North America · Volume 33, The Rice Coast, the Corridor and the Delta
Frogmore stew (Lowcountry boil)
St Helena Island, near Beaufort, South Carolina
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 45 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Serves 6 to 8. About 45 minutes.
Ingredients
- 2 litres water
- 2 tbsp Old Bay or a similar seafood seasoning
- 1kg new potatoes
- 4 ears of corn, halved
- 500g smoked sausage, sliced thick
- 1kg shrimp, shell on
Method
- Bring the water to a boil with the seasoning, and add the potatoes; cook for 10 minutes.
- Add the sausage and corn, and cook for a further 10 minutes.
- Add the shrimp and cook just until pink, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Drain and tip everything onto a newspaper-lined table for communal eating, the traditional serving style.
What a modern chef changes
Each component cooked to its own precise point, then combined, rather than sequentially boiled in one pot
Rung 6
Method
- Cook the potatoes, corn and sausage each in their own separately seasoned liquid, to each one's own correct doneness, then finish the shrimp last in a reduced, concentrated version of the same seasoned liquid, so no single ingredient is over or under done by the time the others catch up, a genuine solution to the traditional method's real weakness.