May 7, 2015 Lunch – Ariana Halal Market and Afghan Food Dinner- New Recipe Crab and Shrimp filled Avocado Salad with Bob’s Mignonette Crab Louis Cocktail Sauce

May 7, 2015  Lunch – Ariana Hall Market and Afghan Food   Dinner- New Recipe Crab and Shrimp filled Avocado Salad  with Bob’s Mignonette Crab Louis Cocktail Sauce

Today Peter Eller took me to lunch at a new restaurant.  Ariana’s Halal Market and Afghan Food store at 607 San Mateo NE.

Ariana Market holds an amazing variety of Middle Eastern foodstuffs and has a more than adequate kitchen.  I ordered Chenlei?, a large flat ground beef patty garnished with yogurt and sprinkled with fenugreek and served with lightly dressed salad, bread and a cup of yogurt sauce ($7.99).  I drank a mint flavored yogurt drink, which was a bit more yogurt than I usually like, but delicious.  Peter ordered Lamb Kebob which was served with a delicious long grain rice, green chutney, salad and bread (one stick is $9.50 and two sticks is $14.95)  We ordered two sticks so I could taste some of his which turned out to be an amazing amount of food.  We could only eat one stick (one skewer of lamb) between us, Peter packed up the rest of the lamb and rice and will have a few good meals ahead of him.

Chenlei?

The lamb was the most tender and flavorful I have tasted at any restaurant in Albuquerque.  As Peter observed,  it was marinated, although I could not tell in what. The large chunks of lamb were grilled on a kebob skewer to rare.  Well worth the price.

Today I had thawed out the rest of a container of crab meat and a package of shrimp for dinner. 

After a ride to Montano and back at 6:00 I started dinner.  I boiled the shrimp with a bit of crab boil and made the sauce for the avocado salad.

I like a milder mignonette sauce made with lemon instead of white wine vinegar, which seems to predominate mignonette sauces made by French restaurants.  Suzette likes a cocktail sauce made with horseradish, lemon juice, and ketchup.  So I usually make an amalgamation of both formulations.

Bob’s Mignonette Crab Louis Cocktail Sauce

The amounts are approximate and can be adjusted to your taste.

Juice of 1 lemon

1 shallot finely minced

Let shallot and lemon juice sit for a bit to pickle the shallot

Add 3 Tbsp. of ketchup

Add 1 ½ to 2 Tbsp. of horseradish

Add ½ cup of mayonnaise

Add a few dashes of Tabasco sauce

I then put the sauce into the fridge to set up and chill a bit.

When Suzette arrived around 7:00. I picked a basket of greens from our garden and Suzette washed and spun them

Suzette then cut two avocados in half and laid a bed of lettuce on each plate with the two halves of avocado and mixed 1/3 pound of crab meat and ½ lb. of shrimp in Bob’s sauce and ladled the crab and shrimp onto the avocados until it made a mound covering both cavities and then some and garnished the salads with croutons.

We drank the Cavit Pinot Grigio that Mike brought us on Tuesday evening.  We ate in the gazebo in the garden, enjoying watching the doves fly into the bird bath in our garden in the cool evening air.

I ate a bowl of chocolate ice cream later.

Bon Appétit