not soul food) you may as well get used to it.

So, grits and grillades.  Lets explore.  Grillades are not some kind of exotic shellfish that the good people of New Orleans lay claim to as a local staple only found in their region.  Fact is, grillades can be a varying number of types of proteins used for this dish. I'm using pork, but beef, venison, chicken, veal are all frequently used.  Traditionally, grits and grillades is a dish that is served for brunch, but it's not out of fashion to eat them for breakfast or dinner and serving them over rice is also acceptable. I know my nephew Corey will appreciate hearing that. (as though he actually cares what people think of his leanings toward rice)  I love this dish.  I really, really do but as I went about my research to find out how to prepare an authentic version, I became a little perturbed.

Any number of kinds of meats can be used as grillades.  For my recipe, I'm using (surprise) pork shoulder.

My discomfort  with learning this dish was not associated with the "what" so much as it was with the "how."  It's not the sweet, sweet grits and grillades that had me rather uptight, but it was more so how often I discovered the great joy people seemed to get in taking a simple dish and making it as hard to make as they possibly could.

Food Snob Rant

There is a burden that all of us cooks that are not in or from Louisiana assume and are often thrust under by many of  the cooks that ARE from the Louisiana region.  That burden we toil under and in many cases, against is what I call "sufficient authenticity."  Cooks like me (not from or in Louisiana) that love the foods with origins from that region are often discredited with being incapable of producing those very dishes with the same authenticity as our southern based peers.  We don't have the same easy access to many of the ingredients that are preconditions to cooking authentic versions of the food, fair enough, but what I found in my research was that the recipes using mostly the same ingredients calling themselves "authentic" were just a bunch of good cooks doing things their own way.  These cooks were  informed by the traditions, but not inexorably bound to them.  In layman's terms, the dish was simple but people made learning how to do it good, a chore, even as they touted an authentic means that they do not themselves employ as a singular standard.  I ain't mad at em though...anymore.

Doing It Good

What I love about grits and grillades (besides eating them like there is no tomorrow) is how complex the flavors can become as coaxed out of simple ingredients.  And, unlike so many of the cooks whose recipes I reviewed, it doesn't take hours to get to those flavors, but  neither is moving too quickly (like some others I reviewed) the right move.

 

The middle ground is the ticket on this dish.  Not too simple, not too complex.  The ingredients are as basic as it gets, same for technique.  The outcome however, is a deep tapestry of tender soul foodie goodness.  Here's what you'll need to make a good sized pan.

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds pork butt pork steak  (use a cut with plenty of fat on it)

1 Large onion (medium chopped)

1 cup celery

1 green bell pepper

1 cup mushrooms (sliced)

1 medium tomato (cut into chunks)

 1/2 cup fresh parsley

3 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 cup seasoned flour

1 cup red wine

Bacon grease

Butter

Basic savory seasoning blend

Start with either chicken stock or by creating a stock using 4 cups of water, 3 chicken bullion cubes and add to it:  Several shots of Hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, one bay leaf,  1/4 onion, 1/4 cup of red wine, 1/4 cup parsley. And 1/4 cup of celery.   Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer on very low.

Cut the pork butt steak into three inch strips (grillades) and pound flat (1/4 of an inch)  then season both sides and the  flour with the basic savory spice blend (season salt, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder)  Lightly coat the grillades with flower and fry in bacon grease (if you have it)  in hot pan until just brown on each side.  Remove grillades and sauté the rest of the chopped vegetables in the same pan. Be careful to add the garlic and tomatoes at the end only after the rest of the veggies have been cooked and are starting to soften, and don’t cook them long enough for the garlic to burn or the tomatoes to break down.  You want pieces of soft, unctuous tomato left in the finished dish.  Remove all of the sautéed veggies and set aside to start your roux.  

Add bacon grease and a pat of butter to the same amount of the seasoned flour in the hot pan (see my post on roux colors)  Once you have the roux to the desired color, stop the roux by adding the sautéed veggies to the pan along with the rest of the wine.  Slowly add the stock to the roux, wine  and veggies stirring to avoid lumps.  Once the stock is fully incorporated, add the  grillades and any juices that they may have released to the pan and let cook and reduce tasting for seasoning.  The grillades should cook on medium heat in the sauce for about 20 minutes until the sauce thickens, then they  are done.  Simple.  Complex.  Delicious.

Enjoy.

