— Sole Maria Walewska —

     Mᴀʀʀɪᴀɢᴇ ᴛᴏ Nᴀᴘᴏʟᴇᴏɴ Bᴏɴᴀᴘᴀʀᴛᴇ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅɴ’ᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀ ᴄᴀᴋᴇ ᴡᴀʟᴋ.
     When he wasn’t off conquering lands-afar, he was conquering Polish countesses.
     Well, at least one.
     Marie Walewska, a Polish countess, claimed she was persuaded to have an affair with Napoleon, who was openly desirous of such a development, by a handful of Polish aristocrats. The aristocrats hoped she could influence the French emperor into backing Poland’s struggle to regain independence from Prussia, the Hapsburg Empire, and Russia.
     Marie put her heart and soul, and—need we say—body, into the endeavor. Over the years, she followed Napoleon from Warsaw to Vienna and on to Paris.
     It was only when Napoleon announced he would divorce his first wife, Josephine, to marry Mary Louise, Duchess of Parma—in hopes of siring an heir—that the extracurricular activity was squashed.
     It is hard to picture Marie Walewska slaving over a hot stove, but somewhere in the muddled course of culinary history, a dish called Sole Marie Walewska emerged.
     This is a remarkably simple version of a normally complex recipe in which we substitute mushrooms for truffles, ignore calls for lobster, choosing shrimp instead, and simplify the sauce.

    You’ll need:
8 large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined.
4 filets of Dover sole or another white fish
1 cup of mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
2 tbs lemon juice
1 6-oz glass of dry white wine
1 10-oz canned white sauce (or make you own)
Pam or another oil spray
4 tbs chopped parsley
Do this:
     Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
     Shell and devein the shrimp.
     Take a sip of the white wine.
     Spray the bottom of a saucepan with a light coating of the oil and sauté the mushrooms and onion until the onion is translucent.
     Add the white sauce, lemon juice, shrimp, and half of the wine.
     Heat the sauce mixture without allowing it to boil until the shrimp are pink. Pull the pan off the heat. (If the sauce overly cools, warm it back up with 1-2 minutes in the microwave just before serving.)
     Take another sip of the white wine.
     Coat the inside of an ovenproof dish with the oil spray. Lay the fillets in the dish and bake for 5-7 minutes.
     Place the fish on individual serving plates and ladle the sauce mixture and two shrimp each over the top.    Garnish with the chopped parsley.
    Drink the rest of the white wine and pour yourself another glass.

Serves: 4          Calories:  350          Satisfaction: 85