Variety Hour: Hummus bi Tahini, Kebab, Sabzi Pilau, and Coffee!

Warning - this is going to be scatter-brained as I'm finally updating with all the things blog-worthy that I've cooked in, wow, over a month! Which has been unfortunately not been a ton =(. School is kind of time consuming, ya know?

First off, I'd like to give credit to Desert Candy's blog for the inspiration for this new attempt at hummus. Reading her blog, I finally realized you have to cook the beans until they are very soft (skins falling off) in order to get that delicious silky-smooth texture that "real" hummus has. The texture was what I always felt my hummus was missing. I guess that's what I get being an Afghan cooking Arab food ;)

Hummus bi Tahini
pureed chickpeas, tahini, garlic, and lemon juice, topped with unfiltered olive oil, sumac, whole chickpeas, and kalamata olives





Definitely leaps and bounds better than hummus I've made in the past! It still needs some tweaking - it could be even more silky...mmm

Unfortunately I made the following dish on a different day - they would have been delicious together!

Kofta Kabob-e-Gusht-e-Gow
Minced beef kabobs flavored with onion, garlic, cilantro, and savory spices, grilled over charcoal and served in flatbread with sliced lemon-juice-marinated red onions, lemon tahini sauce, and spicy yogurt sauce



The grill jockey himself. Aka my buddy Nate who stepped in to help grill =)


Sabzi Pilau
Basmati rice parboiled and baked in the juices of a chicken, spinach, blackeye pea and caramelized onion stew, served with a cherry tomato, cilantro, and red onion salad.



This was a yummy AND cheap meal for the week which kept very well. The method is very similar to all Afghan pilaus - caramelize onions, then add in and sautee meat (typically lamb). When meat is done, add spices (coriander, cardamom, cumin, and cloves or so), then add spinach and blackeye peas. Simmer for half an hour, then pour over parboiled rice and bake for 45 minutes!

This time I tried something a bit different, using black cardamom instead of green. They are actually very different in flavor, but it is commonly used in parts of Afghanistan so I figured I'd give it a shot! It has a really distinctive smoky flavor, and I'm still not sure I liked it in this dish, though I can imagine it growing on me.

In other news, I've become increasingly addicted to coffee.... It really doesn't help that my roommate is a master percolator barista. One of his recent creations, one with milk, one without.

We've also tried grinding up a bit of (green) cardamom and tossing it in with the grounds. Yum. Arab-Italian-Latin American fusion, here we go.

Cafe con Leche y Cafe "Negro"



Really we just liked the colors.

Two Onions....

...and the only thing watering was my mouth. Okay that just sounds awful, but you get the idea? I wasn't drooling into the food, I swear!

I was hungry for a good Afghan treat, but I didn't have a lot of time, so here is an adaptation of a classic rustic Afghan dish:

Do Piazeh (lit: "Two Onions")
Breast of chicken fried with caramelized onions, blackeye peas, turmeric, coriander, cloves, and cardamom, then tossed with fresh red onion soaked in lime juice, served over a bed of mushroom, cilantro, and cinnamon scented couscous and drizzled with lemon-yogurt sauce.







My father actually typically made this dish very similarly - sans the blackeye peas. And of course, no couscous! (Afghanistan does NOT make couscous, but you'll see me use it since it's so easy and tasty.) Traditionally this is served over bread, but we eat it with rice as well.

I was thus a bit confused when I found a recipe for it in my Afghan cookbook, which stated that the meat (lamb) was actually boiled with the red onion first and a bit of split peas, then lifted out of the water when tender and placed on bread with vinegar-soaked yellow onion. I didn't have the time or the lamb to try it this way, but it sounds lovely and very different than the typical Afghan rices and qormas. In any case, this is a kind of quick version that I think is very tasty.

The dish derives its name from the way the "two onions" in the recipe are used - one is cooked (either caramelized in my version or boiled with the meat in the traditional version) and the other is added raw at the end (with a bit of acid to cut the bite).