Kev

All That Jazz...and Cheese Eggs

Creamy and  Savory Cheese Eggs

 So, one thing that I think we can all agree on regarding Soul Food is that it certainly isn't bland.  Now, don't get me wrong, there is a legitimate place for food that is simply appointed in such a way that the preparation is more concerned about letting the pallet experience it in it's least altered state.  However, the history of Soul Food (proper) is one that could not rely on the natural flavors of the ingredients to shine through.  Why?  Well, because Soul Food in it's truest form came from ingredients that were not prime cuts or the ripest and most juicy, hand picked produce. The fact of the matter is, the ingredients of many of our Soul Food dishes do not shine on their own!

Much of what the disenfranchised people (slaves) used as ingredients was offal.  As a result of receiving inferior ingredients the original cooks of what we call Soul Food had to transform it by adding what spices they could, by using long, slow cooking techniques like braising so that tough cuts of meat would become tender.  Pig's feet, tail, ears, shanks, intestines were among these cuts as well as cow's tongue and tail (ox tails)  Ingredients like these required a more complex and elongated process in order to elevate them.  They also often needed additional flavor notes.

Notes, you see, are not only found in music, or writing.  Flavors in all of their depths and intensities are expressions that call one to pay attention to something.  Notes also inform regarding an idea of some other thing.  Well, flavors do the same thing.  They speak of what a dish consists of and how it was prepared.  Flavors call attention to the ingredients and spices, as well as the intention of the chef.  The chef communicates through his/her food just like a musician communicates through their instrument or a singer with their voice.  Notes.  And like Jazz, Soul Food is full of them!

My Savory Cheese Eggs are like that.  I decided that I wanted to do eggs that were a step below an omlett, having that creamy, cheesy consistency that so many of the big named chefs are stumping for these days.  Most of the time when you order cheese in your eggs what you get is hard scrambled eggs with a gooey mess of partially melted cheese on top of them.  Well, Marvin Murphy didn't play that.  

Taking a hint from Latin cooking, I do a kind of a sofrito for my cheese eggs.  I start by seeding and chopping one large jalapeno pepper (if you want the heat, use the seeds)  two cloves of garlic and half an onion.  The other ingredients are: 5 large eggs, 2 table spoons of butter and 4 slices of American cheese.

I crack and scramble my eggs in a bowl, then tear my cheese into small pieces and add them to the eggs, then set aside.  I start a pan on medium heat with my butter and immediately add my garlic, onions and peppers to it while the pan is cold.  Of course any pepper would do here, so don't be bound to the way I do it, I'm just a guide.  You're conducting your own symphony and that's what makes jazz cool...it sounds like the person playing it and not like the guy that just got finished playing it.

Once the sofrito has begun to soften the onions and peppers, add the eggs and cheese.  From here it's all technique.  To get the kinds of texture that I like, you have to work the eggs as the cheese melts with lots of movement.  I use a wooden spoon.  Key here is that you want to abandon the old "fluffy egg fold" technique that was so popular for so long.  You're not making an omelet here, so scramble those eggs!  Don't go crazy but you do need to work the eggs pretty consistently.  As they start to near being done, make sure that you pull them off of the heat just before they reach the doneness that you're looking for.  This is very important because the eggs will continue to cook and tighten directly after they've been taken out of the pan or removed from the heat.  So if you cook them right to your target, you've actually over cooked them in the end.

When done right, these babies are gold.  With toast or biscuits...fried fish and grits and you're in there!  The peppers, fresh garlic, onions and REAL butter elevates the eggs to something more complex and in my opinion, better.  Is it for everybody?  Even I don't always do it this way.  But then, I likes my  jazz every once in awhile.

Kev

The King's Meat. Chorizo & Mushroom Stuffed Pork Chops

Chorizo & Mushroom stuffed Pork Chops

Full disclosure here.  I am a pork-a-holic. I do admit it.  I openly embrace it.  I love the swine.  From the rooter to the tooter, I'm mo eats me some of that sweet, sweet pork meat.  No shame.  No judgement here.  It is what it is.  

Now, I always knew that I loved pork but it was a question posed to me by my god brother Michael (the original Miz) Woods that crystallized for me where pork sits for me in what we proudly describe as "The Hierarchy of Meats."  Michael, in his near infinite meat wisdom, hoped to get for our brotherly fellowship of manly men, a  clear consensus of the occupier of the King of the Pantheon of Meats.  The highest meat.  The most important of meats.  The meat Potentiator.  Like Descartes, he used a standard that was as close to absolute as possible that had to be met in order for the answer to be valid.  Descartes did this in his pursuit to prove the existence of God with the question of what can be known with absolute certainty but Michael's standard was simply irreplaceability.  Here's the question that I also pose to you.

"If you could only eat one kind of meat for the rest of your life, what would it be?"

Now, this seems easy to answer at first but don't rush your choice.  Consider that the question posits "the rest of your life."  And, the metric isn't what particular meat dish, it's what KIND of meat.  Period.

