Cracking The Code: My Grandmother’s New Orleans Shrimp Stuffing

This weekend, my family is coming together for an early Thanksgiving dinner. As the host, I got one request that almost stumped me. My sister-in-law requested that I make my grandmother's New Orleans Shrimp Stuffing. It's been a year since she passed away and no one had it written down. I had never made it, but I decided to reverse engineer it.

To Google, I went.

I scrolled through recipes with just a few scant details about the ingredients and the general cooking process. I found something that looked similar and then I read into it more. It was my Ma-Ma Barbara's secret shrimp stuffing, the one I thought was lost forever after her passing was posted by a writer at NOLA.com in 2014. There are some slight adjustments that you'll see below.

I gathered the ingredients and read through the process several times to see if I could get it right. In my kitchen, surrounded by the familiar smells of butter and onions cooking, I felt like she was guiding me. This was her famous stuffing.

As the stuffing started to come together in the pot, I couldn't resist a little quality control testing along the way. I was transported back to the many years of Thanksgiving dinners with my grandparents who lived in Slidell. When I took the pan of stuffing from the oven, perfectly cooked and with a smell that would make you 'slap ya mama', I was proud.

Hope you make this recipe this holiday season. Tell me how it goes!

Barbara's Famous New Orleans Shrimp Stuffing

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 sticks butter
• 3 large onions, chopped
• 3 bell peppers, chopped
• 1 bunch celery, chopped
• 6 toes garlic, minced
• 1 small handful dried parsley
• Salt and pepper
• 5 pounds raw, peeled shrimp
• Cajun Seasoning To Taste
• 2-3 loaves stale French po-boy bread
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• Italian bread crumbs for topping
• 1-2 tablespoons additional butter for topping

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. On the stovetop in a large pot, Melt butter. Stir in chopped vegetables, garlic, parsley, and green onions.
3. Cook on medium for 10 minutes or until browned.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add shrimp. Stir till pink.
5. Crumble bread into a large bowl and add water. Drain bread in a colander and squeeze out moisture.
6. Add bread to the pot with the seasoning and the shrimp.
7. Taste for seasoning. Add more salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning.
8. Add eggs to the mixture and mix well.
9. Place in a large greased baking pan. Heavily sprinkle Italian bread crumbs on top. Dot with butter.
10. Bake for 40 minutes or until bubbly around the edges.