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A Vietnamese Shrimp and an Indian Lamb

One of our most favorite cuisines is Indian. I feel like even the worst Indian food I’ve had was still good. I love the spices, the smells, the saucy curries over herbed rice- yum! The bad part about being us and liking Indian food so much is that with the exception of a “curry-like” garbanzo recipe I make we always have to order it in. I always get nervous that I’m not going to do it right and my palate will be let down. We all know how depressing a disappointed palate is.

So, to fix our love-it-but-can’t-make-it problem I have to decided to cook at least one Indian dish a week until we start to get a little curried intuition going and we can come up with our own versions. We decided to try out a little feast for the Grammy Awards last night with a Rogan Josh recipe from Food and Wine and a potato samosa recipe I found on Saveur.com. I made a cilantro-lime rice for the curry and Alfonso whipped up a little herbed yogurt sauce for samosa dipping.

IT WAS AMAZING! And on a side note: someone take me to Broadway to see Hamilton, like yesterday.

We started with the apps: Potato and Pea Samosas with Herbed Yogurt Dipping Sauce. The filling can be made a day in advance and saved and in the fridge. It has to be cool before you use it anyway. And the dough can be stored in the fridge for up to 24hrs. We actually made the samosas in the morning and then stored them (completely formed) on a papered baking sheet and covered with plastic wrap in the fridge until we were ready to fry them right before the Grammy’s.

Samosas ready to be fried
Samosas ready to be fried

There are lots of different versions of samosas, but we chose to do veggie ones this time because we were having lamb in our main course. But, surely on our Indian food crash course we will make some meatier varieties too. The potato and peas went so well with the warm Indian spices, but the best part of the recipe was that you could almost completely make it ahead.

Potato and Pea Samosas with herbed yogurt sauce
Potato and Pea Samosas with herbed yogurt sauce

You can find the samosa recipe here and look below for the yogurt sauce instructions.

Herbed Yogurt Sauce for Samosas

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1 cup whole milk yogurt

zest of one lime

juice of one lime

3 T minced cilantro

2 T minced mint

1 large clove garlic, minced

3/4 t salt

3/4 t pepper

Combine all ingredients until equally dispersed. Chill until ready to use.


The next recipe was so good that I am going to make a vegetarian version with garbanzo beans later today to last longer into the week- it turns out the lamb version from last night did not make it past lunch today. I hope it is just as taste bud rocking.

This Rogan Josh recipe from Food and Wine calls for a lamb shoulder, but it doesn’t say anything about trimming the tough fat- make sure you do that. Alfonso did and I think it made for a lovely texture when the dish was all done.

I had to snap this prep pic of the onions cooking down in the rendered lamb fat and juices from previously searing.

cooking onions
cooking onions

I could just scoop up a spoonful of those onions. The caramelized onions cooked in the lamb juices really came out in the rogan josh. The house smelled of curry all day and we didn’t mind at all.

Rogan Josh, Cilantro Lime Rice, and Naan
Rogan Josh, Cilantro Lime Rice, and Naan

 

Get the curry recipe from Food and Wine in the above link, but here’s our Cilantro Lime Rice recipe we served it on.

Cilantro Lime Rice

3 cups cooked long grain white rice

1/3 cup minced cilantro

zest of 1 lime

juice of 2 limes

1.5 t salt

1.5 t pepper

Combine until all ingredients are incorporated. Top with curry and serve with naan.


Earlier last week when I was shopping for the lamb, I passed by some delicious shrimp on sale. The original idea was to roast them and then have cooked shrimp ready to go for salads, etc. for the rest of the week.

I started with a salad.

Roasted Shrimp Salad with Blue Cheese and Arugula
Roasted Shrimp Salad with Blue Cheese and Arugula

There were so many shrimp left over that I decided to make a batch of summer rolls. Summer rolls are great because they can be customized to your tastes. A fresh julienned veggie or two, some kind of starch (like rice or noodles), and a protein (shrimp fo’ days) make the perfect summer roll. Serve it with your favorite peanut sauce and you have a filling, refreshing, and healthy lunch or dinner.

Shrimp Summer Rolls
Shrimp Summer Rolls

Shrimp Summer Rolls

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rice paper

1/2 box cooked rice noodles

2 carrots, julienned

1/2 large cucumber, julienned

cooked shrimp

cilantro leaves

mint leaves

your favorite Vietnamese peanut sauce

*Most ingredients for this recipe don’t have amounts because they were made with leftovers. Make as many as you can to use up ingredients.

Wet the rice paper until soft. Lay out on a wet towel and place 2 cilantro leaves and 1 mint leaf in the middle. Top with 2 shrimp, 1/8 cup noodles, a few carrot pieces and a few cucumber pieces. Roll as you would a burrito, folding in the sides as you go. Serve with your favorite peanut sauce.


That was our jaunt to Asia for the week. Did you watch the Grammy’s? Did you serve food? Was it a party? Have a great week!

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