For me, the thought of NEVER tasting another piece of smokey, salty bacon again was like some kind of nightmare.  Imagine NEVER eating that sweet lingusa from Texas De Brazil or never eating another Schmidt's Bahamma Mamma.  How about no more tender, baby back ribs that have been rubbed and smoked for hours until that pink smoke ring just glistens in the sun as you pull the meat from the bone.  Oh children...I shuddered at the thought of never again going to the fair and getting Italian sausage with peppers and onions or making my own. No more jowl meat in my lima or pinto beans..or my greens or my green beans?  Saying goodbye to neckbones and forsaking ham to go along with my potato salad?  My point?  Pork's versatility is simply unmatched in the world of meats, and at every stop along the road of recipes, pork packs the biggest flavor punch.  Think about it. Chicharon, Lechon, The list goes on and on.

But, it was when I considered NEVER eating another pork chop that I felt the tears begin to well up and I had to fight to hold them back.  I did not win that fight.  Pork is the Meat King, may the other, lesser meats humbly bow themselves before it's throne.

If pork is indeed the king of meats, then  I submit to you that Pork Chops are like...rainbows.

Bear with me here.  The very concept of Soul Food stems  from a system of denial, class and oppression.  In America and other countries that participated in the global slave trade, the victims of this holocaust that actually did survive the middle passage and land in their destined countries became chattel slaves having no rights and occupying the lowest rung on the ladder of society.  As a result of their condition they were denied owning things like property and livestock and as such relied on the unwanted scraps given to them by their masters that they transformed into dishes that are now revered throughout the country, and beyond.

I think that this is where the question of country cooking vs southern cooking vs comfort food diverges from soul food is answered.  Slaves transformed and elevated what was considered offal into what are now irreplaceable classics.  Absent that particular mechanism of being forced to make something more than just sustainable from something considered lowly by others enforcing the oppression and in fact, in spite of the oppression from others is in my opinion a sacrosanct element in Soul Food.  Pork chops, in all of their porky glory would not have been something that was given to slaves. A big hunk of loin or shoulder would have been something reserved for the master's table.  It would have been something a slave might see off in the distance but never actually have a chance to experience beyond that.  Like a rainbow.  That is why in and of itself I don't consider chops to be a Soul Food staple.  They were the King's meat.

So, because I can drive my nice new car to the grocery, pick up a three inch thick chop or two and do with them as I please... I am grateful.  And I do it like a king.

Let's get to my Chorizo & Mushroom Stuffed Chops.  This one is a favorite of my youngest daughter. The kid's got good taste.

Believe it or not, this is a super easy recipe. You just have to be confident when executing it.

Ingredients

Two center cut pork chops (at least two to three inches thick)
1/2 cup of ground Chorizo sausage (I use the uncooked kind that comes in a tube.
1 1/2 cups of unseasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms (whatever kind you like will do.  I used button mushrooms)
1/2 cup of water
Olive Oil

Seasoning
Basic savory (season salt, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper)
Dried Rosemary
Smoked Paprika (or whatever kind you have)
Dried parsley

Combine Rosemary, Paprika and parsley with the savory seasoning mix and set aside.  With a sharp knife, make an incision in each of the chops creating a pocket for the stuffing.  Here's a good video that shows you how.

After cutting the pocket into the chops, season them with the spice blend and drizzle some olive oil onto them, patting the oil into the spices. Just use a few drizzles to set the spices in, don't drown the chops in oil then set them aside to dry brine.  Remember, don't add your salt to your seasoning blend, salt the meat separately first then add your blend on top of that.  Go ahead and preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Add a little olive oil (a couple of table spoons should work) then add your onions, celery, mushrooms to a hot pan.  Saute them for a few minutes until they start to soften then add your chorizo to the pan.  Let them cook together until the chorizo is cooked (it comes raw in the tube so you have to cook it)

Once the chorizo is cooked and has released it's juices stir in the bread crumbs, folding them softly.  If the stuffing starts to get too tight, add some water.  Remove the stuffing from the pan and let it cool.

Chorizo & Mushroom Stuffing

Once the mixture has cooled, stuff the chops with the stuffing.  Get it in there!  Next, heat a pan with a few table spoons of olive oil and sear the chops on both sides.  Take your time with this and get a good crust by not touching or moving the chops once  you put them in for a couple of minutes.  These should go a total of about three minutes per side.  To finish,  place the pan into the oven and roast for 15 to 20 minutes depending on the doneness you're looking for.  After they've roasted, remove the chops and let them rest for at least ten minutes, and you're done.

Enjoy!

Kev