Cheesy Shrimp and Grits Banh Mi in a Waffle Cone

Presented by Spike TV’s Frankenfood. Premiers Sunday, June 22 at 10/9c.

Do you guys watch cooking shows? Oh man, I am such a fan. And I have been for years. And because of it, I often catch myself bringing the cooking show slang into my own cooking world vocabulary.

“BAM!”, “E.V.O.O.” and “How easy is that?,” have all eeked their way into my vernacular. But when I catch myself saying, “That’s money!” I have to physically take a step back, remove the sunglasses hanging off the back of my head, re-think my bleached blonde ends and check myself at the kitchen door.

But there’s a few cooking show phrases I find myself adopting more often than not. Like when Ina says, “Let’s turn up the volume,” and Emeril exclaims, “It’s time to kick it up a notch.”

Roger Wilco, foodie fans, I’ll be doing exactly that thanks to the new cooking show, Frankenfood.

Spike TV’s new show Frankenfood is all about turning up the volume and kicking it up a notch. It’s about creating recipes that are major food mash-ups with unexpected flavors and ingredients that when paired together make your brain, stop, stare and think, “What the ?#$%?”. But then you take a bite and your tastebuds say, “Holy crap! Why didn’t I think of this before?”

Spike TV’s new show inspires home cooks to compete in creating the most inventive—and hopefully still edible—food combinations. Each week the competitors are judged by local judges, show fans and celeb chef Josh Capon who names the winner of the day’s big prize: $10,000 real food buckaroos. And of course, they’ll wear the crown of Frankenfood champion.

I can only imagine the catch phrases that might come out of this show thanks to the plethora of ingenius Franken-flavors sure to sprout with each half hour episode. I am so ready to be cooking-show-awed-and-amazed and bring some of that uniqueness into my own foodie cravings.

Last week I played around with a few Franken-flavor ideas and struck it rich with my Korean Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Caramel Apple Crumble. I know, sounds weird right? But the flavors totally came together.

This week I paired two of my favorite comfort food cuisines into a Frankenfood mash-up by taking two Southern and Vietnamese cooking classics and adding a sweet twist to make the mash-up instantly mobile. Cheesy Shrimp and Grits Banh Mi in a Waffle Cone.

This is one of those recipes that will be a surprise hit to anyone who tries it.

About the recipe:

Cheesy shrimp and grits is one of my favorite breakfast dishes. When paired with a slice of hosin-laced grilled pork and smooth paté / liverwurst / braunschweiger, then kicked up with a garlic chili sauce mayo and some flavorful crunch from fresh veggies and herbs, the flavors make sweet music together. Combining shrimp and pork is nothing new, you see it in Asian inspired dishes all of the time. Adding a slather of cheesy grits just makes it all that much better.

I was inspired to put the whole shebang in a waffle cone after having a meat sampler in a cone at celebrity chef Chris Cosentino’s Boccalone in the San Francisco Ferry Building. Eating meat in a cone? Why not?

You could totally eat this sandwich the traditional way—between two slices of a soft baguette. But I preferred the cone method, so that when I put the toppings on, the cone kept everything nice and tidy and to avoid the slippery slide of ingredients slithering from one end of the sandwich to the other. Because this baby is loaded! Once you’ve munched down through most of the cone, you’re left with a grits-filled bite to end all bites.

Don’t be scared off by the number of ingredients in this recipe. Each step is very simple on it’s own, so bringing the entirety together is really more like creating a masterpiece with paint by numbers.

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5 from 1 vote

Cheesy Shrimp and Grits Banh Mi in a Waffle Cone

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• ½ cup quick cook coarse cornmeal
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ cup butter
• ½ cup American cheese cut into ½-inch pieces
• l ¾ pound boneless pork chops thinly sliced
• ¼ cup hoisin sauce
• ½ pound medium size shrimp peeled, deveined and tails removed
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar divided
• 2 teaspoons sugar divided
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• ½ teaspoon red chili flakes
• 2 carrots peeled and cut into matchsticks
• ½ cucumber seeded, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 1 lime cut in half
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• ¼ cup Vietnamese chili garlic sauce
• 8 ounces liver paté or liverwurst braunschweiger
• 6 waffle cones
• Mint leaves and cilantro for garnish

Instructions

• Bring the water to a boil in a medium size saucepan. Add 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and slowly whisk the cornmeal into the boiling water in a slow stream. Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes, whisking often to prevent grits from sticking or lumps forming. Add the butter and the American cheese and stir until melted. Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat, and cover to keep warm.
• Season the pork with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Heat a grill pan to high and spray with cooking spray. Cook the pork for about 4-5 minutes on both sides. Baste with hoisin sauce and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes on each side or until pork is cooked through. Transfer to a platter and clean the grill pan so you can reuse for the shrimp.
• Place the shrimp in a bowl and add the olive oil, 1 tablespoon of the rice vinegar, 1 teaspoon of the sugar, fish sauce, and red chili flakes and toss to combine. Marinate for 10 minutes. Spray the grill pan with cooking spray and bring it to high heat. Cook the shrimp for 2 minutes on each side or until the shrimp just turn opaque. Remove from the grill and place with the cooked pork.
• Add the carrots and cucumber matchsticks to a medium size bowl. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, 1 teaspoon sugar, and the juice of ½ lime and toss to coat. Set aside.
• In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise, chili garlic sauce and juice of the remaining half of lime together.
• To assemble, hold a waffle cone in one hand. Spoon a few scoops of grits into the base of the cone. Set a slice of liverwurst on the back of the cone and slather with a bit of the chili mayonnaise. Layer a slice of pork on top of the liverwurst. Add a few matchsticks of the cucumbers and carrots, add some mint and cilantro and then spoon more polenta into the cone. Top with 2-3 shrimp. Garnish with more herbs if desired and serve.

Presented by Spike TV’s Frankenfood. Premiers Sunday, June 22 at 10/9c.

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