Shrimp
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. olive oil
20 large shrimp, or 16 jumbo (U12) shrimp, peeled and deveined
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
Season the shrimp with the salt and pepper.
Heat the butter and olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. When the butter has begun to foam, toss the shrimp in. Stir as needed until the shrimp have turned pink and are thoroughly cooked through, about five minutes.
To serve: In the center of each plate, ladle out a generous serving of the corn polenta. Place 4 or 5 shrimp on top of the polenta and then spoon the sweet corn sauce over the shrimp. If you are using fresh thyme, you can garnish the dish with a small sprig of the herb.
Stilton Potato Cake
5 large potatoes, washed and peeled, sliced into ¼-inch-thick pieces
4–6 oz. Stilton cheese, crumbled
3 tbsp. chopped parsley
Salt and white pepper
3 cups heavy cream
2 eggs, beaten
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9×9-inch baking pan and layer the bottom of the pan with potato slices. Sprinkle on some of the Stilton and the parsley, and then add a light sprinkle of salt and pepper. Repeat the layering process, beginning with the potatoes, until you have filled the baking dish. Bring the cream to a simmer in a small pan and remove from heat. Temper the beaten eggs by adding a small amount of the hot cream and whisking until incorporated. Slowly add the rest of the cream, whisking as you go. Pour this mixture evenly over the potatoes and bake uncovered at 350° for 45 minutes or until the cream sauce is bubbling and the potatoes are tender.
Roasted Baby Vegetables
Depending on where you shop, you may or may not be able to find true “baby” vegetables, but you can simply buy larger sizes of your favorites and cut them down into roughly one-inch chunks. For this dish, you can use whatever vegetables you choose and select from the best of the season, but you’ll want to select hard, dense vegetables (butternut squash, carrots) as opposed to softer ones (summer squash, tomatoes). If you are making the Stilton Potato Cake, you can pop your tray of vegetables in to cook with it.
Recommended Vegetables
All of your vegetables need to be well washed, peeled, and destemmed. Use any or all of the following to total about four cups:
Baby carrots (not the prepackaged, bagged ones)
Cauliflower florets
Butternut or acorn squash
Baby onions or any larger onions
Baby or regular-sized beets
Brussels sprouts, sliced in half
Celery root
Parsnips
Beets
Other ingredients:
⅓ cup olive oil
1 tsp. each salt and pepper
Optional: 3 sprigs fresh rosemary or thyme or both, or 2 tsp. of dried herbs
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Once you have your vegetable selection prepared and cut into uniform sizes, simply toss them in a bowl and mix with generous amounts olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs if you are using them. If using fresh herbs, you can simply add the whole stems without removing the leaves. Spread your vegetables out on a baking sheet and cook them in the oven for about 12 to 15 minutes until just tender but not mushy.
Grilled Steak with Peppercorn Sauce
4 steaks, any good cut, for example, tenderloin, sirloin, or rib eye
Salt, pepper, and sugar to season
Whenever Josh is cooking a simple meat dish, he begins by generously coating each meat portion with a good dusting of salt, pepper, and sugar. This dusting gives a delicious crust. About twenty minutes before serving dinner, grill the steaks. If it is not grilling season where you are, or if you do not have a stove-top grill, you may certainly sear the steaks in a skillet set over medium-high heat. After cooking, set the steaks aside while you make the sauce.
Peppercorn Sauce
1 cup Madeira wine
2 tbsp. ground tricolored peppercorns
1 beef bouillon cube
2 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp. cornstarch
Pour the Madeira and the peppercorns into a skillet and set the pan over medium heat. If you’ve cooked your steaks in a skillet, you can use that pan for the sauce. Bring to a simmer and reduce the wine down to a syrup. Add your beef base or bouillon cube, water, and the bay leaf and bring this back up to a simmer. In a separate bowl, mix the cornstarch with a little bit of water, so that you have a thick liquid, and then add this to the sauce. Remove from heat and pour over steaks. Serve with the Stilton Potato Cake and Roasted Baby Vegetables.