Needless to say, it was delicious, quick, and has a lot of interesting textures and the contrasting bright flavor from the red onion really lightens the heavy caramelized onion flavor.

Spicy Lamb in Almond Milk

Last night I was free to really cook for the first time in what felt like ages of finals and other stresses...so my buddy Nate and I whipped this together for a group of hungry friends:

Badami Elachi Gosht (Spicy Lamb in Almond Milk)
Leg of lamb braised in a rich and spicy almond cream sauce, steeped with cardamom and cinnamon, topped with slivered almonds, a sprinkle of Aleppo pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

(doesn't the Hindi name sound so much more "exotic" than it's translation?)






We served it with a traditional tomato-onion relish and...

Saffron and Golden Raisin Chalau
topped with ground pistachio



Yum! The curry was deliciously rich and an interesting change from my usual psuedo-healthy Afghan qorma. Afghans (as far as I have experienced) never use cream in their "curries", which they call "qormas". The typical base is tomato or sometimes yogurt. "Quoroot" (pronunced "Koo-root") is a favorite delicacy I have never gotten a chance to try: salted yogurt set to dry in the sun into small pebble size balls. These are then reconstituted in soups and qormas! Really it was never a delicacy, but merely a method of food preservation, but like the French "confit" and Italian-American "sun-dried tomatoes", the ancient necessary technique becomes an expensive modern delicacy. Though I also have no idea where I could buy "quoroot" in the US...

Anyway, back to the curry! It was from a recipe in my Cooking With Herbs and Spices cookbook. It was also interesting in the way the base of the sauce was blended together first, including the onions and almonds, and then reduced in the pan over a medium flame, which means the onions never were explicitly sauteed, a shocking shift for me. The result was a clean, nearly white sauce. The lamb made it a bit brown but the cream lightened it once again. The pictures have a yellow tint, but that has more to do with the lighting - the final product was just off-white.

The chalau was a simple concoction based on what I've cooked before, but I really like the use of golden raisins rather than regular since the color fit better with the white curry. I was restrained with the saffron, so it left only a mild speckle of yellow and a subtle flavor rather than an explosion of saffron. I wanted to complement the curry, not overpower it.

For dessert, we had delicious mango sorbet from Trader Joe's - if they have it at your local TJ's, pick it up, it's amazing! We blended frozen berries together with cream and drizzled it over for an added effect - Nate's very delicious idea!

How Afghans eat...and new camera!

Let me preface this with a bit of my own history. Since I was a little boy, I would watch my mother cook for literally an entire day, or half a day frantically, whenever we had guests. The end result would be a spread of delectable Afghan dishes that would blow any buffet out of the water. I also experienced the same whenever we would visit other families for dinner. I couldn't really speak the language yet, and usually didn't like my parent's friends' kids, so really the only way they got my lazy butt to go was the food, which I would endure four hours of boredom for without missing a beat.

Maybe this explains why I almost always make ridiculously elaborate meals for guests. That, and I love to cook and am a bit of a perfectionist.

After the whole shebang was over, as I told my friend Nate, I wanted to try to make it all seem even more "effortless" next time, to which he replied, "Maybe you should just make it effortless next time." Not bad advice. But I just can't help it!

I also just got a Nikon D40 DSLR, so expect a bit better food pictures, though until (if I can afford one) I get a good macro lens, my point and shoot actually takes better close-ups.

This was a dinner party for eight.

Boulanee Kechalu
Deep Fried Spicy Potato-Leek Samosas, served with a garlic-yogurt dip (not shown)




Burani Bonjon
Eggplant slices fried in hot oil, then braised in garlic, spices, and tomato. Served with garlic-yogurt sauce (not shown)



Qorma Sabzi
Spinach stewed with black eye peas, caramelized onion, garlic, and spices, topped with fresh cilantro.

Pilau-e-Zard
Cumin scented, turmeric colored basmati rice, with a hint of cinnamon.



For some reason I forgot to take a picture of the Kafta Kabobs and salate!

