Skinny Beach Fare

Here's a super quick weeknight dinner that's easy and - surpise! - actually kinda healthy. Well, maybe not healthy, per se, what with the mayo-based dunking sauce, but I figure baking and not frying the shrimp allows for some wiggle room. Add a big, summery salad and you've got a beach-worthy feast - sans the guilt.

Unfried Shrimp

1 lb medium shrimp, cleaned and deveined

1 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup flour

Salt and pepper

Cayenne pepper

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 450. In a shallow bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, and salt, pepper and cayenne to taste. In another shallow bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Toss the shrimp in the cornmeal first, shaking off the excess, then dip in the eggs and back in the cornmeal, again shaking them off. Place the shrimp on a lined and oiled baking sheet and bake directly under the broiler for 5 minutes. Turn each shrimp over, cook another minute, then pile on a platter, sprinkle with salt and serve hot with the remoulade.

Spicy Remoulade

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 tbsp ketchup

Several dashes of hot sauce

Several dashes of Worcestershire sauce

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Whisk all ingredients together.

Quick Dish: Sweet and Sour Sauce

Never before have such seemingly incongruous ingredients come together so quickly to make such a delicious quick dish. It's no wonder the recipe for this ridiculously easy, perfectly balanced sweet and sour sauce comes from my dad's mother, who, other than her fabulous brisket, always believed there were more important things to do in life than waste one's time in the kitchen.

My mom, though tending to agree with her mother-in-law's view of kitchen duty after a long day at work, is still one heck of a cook. Way back when, she tried adding her family's Italian meatballs (recipe here) to my Jewish grandma's sauce, and voila! - the perfect blending of my heritages was born.

Of course, you can add this sauce to just about anything that needs a sweet and source kick - spooned over baked chicken for example, or as a dipping sauce for egg rolls or satay - but I'll always be partial to the classic pairing my mom so greatly improved upon.


Sweet and Sour Sauce
2 cans whole cranberry sauce
1 can crushed pineapple in juice
1 cup ketchup
½ cup water

Heat all ingredients together on stove. If making sweet and sour meatballs, add meatballs to sauce and simmer on medium low until the meatballs are cooked through, about 20-25 minutes.

Food Mag Recipe of the Week: Cilantro and Yogurt Sauce

This week's food mag recipe comes from the October 2008 issue of Food and Wine, which featured an entire spread of recipes from DC's own Vikram Sunderam (at left), head chef at Rasika. F&W created simplified versions of several of Sunderam's most popular dishes, including mango shrimp, lamb rogan josh, and this fabulous cilantro and yogurt sauce.

Now I just have to decide what to do with it...spooned over baked salmon? Tossed with steamed potatoes? Or just go all out and make Sunderam's chicken tikka, as well? Such a tasty dilemma...

(Photo: Washington Post)

Cilantro and Yogurt Sauce

2 cups cilantro leaves
1 cup mint leaves
1 jalapeno, seeded and coarsely chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
Kosher salt

In a blender, combine the cilantro, mint, jalapeno, garlic, cumin and lemon juice and puree to a paste. Add the yogurt and puree until smooth. Season with salt.

Sauce can be refrigerated up to 2 days.