Banana Three Way
Eggroll Cups
1 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. Chinese five-spice powder
Canola oil
4 eggroll skins
Mix the sugar and the five-spice powder together. In a deep skillet or pan, heat around four inches of canola oil over medium-high heat. Measure the temperature of the oil with a cooking thermometer. When the oil reaches 350°, lay an eggroll skin in the oil and press down with the bottom of a ladle, forming a cup shape. Hold in the oil for 2 to 3 minutes until nicely browned. Gently remove and dust with the sugar and five-spice powder mixture. Set aside. Repeat with the other three egg roll skins.
Chocolate Rum Sauce
¼ cup dark rum
½ cup heavy cream
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tbsp. butter
1 cup bittersweet chocolate
Add the rum to a saucepan and reduce to about half, over medium-high heat. Add the rest of the ingredients, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until well combined. Set aside.
Banana Chantilly
1 pint heavy cream
1 tsp. banana extract
2 tbsp. powdered sugar
Put all ingredients in a large bowl and, using a hand blender, mix at high speed until you have a fluffy, whipped cream. Set aside while you cook the bananas.
Sautéed Bananas
1 tbsp. butter
2 bananas, sliced
1 tbsp. sugar
Heat the butter in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the banana slices and toss in approximately 1 tablespoon of sugar or enough to coat the bananas well. Sauté for 2 to 3 minutes and remove from heat.
Plating the Banana Three Way: Banana or vanilla ice cream. For each serving, put 1 tablespoon of the Banana Chantilly in the center of a plate and place an eggroll cup on top. Fill with ice cream and pour one-fourth of the sautéed bananas on top and then a good dollop of the chantilly. Drizzle with the rum sauce, pouring a bit around the plate as well.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Endless thanks to Alexa Lewis and David Grumblatt for their tremendous help with proofreading and to Bill Park for his wonderful recipes. We are also grateful to our wonderful editor, Natalee Rosenstein, and to Michelle Vega.
Turn Up the Heat
For Alexa,
a loyal friend,
who survived college dining with Jessica
ONE
Early May in Boston. There’s nothing else like it. After almost six straight weeks of apocalyptic rain, the sky had suddenly turned an all-but-forgotten blue, the temperature had risen to the miraculously high sixties, and, best of all, the outdoor dining area at my boyfriend’s restaurant was finally open. Josh Driscoll, love of my life, was the executive chef at the five-month-old Newbury Street restaurant, Simmer, and tonight, for the first time ever, Simmer’s fortunate patrons would be able to savor the fruits of Josh’s culinary genius while dining on the sidewalk patio. When Josh had called me earlier today, he’d practically been singing into the phone. “Chloe Carter, my lovely lady, you better get your ass down here to the patio tonight! It’s going to be nice!” Josh’s spring fever was highly contagious: I was as excited as he was.
As Josh’s girlfriend, I obviously had a major in at Simmer. Even so, my friends and I had had to wait forty-five minutes for a
n outdoor table that could accommodate all five of us, the five of us being me; my best friend, Adrianna; her fiancé, Owen; my social work school buddy and teaching assistant, Doug; and his new boyfriend, Terry.
Newbury Street restaurants were jammed tonight. The good weather seemed to have awakened everyone from hibernation, and all the outdoor eateries in this high-end area were packed with diners. Simmer was no exception. As we waited inside for a patio table, I looked around and, as I’d done before, felt amazed at how beautifully the place had turned out. I’d been around while Gavin Seymour, the owner, had been renovating the location, and I’d seen Simmer at its worst, with electrical wires dangling from the ceiling, holes in the walls, and floors made of crumbling concrete. Now, beautiful dark brown tiles covered the floor, modern light fixtures hung from the high ceilings, and wood moldings framed the textured walls. Gavin had wanted to create what he’d called a “worldly” feel to the restaurant; he’d been eager to have the decor and the ambiance announce that Simmer’s menu wasn’t limited to one style of cooking but was inspired by cuisines from around the globe. The room was filled with square tables and high-backed chairs. Because Josh had helped Gavin to pick out the china, the glassware, and the silver, I knew that all of it had been as expensive as it looked. Votive candles placed at each table gave the room a mellow glow and flattered everyone’s complexion. I loathe eating at restaurants where the lighting casts a yellow tone or a weird shadow on my face; no matter how good the food is, it’s hard to enjoy myself if I’m worried about resembling a ghoul.