The dishes were a big hit! I attempted to lightly coat the kafta (ground beef) kabobs with besan (chickpea) flour before deep frying them, which I think added a nice crunchy exterior. However, I used grass-fed beef, which is much harder to get to come out tender, so it was a little tougher than expected. You really have to undercook it a bit - medium at most. I also (doh!) put the kabobs in the oven to keep warm and then put bread in to warm up at 300 degrees...so if they weren't overcooked before, they definitely got a bit overdone then!

More pictures, from a different dinner party the day before (cooking overload! but my roommate made the curry in this one)

Dessert first - which I made.

Walnut and Date Gateau
with dark brown sugar glaze




Dinner:


No time for more discussion, have to check on my Sugo di Carne!

Blurring cultural lines...with food!

Lately I've realized that if I ever was to open a restaurant in some kind of mid-life (or mid-college...) crisis, it would probably be - to follow the currently hotly successful trend - Northwest ingredients with middle eastern (particularly Afghan) flavors.

I dislike the idea of total "fusion cuisine" - some cultural flavors really just don't go together, but there are some things that, often remarkably, do! That's been a recent theme for my cooking - which has been slow lately.

This will be my last post before I head off to Bolivia with Engineers Without Borders. I'll be sure to take pictures of any interesting culinary delights!

Wild Salmon Steak
grilled with a yogurt marinade with Afghan spices, served with a garlic yogurt sauce, grilled zucchini, and sliced Bakery Nouveau baguette with olive oil, balsamico, Dubliner aged cheddar and basil.





This dish was interesting in that I was really trying to spice the king of Northwest ingredients - salmon - with a marinade from a landlocked country! It was very good, though unusual. I was actually inspired by my mother, who had, a couple weeks back, tossed in extra chicken marinade I had on a salmon and roasted it.

I attempted to do what I could to modify the traditional ingredients of a yogurt marinade to better fit the flavor profile of salmon.

Marinade (more of a paste really):

1/4 cup yogurt
3 tbps olive oil
Juice of 1/2 lemon, approximately 3-4 tbsps
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp ground coriander seed
pinch of cardamom
pinch of turmeric
pinch of cayenne pepper
plenty of black pepper
salt

I'm probably forgetting something, but it was really pretty normal. I shied away from too much earthiness - leaving out some turmeric and the cumin and fennel I sometimes put into kabobs. I liked the result, but it could definitely be tweaked greatly. I was working with about 2 lbs of salmon, with the bone.


Fresh Dal and spiced fried Dal pancakes
fresh Dal topped with toasted pine nuts - both served with garlic yogurt sauce and Afghan salate with basil






This dish really came about from my father who cooked the Dal (very thick lentil soup). I then came in and made a salate to accompany the dal. However, we didn't have cilantro, which I thought would complement the dal better than mint, which we had, so I opted to go out on a limb and use basil with the traditional combination of tomato, red onion, lemon, oil, and salt. Not too crazy in and of itself, but with Dal? Now that's a bit strange - basil is not cooked with in the Middle East, nor Afghanistan. It is not unkown however, and is actually eated for medicinal purposes and grows wild.

The combination was excellent! I was very pleasantly surprised to say the least.

Also a huge hit - pine nuts! I toasted them and sprinkled them on top. I loved the texture contrast, as well as the nutty, earthy, mildly sweet flavor they lend the dish. Pine nuts are another plant that actually grow in Afghanistan, but are rarely cooked, usually just enjoyed as a snack. My mother was thus delighted and ate all the leftover toasted pine nuts - a little taste of childhood.

I then went even crazier and decided to further spice the dal with some earthy cumin and spanish paprika and then make patties and fry it!

Well...easier said than done. They were very hard to keep together, and indeed, most of them were somewhat broken. Needs a binder...needs egg! Unfortunately my mother decided to tell me that afterwards.

It was however, fantastic! Tasted like a falafel, but made from lentils, which are the easiest bean in the world to cook. And again, was fantastic with the yogurt sauce and basil salate.

