Letters To Bourdain

Dear Chef Bourdain;

Ok, one last “Not Chef Bourdain’s Food” post before I dive back into catching up on all the good stuff I’ve been making. Also last one without pictures. People like pictures. Anyway, last night I used some of the overall lessons from your cookbook to invent my own dish. I came up with it in my head while walking around the market looking at ingredients, which I’d say is the first sign that I’ve internalized some key lessons. Those lessons? Use cream and butter. Lots of it.

Sexy Cat Shrimp (Named for our dinner guest, the original Sexy Cat.) Serves 4

1 lb shrimp, shelled, de-veined uncooked.

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup butter

1 medium onion, chopped fine

1 cup white wine

1 tbpsp salt

juice of 1/2 lemon.

12 oz of lobster pate

4 portabella mushrooms, stemmed and cleaned

2 tbpsp garlic oil, + 1/2 tbpsp

1 tbpsp balsamic vinegar

Preheat your oven to 350F.

In big pot, heat the garlic oil on medium high heat and add the onion. When the onion is translucent but not caramelized, add the white wine, bring to a simmer and let reduce by half.

Meanwhile, brush the mushrooms with the left over garlic oil. Put a dollop of lobster pate evenly among the mushrooms, then drizzle with the balsamic and season to taste. Put them on a baking sheet, and set aside.

When the wine is reduced, put in the butter, bouqet garni and cream, and bring to a boil. Reduce it to a simmer, and put the shrimp in the cream sauce at the same time as you put the ‘shrooms in the oven.

When the shrimp are nice and succulent but still tender, strain the shrimp and onions out, reserving the cream sauce. Put the cream sauce back in the pot, put the bouqet garni back in, add lemon juice, and let it reduce over medium heat until it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

When the mushrooms are nice and tender, cooked through (about ten minutes) plate them, and distribute the shrimp and onions evenly amongst them. Pour on the cream sauce, and serve – with the spare sauce in a gravy boat.

It’s kind of hard to miss with that much butter and cream, but the results were pretty good, if I say so myself. It’s really just a reworking of core techniques from your book, but hey – what is cuisine if we don’t synthesize something new out of the good stuff that other people teach us?

Thanks for the inspiration, Chef!

Davy