Guy Fieri: It’s Kitchen One. Jason Hernandez is the Senior Marketing Specialist from Memphis, Tennessee.

Jason Hernandez: My signature on our recipe is Spicy Low-Country Shrimp and Grits. Shrimp and grits is a classic southern dish where I’ve taken some of my own influences from Latin cuisine. I use a lot of different types of peppers and heat sources when I am creating this dish. This dish is going to be hot.

Once I’ve got the shrimp peeled and deveined, I’ll add a little bit of creole or Cajun seasoning to it and set it aside. The next thing I am going to do was work on the grits. A lot of folks like to use water with their grits. I use milk. It gives a much creamier flavor.

Guy Fieri: Mr. Hernandez, Jason. What are we looking out brother? Give me the rundown. What do you have in there?

Jason Hernandez: A little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper, a little bit of hot pepper sauce, a little bit of this chili flake.

Guy Fieri: Is this a traditional method of making grits down on the south that I haven’t seen or— is this my southern California Latino influence grit?

Jason Hernandez: Well, there is breakfast grits and there are supper grits. These are supper grits.

Guy Fieri: Breakfast grits and supper grits. I bet everybody at home didn’t know that.

Jason Hernandez: So, in this dish, what really brings the oomph is the andouille sausage.

Male: I really like how he’s getting that Asian spice in there and then the andouille sausage in there for fat. A lot of the things that I see really don’t have a lot of fat.

Jason Hernandez: The andouille is going to bring a lot of smokiness. It’s going to bring a lot of depth and character to the dish entirely.

So, at the very end, my grits are looking good. They’re thickening up nicely. My shrimp mixture is ready to go. I am ready to plate. I might be thinking about the time and it all came together perfectly. The bad news was—

Guy Fieri: You have five minutes left. Five minutes, you need to be plated up and stop working.

Jason Hernandez: So of course, as my dish was sitting there, I was worried about these grits are going to be cold. You know I don’t want to be beat up over my dish. I want them to enjoy it.

Guy Fieri: Judges, I don’t think you have to finish it.

Female: I think there are so much complexity of flavor going on in here and at first you have the andouille and it’s spicy and then the creaminess of the grits is great.

Female: We were a little worried but they that there weren’t going to be creamy enough and they definitely set up so that they add a nice contrast through the dish.

Male: That depth of pith is just really intense.

Female: For the sweating hair.

Male: I mean it’s like, it comes, it comes and then it goes and then it comes and I get that smoke and it just really very, very, very, very like multilayer dish but the grits are a little cold.

Jason Hernandez: When he mentioned the grits were a little cold. It felt a little bit like a punch in the gut. I am really hoping that that timing issue with my grits isn’t going to sink the ship.

You know I was excited because it was all positive response of the dish but the grits were a little cold, so of course, I was feeling a little bit uneasy.

Guy Fieri: That mean Jason Hernandez is our winner of our signature round with 95 points with his Spicy Low-Country Shrimp and Grits.

Jason Hernandez: It was really comforting to hear that my score was so much higher.

Guy Fieri: Jason Hernandez, that means you’re the winner. $25,000. Your recipe is going to go on T.G.I. Fridays all over the country.

Jason Hernandez: The win really meant off to me and I am still trying to appreciate what’s happened.

Female: It was a wonderful, wonderful dish; bold but accessible not just on the palate but for cooks to cook it as well at home.

Jason Hernandez: If I can win this, anybody with a little bit of talent and a passion for cooking are going to win this.

Guy Fieri: It’s been a blast! Thanks for joining us on Ultimate Recipe Showdown! We’ll see you next time. Way the go man.