The Grilling Project: Grilled Shrimp Scampi with Polenta

Learning to master a new grill is Sheila McGrory-Klyza’s summer project. Grilled Shrimp Scampi with Polenta is an early success and a new favorite. This new way of making Scampi is sure to become a summer favorite.
By Sheila McGrory-Klyza

I just graduated—from a small, charcoal kettle grill, that is, to a 6-footer, gas/charcoal combo grill that I’m affectionately calling The Big Boy. It’s an impressive piece of equipment, with cast iron grates and a warming center in both sections, and a side burner that I haven’t even tried out yet.

Now that Chris and I have entered the world of gas grills, we don’t have to wait for a block of time on the weekend when the weather cooperates to cook out. We can fire up The Big Boy spontaneously on a cloudy weeknight if we want to. I have the utmost respect and admiration for my purist friends who only grill over wood, but if we’d like to attain that smoky wood flavor, we can always throw in some wood chips.

As an INFJ (Myers-Briggs) and proud of it, I usually have some kind of project going. So for my summer project this year, I’m becoming a grill master. Up until this point, Chris has mainly manned the grill while I prepped everything and organized the rest of the meal in the kitchen. But now that we have The Big Boy, I plan to learn the finer points of cooking over fire, experimenting beyond our usual fare. It’ll be a team effort, but I’m hoping we’ll whip up as many dinners as we can outside, extending Vermont’s relatively short grilling season for as long as possible. All manner of vegetables taste better on the grill, as does fish, especially salmon, and charred bread that’s been lightly brushed with olive oil is irresistible.

But it’s the meat that really appeals to our primitive selves. Whether it’s poultry, or beef, pork tenderloin, or sausage.

When the fire hits that animal protein and the scent wafts over the patio, we evolve backwards and start salivating.

One of the beauties of the grill is that you can easily create a meal that appeals to everyone’s desires—vegetarians, pescatarians, carnivores, and the GF crowd can all have their fill. This makes life simpler both within our own family and also when friends come to visit. Aside from around the holidays, we tend to do most of our entertaining, both with local friends and out-of-towners, during the summer. The Big Boy will get lots of action over the next few months.

We fired him up last weekend when our friend Steve came to visit. Steve and I met years ago when we were both first-year teachers at Andover. We bonded in the early weeks over something irreverent, although I can’t recall exactly what, and have been friends ever since (I actually was given the honor of officiating at his wedding—a once in a lifetime, at least so far, experience for me). Chris and I were not yet married when I was teaching at Andover, but he came down from Vermont regularly on the weekends to visit and he and Steve soon became fast friends. Over the past several years they’ve been hiking the length of the nearly 300 mile Long Trail together, one piece at a time. As a pre-hike dinner, grilled Shrimp Scampi with polenta provided sustenance before they took on a 15-mile stretch that included climbing three mountains the following day, their own version of the Tough Mudder.

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I had never made Scampi with grilled shrimp before, nor with grilled polenta, and the combination makes the regular stove-top version seem dull in comparison. Instead of marinating the shrimp in the sauce before grilling them like most recipes call for, I just lightly dressed them with olive oil and lemon juice.

I made the sauce separately on the stove (I could have used the grill’s side burner, now that I think about it, or prepared it over the fire), and then poured the sauce over the shrimp after they were cooked. This way, you don’t lose tasty pieces of garlic and herb. I grilled the polenta until it was lightly charred, so the flavors of the fire permeated the whole dish.

This new way of making Scampi is sure to become a summer favorite. Another longtime favorite is clams steamed over the fire in white wine and herbs and then combined with chorizo to make a Portuguese feast.

The clams and sausage are especially delicious when served with a tomato, basil, and garlic salad over grilled bread.

It’s only mid-June so we have a whole summer with The Big Boy ahead of us. Experimenting with some new cooking methods on the grill is a large component of this summer project. I’m thinking pizza, tortillas, slow-cooked leg of lamb….Oh, what delights await. Plus, I have to admit, there’s nothing more attractive than a Tough Mudder in a floral oven mitt.