And God forbid one not look sensational on Newbury Street, right? The problem with coming here to see Josh all the time was that I felt obliged to dress up. I mean, everyone in this sophisticated section of Boston was either independently loaded or living off someone else’s money and, in either case, was a regular customer at Barney’s. There was hardly an uncoiffed head of hair, a manicured hand not weighed down with Cartier jewelry, or a wallet not busting with platinum credit cards. I was torn between feeling totally nauseated by the disgusting display of wealth and pathetically eager to look as if I belonged. My deceased uncle Alan’s monthly stipend kept me easily afloat, but I didn’t have the money to go flinging bills around at Agnes B. and BCBG. I’d long ago run out of appropriate outfits to wear to Simmer and did my best to make my T.J. Maxx pants look like Chanel. Granted, there was a Gap on Newbury Street, but there were hardly streams of diners here in oversized hooded sweatshirts. It always took me at least an hour to get out of my apartment when I was going to Simmer. It never occurred to me to leave without pressing my wavy red hair between the burning blades of my flatiron; people on Newbury Street did not have frizz! And then I had to spend twenty minutes pretending that my L’Oreal makeup actually was from Paris, all the while slathering my blue eyes with brown liner and trying to color my pale cheeks a fresh-from-Barbados bronze. By the time I’d finished, I always felt passable on Newbury Street, but I remained basically disconnected from the obscene wealth that hit you at every snobby shop and from the stick-thin bodies that you passed on every corner. Not that there was anything horribly wrong with my body. But the average twenty-five-year-old around here weighed a hundred and ten pounds, and I was fifteen over that.
We’d just sat down at one of the ten tables that had been squeezed into a gated area on the sidewalk in front of Simmer when Josh appeared at our table. “Chloe, I just heard you guys were here. I’m sorry you had to wait so long.” Josh leaned down and kissed me before brushing his arm across his sweaty forehead. He was dressed in his once-white chef’s coat, now covered in permanent food stains from previous months plus fresh stains from today. His dirty-blond hair was damp at the hairline, and his eyes were heavy with exhaustion, but even the dark circles and puffy bags couldn’t take away the sparkle of excitement. Business had been steady, and if tonight was any indication of how the spring and summer were going to go, Simmer was about to really take off.
Josh tossed a filthy dish towel over his shoulder and reached out to shake hands with Owen, Doug, and Terry, and then circled around the table to give Adrianna a kiss on the cheek. “How’s it going, Mama?” he asked affectionately. Adrianna was almost five months pregnant but already looked about to go into labor before tonight’s dessert.
She rolled her eyes. “Going great if you don’t mind constant heartburn, fatigue, swollen hands, and having your ribs kicked from three to five in the morning.”
“Owen kneeing you in his sleep again?” Josh grinned, and then rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you’re having a hard time.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. I’m just grouchy. And starving.” She looked up at him hopefully.
“That I can help with.” Josh nodded assuredly. “I gotta run. I think Leandra is your waitress. Order whatever you want, and I’ll comp it for you.” One of the perks of being the executive chef at Simmer was that the owner, Gavin, let Josh sign off on orders so we didn’t have to pay for anything except a tip. “I’ll try to come out again later if I can.” Josh made his way between tables to the front entrance. One couple seated near the door stopped him. Josh smiled as he accepted what I knew were compliments about his food.
Leandra appeared moments later. I’d met her a number of times before, because Josh’s overwhelming work schedule meant that I was spending lots of time hanging around Simmer trying to catch glimpses of my boyfriend. In fact, I was beginning to look and feel like a barfly. Leandra was petite with very short white-blonde hair that somehow upped her femininity. (If I chopped off all my hair I’d look brutish!) She needed no makeup on her annoyingly symmetrical face, and Simmer’s unisex staff T-shirt and pants left no doubt that Leandra was voluptuously female. I saw Adrianna, her usual supermodel body now rounded, scowl and toss her long blonde hair back over her shoulder. I involuntarily ran my hand down my own hair, checking for any dreaded frizz.
Leandra handed out menus. “Sorry. Hope you haven’t been here too long. I can’t believe how busy we are tonight, and they didn’t schedule enough servers. Can I get you some drinks to start?”
“I’ll take a Kirin,” Doug said. “You want one, too?” he asked Terry.