Afghan guests = Afghan Cusine!

For the past few days, my Uncle has been in town, which means a little more Afghan food than usual!

Here's a couple snapshots:

Faux Qaubili Pilau (Ka-bi-lee)
Long grain Basmati parboiled and steamed with light spices and turmeric for color. Served with sauteed carrots and steamed raisins.

(faux because true Qaubili is cooked in the meat and onion broth, with the meat on the bottom of the pan - this was just water)


Leg of Lamb Kafta Kabobs
Freshly ground and grilled over mesquite hardwood coals, seasoned with loomi, sumac, and various sweet and savory spices, served in a grilled pita with hummus, tomato, and vinegar-marinated red onion.


This was an experience - trimming the ludicrous amount of fat off the leg - winding up with hands that still smelled vaguely like lamb the next morning.

Fantastic though - I ground the lamb in a food processor and mixed it with (somewhat descending by quantity):

Egg white
Flour (for binding, just a tad)
Minced onion, garlic

Loomi (dried lemon)
Sumac
Coriander
Black Pepper
Spanish Paprika
Cardamom
Cloves
(salt)

Admittedly, this was really more Arab than Afghan, but it's not too far off - we use every spice on there, except for cloves (maybe even that too).

I was a little sad we had no cilantro or parsley - they are delicious in these.

Tip: Since you can, it's worth it to make a tester - just a little tiny patty you throw in a little frying pan to check the seasoning, unless you're following a recipe, or even then! Better than being dissapointed later because you completely forgot the salt - I'm speaking from experience, trust me. =)

Burani Bonjon

Burani Bonjon
Eggplant braised in a spicy tomato sauce smothered with a mint-garlic yogurt sauce and garnished with fresh cilantro.


There's some zucchini mixed in cooked the same way for those who didn't like eggplant

The whole platter, as served to 15 hungry friends a couple weeks back:


This is a classic Afghan dish - one of the most renown and well-loved. My rendition here was made on a bit of a large scale and a time crunch, so the presentation wasn't as elegant as it can be (many of the eggplant slices broke). Kabul does and excellent version of this dish.

By request, the (approximate, as always with me) recipe:

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant/2-3 zucchini (this is going to vary wildly on the size of your eggplants - I'm referring to the typical supermarket variety that is about 8" long and 4-5" in diameter - pear shaped)

1/2 can diced tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic, minced
Canola (vegetable) oil, as needed, approximately 6 tbsps
1 tbps Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 tbps chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Cayenne or Red Pepper (optional)
Salt
Pepper

For the yogurt sauce - Seer Moss - literally "garlic yogurt":

1 cup plain yogurt (fattier the better - greek is truly divine, though a bit hard on the arteries)
4 cloves Garlic, pressed or smashed and minced (to taste - I like it strong)
~2 tbsps Lemon/Lime Juice
2+ tbps minced fresh mint (this can be omitted, but is typical)
2 tbps Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt

Slice eggplants (or zucchini) thickly - 1/4"
If using eggplants, salt liberally on both sides. Let drain for 30 min - 1 hr. Rinse clean and pat dry.
Heat olive oil on low heat and add garlic. Saute until fragrant but not brown and reserve.
Fry both sides on med-high with the canola oil until golden brown, adding more oil as needed. Be sure to heat the oil first and spread it around so one slice doesn't soak it all up. This is not a low-fat dish! But do not deep fry.
Reduce heat to low and add tomatoes, cilantro, reserved garlic and olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Add water if needed to keep from frying - you want it to simmer with the liquid level at about the same height as the eggplant.
Simmer for 20 minutes, until the eggplant is very tender.

For the sauce:

Combine all ingredients and let chill for at least one hour. If you are short on time, add the mint to the lemon juice and let sit for at least twenty minutes, then combine with the rest of the ingredients.

Note: Omit the oil if using whole-milk or greek yogurt.

I promise - even if you don't like eggplants, you will probably like this dish. The end product should feel fresh and light, in spite of the oil content.