I make it like my Grandmother taught me. First, make a pot of good, strong coffee, none of that froo-froo manure. Next, you get some water heating for the Grits, and the pan heating for the Cured Ham (cast iron works best). Some folks prefer Salt Cured Ham, and while I generally like it, for making Redeye gravy, I prefer Sugar Cured Ham, as the gravy ends up less salty.
Once the water's heating and the pan's hot, you start cooking a few slices of ham. Enoguh to cover the bottom of the pan, and maybe overlap just a bit. Cook the ham at a medium to medium-high heat, enough to get browned a bit, and sticking some flavor to the pan.
Once you got a bit of browning on the Ham, you pour in enough coffee to pretty much cover the Ham, a bit sticking out is ok, but it should be mostly covered by coffee. Bring it to a boil, then turn it down to Medium, Medium-low. Basically, you want to simmer the coffee down a bit.
By this time, your water should be boiling, so dump in some Grits, and get them cooking. Now the trick to cooking grits is to follow the cooking instructions on the package, then keep cooking them a bit longer. Once they start to look a little dry, dump in some milk. For the least recipe(4 servings by the package) I use about a half cup of milk. Stir that in and let it soak in a bit, and the grits come out creamy and dreamy
When you add the milk to the grits, pull the Ham out of the pan, it should be fairly tender by now from the simmering. The coffee/gravy should be simmered down a bit, but will still be very thin. Fromt his point, opinions vary wildly, but I do as my Grandmother taught me, and dump a double spoonful of grits into the gravy and stir it in good. It thickens the gravy up a little, but not terribly much. Course, I grew up with thin redeye, so that's what I like. I've seen it thick, but I still prefer the thin.
At this point, ladle some grits onto a plate, add a decent portion of the now tender ham, and generously ladle the gravy over top of the whole lot.
Sit down and enjoy! :thumbsup:
G
One word of warning, even the Sugar Cured Ham has a good bit of salt in it, and the gravy will have pulled most of that into itself. If you have a low tolerance for salt, this recipe is not for you. :nono: Even if you don't, this might not be for you. Either way, be prepared to drink a goodly amount of water later on in the day to balance out the salt. On the upside, you won't need to add salt to the grits