Terry nodded and put his hand on Doug’s knee. I still had a hard time grasping that Doug and Terry were a couple. Their homosexual relationship didn’t bother me in the least; what alarmed me was Terry’s style. He looked like a woman-obsessed rock star or maybe the host of a VH1 show on hair bands of the eighties. Every time he opened his mouth, part of me expected him to burst out singing, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy,” “Unskinny Bop,” or “Eighteen and Life.” With thick, wavy, highlighted brown hair and rocker clothes, Terry was a total contrast to my social work school mentor, Doug. Doug was anything but conservative—on occasion, he wore neon—but it took most people, my parents excluded, about four seconds to figure out that he was gay.
Social work school was one thing, but I wasn’t sure how Terry’s image went over with his presumably more uptight professors and fellow students at MIT, where he was getting a PhD in physics. Studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology clearly put Terry in the category of über-intellectual. More importantly, he seemed genuinely to adore Doug.
Avoiding alcohol out of sympathy for Adrianna, Owen ordered lemonades for the two of them. I, on the other hand, felt the need to celebrate the arrival of spring with a crisp glass of Pinot Grigio.
Leandra reappeared a few minutes later with our drinks. As she set our glasses down, I wondered how she was going to get through the brutally hot and humid Boston summer in Simmer’s required attire. Her heavy cotton short-sleeved black shirt looked like it didn’t allow for much airflow, and the long black dress pants were stylishly tight with a slightly flared boot cut at the bottom. As if to assure a minimum of heat loss, all the servers and bartenders wore long black aprons with Simmer written across the top in white lettering.
“Okay, we need to toast,” I said, raising my glass. “To the appearance of the sun, the end of school, and dinner with g
ood friends,” I proposed cheerily.
“Not so fast.” Doug stopped me before I could take a sip of wine. “You still have finals to get through.”
I sighed. “I haven’t forgotten.” Actually, I had forgotten about exams, at least momentarily, until Doug mentioned them. He took great pleasure in humorously reminding me that as a doctoral student, he was superior to me. Finals were going to be a nightmare. I had two long papers to finish writing and three two-hour in-class exams. It was at times like this that I regretted enrolling in social work school. Although I was finding more and more things to like about the experience, I still hid my ambivalence about school from my peers. Most of the other students were avidly devoted to their studies and their field placements (social work speak for internships), and I had enrolled only because of a clause in my uncle Alan’s will that required me to accept an all-expenses-paid trip to the land of graduate school. In my late uncle’s opinion, I needed a master’s degree in something. Anything. Only then would I receive my inheritance. I’d been pretty resentful of this manipulative and controlling plan that came from the other side. When I’d originally chosen social work school, the choice had felt as if I’d drawn it out of a hat, but as the end of my first year approached, I was beginning to think that my choice hadn’t been so random after all. The fit between me and the profession was better than I’d expected, and I was finding that social work skills actually applied to daily life. For instance, instead of just seeing Terry as a complete oddball, I was interested in the personality characteristics that pushed him to deviate from the norm. How did he manage to remain independent and unique? Why didn’t he cave in to societal standards?
“Well, we’re going to toast anyway, finals approaching or not.” I raised my glass and clinked drinks with everyone.
I smiled across the table at Adrianna, who, despite feeling ghastly during her pregnancy, was as beautiful as ever. Maybe because she was feeling so terrible, she was making an extra effort to look as stunning as possible. Her hair and makeup were done to perfection, and she was wearing an adorable navy blue wraparound maternity top that hugged her round belly and her full chest. When my sister, Heather, had been pregnant with each of her children, she’d always worn voluminous tops that covered her body and hid her weight gain. Ade was doing the opposite: embracing her body’s changes and accentuating her growing curves. But as much as she was displaying the pregnancy with her usual confidence, she was pretty tight-lipped about the entire concept of motherhood and had yet to express any feelings about being on the verge of becoming a parent. Children had never topped her favorites list; I’m not sure that she’d ever intended to become a parent, and I suspected she was more afraid than she was letting on. At least her fiancé, Owen, was enthusiastic, in fact, sometimes irritatingly so. But unlike Adrianna, he was practical. He had already started shopping for clothes, diapers, and baby equipment. Remarkably, Owen still had the sense to give Ade the emotional space she needed. As to physical space, I had no clue about how they expected to fit all that baby gear into their new apartment.
The Gourmet Girl Mysteries, Volume 1 Page 44
