Week of September 19th

This is gearing up to be a wacky week in terms of menus as we have quite a few activities planned that include dining out. As such, I will be out of the kitchen for much of the week.  So, what’s on the menu?

First, I will be slurping oysters and cracking into a nice fat crab or two at the Baltimore Seafood Festival. I recommend you do the same.

Also on the dining scene is an early, pre-theater dinner at a new (to us anyway) local restaurant — definitely more to come on that. We then have tickets to see the theater production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. ( No lace Mrs. Bennet, I beg of you, no lace!)

And finally, I am attending my monthly Girls on Grapes night at Bin 604 with my good friend and partner in wine (among other things), Christina. We are actually given wine homework, which, get this, includes drinking wine. Oh how I suffer.

So after all of the above, below are my actual cooking plans for the week. I am only making two meals, but will be cooking enough for leftovers to get us through.

• Vietnamese Caramelized Lemongrass shrimp:  I have made this dish several times and have yet to refrain from picking up my bowl and licking every last drop of this luscious, holy grail of Vietnamese sauces. The dish is easy to turn out once you have the caramel sauce on hand, so I suggest making a vat of it on a spare weekend and fill the pantry. While you’re at it, go ahead and make a batch of your own roasted chile paste rather than use the jarred stuff. Trust me. If you want a dish that blows your mind, take that extra step. Bonus —  both the caramel sauce and the chile paste keep for several months, so double those recipes. That’s exactly what I did.
• Stir-fried broccoli with beech mushrooms and roasted chile paste: Use the same roasted chile paste I just urged you to make at home — two for one! No excuses now.

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• Braised Indian chicken in white sauce with garam masala:  serve this with a pile of Indian pickles (store-bought or homemade) and plenty of rice to soak up the sauce.
• Fried eggplant with chickpeas and mint chutney
• Grape Raita

YUM! These were fresh and crunchy (would never guess they were baked, not fried) fish tacos. What a great mid-week meal. Easy, fast and fresh. And fun to eat, no less.

Pan-Roasted Fish Tacos

I followed the recipe for the most part except I used whole wheat panko and omitted the mayo on the corn — used olive oil instead. I also added more heat to the panko/pepita coating, but that is just a personal preference. And finally, I couldn’t resist roasting a batch of hatch chiles.

Crack open a beer or, in my husband’s case, mix a fancy cocktail with tequila and mole bitters and dinner is served. Ole!

I have never made grape jelly or grape jam.

However, I had been thinking about grape jelly recently (who hasn’t, after-all?) when I came across a gorgeous pile of deep purple Concord grapes at our Baltimore farmer’s market.

So, what do you do with a pile of grapes and google on the task to ferret out recipes for grape jam? Well, when you come across a recipe with a review from a woman who writes, “this is the best jam I’ve ever tasted and I’m about to turn 93,” you make jam.

Seriously, how could I not? The woman is 93. That is a lot of jam.

So that is my project this week. I shall keep you posted on the jam plan. Now I must go order a food-mill via Amazon Prime. Love that next-day service.

Grape Raita

Note: recipe adapted from Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran and Stephanie Lyness.

Ingredients: 

3 cups plain yogurt

1 1/2 cups seedless grapes, halved

2 tsp ground, toasted cumin

2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or paprika

Tempering oil: 

2 Tbsp canola oil

2 tsp cumin seeds or black mustard seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

6 fresh or frozen curry leaves, torn

salt to taste

Preparation:

Whisk the yogurt in a bowl until smooth. Stir in grapes, followed by cumin, sugar and cayenne or paprika. For the tempering oil, heat the oil with the cumin or mustard seeds in a small frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook until the seeds darken and begin to crackle, 1 to 2 minutes. Add fennel seeds and curry leaves and cook, uncovered, stirring, 5 to 10 seconds. Pour hot tempering oil over the yogurt and chill. Just before serving, stir in the salt.