I’m still on the kabob kick for Date Nights. Kind of reminds me of our steak kick last fall. The great thing about kabobs is that the variety of foods you can skewer and the marinades you can make give you pretty much endless opportunities! And what guy gets tired of throwing stuff on the grill (not to mention the easy cleanup afterwards)?
I’ve gone back to the July 2013 issue of Bon Appétit for the past few weeks since there are a ton of recipes in this issue that pass my date night test – meaning they have to be delicious and not too complex. This time, I combined the sambal skewer recipe on the cover (what is sambal anyway?) with a couple sides from Jack Johnson’s beach party. This meal was one of the best and we’ll be making it again for guests sometime soon. It would be a shame to keep all this deliciousness to ourselves!
The menu:
- Sambal Shrimp Skewers (sub shrimp for the chicken)
- Roasted Carrots with Carrot Top Pesto
- Avocado and Tangerine Salad with Jalapeño Vinaigrette
- Store bought Exotic Fruit Medley sorbet from Publix
Roasted Carrots with Carrot Top Pesto
Do this first since the roasting takes a while and you can get the carrots going in the oven while you prepare the rest of the dinner. Also, making the pesto (and the vinaigrette for the salad) first give the flavors some time to mix.
- 3 pounds small carrots with tops (any color) – For serving two, I just bought one batch of carrots from Publix. It was about 7 not small carrots, but worked out perfect for us.
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
- 1 garlic clove
- 3 tablespoons pine nuts
- 1/2 cup (packed) fresh basil leaves
- 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Even though I wasn’t making as many carrots as in the recipe, I went ahead with the full batch of pesto because (a) it’s easier to make the larger quantity in the food processor and (b) the pesto is freakin’ awesome and you’ll want to snack on it later with crackers or pretzels or use it on pasta or hey, even make a flatbread pizza with it.
Preheat oven to 400°. Trim carrot tops, leaving some stem attached. Measure out 2 cups carrot tops and set aside. If you’re cooking for 2 and don’t have 2 cups of carrot tops, don’t sweat it. Use what you’ve got.
Toss carrots and vegetable oil on a rimmed baking sheet; season with salt and pepper. Roast, tossing occasionally, until carrots are golden brown and tender, 25–35 minutes. Let cool.
Pulse garlic and nuts in a food processor until a coarse paste forms. Add basil, Parmesan, and reserved carrot tops; process until a coarse paste forms. Add olive oil and pulse until combined; season with salt and pepper. Serve carrots with pesto.
Avocado and Tangerine (in my case Tangelo) Salad with Jalapeño Vinaigrette
I listed the salad 2nd here because I think it’s a good idea when making a date night dinner to get the vinaigrette knocked out early so you’re not distracted too much when trying to pull it all together. Especially since you have to simmer the tangerine juice and thicken it a little. When it’s time to grill, I want all the heavy lifting to be done, so I can drink my wine, pay attention to the grill and be able to carry on a conversation!
Also, this salad is delish (I wouldn’t be writing about it otherwise!). I used tangelos since that’s all there was at the grocery store. I think it would be good with oranges as well. Slicing the fruit in rounds makes a great presentation and that’s half the fun right there.
- 1/2 cup fresh tangerine juice
- 1 jalapeño
- 1 small shallot, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 avocados, sliced
- 4 tangerines or clementines, peeled, sliced into rounds
- 6 cups watercress, thick stems trimmed
- 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
- 2 ounces feta, crumbled (about 1/3 cup)
Simmer tangerine juice in a small saucepan until syrupy and reduced to about 2 Tbsp., 5–8 minutes. Let cool.
Heat a small heavy skillet over medium- high heat. Cook jalapeño, turning occasionally, until blistered and charred all over, about 8 minutes. (Alternatively, roast jalapeño directly over gas flame, turning occasionally.) Let cool; remove stem, skin, and seeds, then finely chop.
Whisk shallot, vinegar, reduced tangerine juice, and half of jalapeño in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper. Whisk in vegetable oil, then olive oil. Add remaining jalapeño, if desired. Set vinaigrette aside.
Toss avocados, tangerines, watercress, mint, and vinaigrette in a large bowl; top with feta.
- 1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
- 1/3 cup hot chili paste (such as sambal oelek)
- 1/4 cup fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)
- 1/4 cup Sriracha
- 2 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger
- 1 lb shrimp, peeled (tails on optional), assuming dinner for 2.
The sambal makes quite a bit, so if you’re cooking for 2, you can half the first 6 ingredients. Mix up the first 6 in a bowl. While you’re prepping ingredients and preparing the sambal marinade, soak your skewers. I’m becoming a convert to the flat skewers you can find in the grocery store. I used to use the cheapest bamboo ones, but the flat ones help a lot when rotating the kabobs on the grill.
Skewer the shrimp and use a basting brush to coat the shrimp with the sauce. If you halve the sauce, you can dump the shrimp in the bowl first before skewering, but I was going to save the remaining sauce for use later so I didn’t want to put the raw shrimp in there.
Transfer marinade to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until reduced by half (about 1 cup), 7–10 minutes.
Grill shrimp, turning and basting often with reduced marinade, until cooked through. Since the shrimp takes much less time to grill than the chicken in the original recipe, I use a gas grill and turn the heat to low. That gives the baste a little more time to thicken on the shrimp.
I also threw a few pineapple wedges on the grill and gave them a little char lines. You should do it too. The grilled pineapple’s sweetness is an amazing accompaniment to the spice of the sambal skewers!