Barbeque season is upon us… and with that comes, surprisingly, barbeques. Burgers… steaks…. chops… Then again were recently to the AGO, to hear Shawn’s hero Madhur Jaffrey, talk about Indian cuisines and culture, as part of their Royal Arts of Jodhpur exhibit….. Maybe a nice Indian barbeque???
Oh what the heck… how about a little name dropping. Here is Shawn getting one of his first cookbooks signed, by Madhur herself, after saying “oh… you brought the big one!”
Actually that was quite a special moment… and she’s so tiny.
Now back to MondayNightDining. If we are going to do an Indian barbeque, we really want some tandoori something. Should we do chicken, or shrimp? Yes!! Of course we need the baingan achari (eggplant in the pickling method). I also have to admit I have been asking about those stuffed Zucchinis for a while.
With a menu in mind, time for a guest list. This seemed like a good time to reconnect with some old friends. For tonight’s MondayNightDining, we have our trio, Virginia and MondayNightDining neophyte Kevin. We gathered with a little bubbly, while the coals burned down, had a tour of the garden and a bit of a catch up.
Once we were ready, we moved to the lower garden and shared our tandoori chicken and shrimp skewers, with basmati rice, Baingan achari, and zucchini stuffed with bulgar and masoor dal. Madhur would be proud.
Wow that’s a lot of food. The big hit of the meal seemed to be the zucchini, but the aromas and fragrances from each item, with a bit of smokiness from the charcoal, made this a very flavourful plate. The wine was a Malivoire Ladybug, which is a light rose, which I think worked quite well. While we ate and digested, we had lively discussion about life, events, music and sport.
What they did not know was that they were going to have to work for their dessert, as I had dug out my bocce set. The yard is not a large one but there was room for a little tournament. We started with boys against girls, but kept swapping players in and out, constantly mixing the teams. In other words, just a fun game, to get us out of our chairs, before we gathered back at table to enjoy Rasmali, with pistachios and Indian biscotti.
This is a nice light dessert, with fragrances of rose water. A lovely way to end a memorable night of dining al fresco.
Just looking at your blog makes me hungry! I really love the vegetarian slant and all the tasty spices in these dishes. I would NEVER attempt them myself. So glad to have Monday Night Dinner as a trusted collaborator!
I’m getting hungry just reading this post! I really appreciated the vegetarian emphasis, and all the spices were so tasty. The bocce game was necessary to encourage digestion; )