Kickin' it old-school

The seeds for this project were planted at a dinner party a couple of months ago. Christie and I thought it might be fun to cook an entire meal from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And no, we hadn't been drinking when we decided to do it. Coq au Vin, braised leeks in a Mornay sauce and garlic mashed potatoes-- 5 hours and 5 sticks of butter later, we turned out an amazing meal. Wahoo!

Admittedly, not the most balanced of menus, and definitely not a way anyone eats any longer (um, sauteing bacon in butter?!), but totally delicious, especially the Coq. A super recipe, with perfectly balanced flavors; incredibly rich, yet not unctuous. It really was something extraordinary (I can't recommend that recipe highly enough, especially with the onions braised in red wine). But as we were digging in, and we really were literally digging in, Jen said, "Now I see where '70s food came from," which kind of threw me. Wasn't that a slam? Don't be dissin' the Julia.

She went on to explain that in the dinner on the table you could see how cooking devolved from the 60s to the 70s--canned-soup saucing, all-white dinners, Velveeta on veg, basically anything served on Thanksgiving. I'd never really thought about it before, but, d'uh. Of course she was right. Why bother with bechamel when you could pop open a can of cream of mushroom? Why bother with a Mornay that can separate, just use Velveeta?

Shrimp Victoria from Brennan's Restaurant is the perfect illustration of Jen's point. The original recipe is really super-dooper old-school--shrimp and button mushrooms sauced with a bechamel that's been enriched with white wine and sour cream. Its incredibly rich, yet with balance of flavors that actually enhances the shrimp with all sorts of creamy goodness.

While the dish is still served at Brennan's, the recipe changed at some point (my guess is sometime in the 1980s--the fresh basil is a dead give-away), with the bechamel replaced with heavy cream, the shrimp sauteed with green onions and mushrooms rather than cooked separately, the addition of fresh basil, all thickened with a blond roux. And as the recipe moves through time, its sort of downhill from there. Lots of versions of this recipe on the net call for cream of mushroom soup as a thickener, and almost all eliminate the wine. I even found one that uses dry onion soup mixed with the sour cream and recommends serving over egg noodles (Yummy shrimp stroganoff)!

I understand why this happens. While Shrimp Victoria looks like a snap to make on paper, its not an easy recipe to cook well, I think. And its not like the recipe as its printed in the New Orleans Restaurant Cookbook helps with that!

Shrimp Victoria
Brennan's

1/2 bunch green onions, chopped
2 Tbs. butter
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup cream sauce
1/2 cup cooked mushrooms, sliced in half
16 medium-sized boiled shrimp
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tbs. chopped parsley
Pinch of thyme

Saute green onions in butter. Add wine and blend in cream sauce. Add mushrooms and shrimp and blend in sour cream. Add parsley and thyme and serve with parsley rice in individual copper casseroles. Serves 2

So, you're sauteing green onions adding the wine and then...oh wait...you've got to stop and make a cream sauce? And what's a cream sauce exactly? It asks for cooked shrimp and mushrooms, but doesn't really tell you how to do that. How about some cooking times, since shrimp and cream sauces are notoriously easy to overcook? And copper casseroles? Doesn't every home cook have those?

I found a recipe, in the sauces section of the cookbook, from Brennan's for a cream sauce, so I decided to use it.

Cream Sauce
Brennan's

1 stick butter
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 cups milk
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne

Melt butter and stir in flour, blending well without browning. Gradually stir in milk and add salt and cayenne, stirring constantly until thickened. Makes 2 cups


The first thing I did was boil the shrimp. It seemed really strange, and somehow very un-New Orleans, to just boil the shrimp plain in water, cayenne and salt, but since there were no instructions, I decided to do them plainly. The cooking technique, however, was my way. I put the shrimp in cold water and put over a medium fire. I let them cook for 5 minutes, then turned off the flame and let them sit in the hot water for another minute. I didn't want the shrimp all the way done, but almost done, since the shrimp were going to cook for another few minutes in the cream sauce. Overcooked shrimp are one of my bugbears.



I peeled the shrimp, saving the shells for shrimp stock. Christie cleaned and chopped the mushrooms into halves, quarters for the larger mushrooms. Since again there were no instructions, I sauteed the mushrooms for 5 minutes in 1 Tbs. butter over a medium heat, with one sprig of fresh thyme and some cayenne. When they were done, I reserved 1/2 cup.



Next up was the "Cream Sauce," which is really just a rich bechamel. I blended in the flour to the melted butter, removing from the flame to blend, then returning to the fire, adding the milk, salt and cayenne, cooking approximately 6 minutes. I should have only cooked it 4 minutes, since the sauce continued cooking as it sat off of the flame.

Next came the final cooking. I sauteed the green onions in butter for 3 minutes. And its all very fast from there--I added the wine, and let cook for less than one minute, then added the cream sauce, the shrimp and mushrooms. I then added the sour cream, and the sauce thickened almost immediately. I added the salt, thyme and cayenne, and after cooking for less than one more minute I removed from heat.




There wasn't a recipe for "parslied rice" in the cookbook, and I really wasn't quite sure what that was, so I took it at its most literal meaning, cooked rice with parsley stirred in. Seemed to work, although I wondered if the rice would have been better if there'd been a splash of wine in the cooking water?

Speaking of wine, I think a lot of the real success of this recipe depends on the wine used. I wanted to use a '60s-style white, and I was thinking about Chablis (gag!), but Christie and I sort of lucked into a really terrific white Bordeaux, Chateau Lamothe de Haux. It wasn't too sweet nor was it too woody. But it was totally yum, and I don't even like white wine all that much.




The final result was excellent. Extremely rich, probably a little much for lunch, as evidenced by the food coma we found ourselves in after the meal was done.

So in the next post, I'm going to do the usual updating the recipe instructions--adding cooking times, fires, and some sort of reasonable cooking order. I'm also going to try the recipe out with a lighter bechamel. Just because....