A is for Afghanistan

For 30 years, my family and I have been celebrating Thanksgiving at the home of my late-wife’s parents, in Alexandria, Virginia.  For all those years, my mother-in-law has been cooking delicious meals, starting with the day before Thanksgiving and often continuing through the weekend.  This year, the first that I have lived nearby on a temporary assignment, I volunteered to host Wednesday night dinner.  My guests included my son and daughter, niece, mother-in-law, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, my partner, and her son and daughter.  My mother-in-law is French and an expert cook, so I was a bit nervous about living up to her high standards.  I also faced the challenge of catering to a gluten-intolerant guest, which added another layer of complexity to the meal.  With these constraints in mind, I hoped I would be able to find some interesting and tasty recipes.

There are many countries starting with “A”, so the decision about which country to choose was difficult.  In the end, I chose Afghanistan, because I like both Middle Eastern and Indian food, and I thought Afghan food might be a combination of those flavors.  I wanted to make a main dish, starch, vegetable and an appetizer.  The choices for the first two were relatively easy – Wikipedia indicated that korma, a stew, and palaw, a rice dish, are very popular Afghan recipes.  Finding a vegetable and an appetizer was a bit more difficult, but I found www.afghanonline.com/recipes, which has a large number of interesting recipes.

The Appetizer:

I knew there was going to be a lot of food during the weekend, so wanted a fairly light finger food for the appetizer.  Samboosas are deep-fried (OK, so maybe not so light) meat pies that are somewhat like Indian samosas.  They made the list because the recipe was already Kosher-friendly, and the recipe called for wrapping the filling with spring roll skins, which was a perfect gluten free option.  The recipe calls for ground beef or lamb; I used ground beef, because my rice dish had lamb, and I wanted some diversity.  The filling was very easy to make and did not take much time.  Unfortunately, we discovered that spring roll skins do not fry well, and our first frying attempts were a mess!  We quickly ran out to the local market and got wonton wrappers, which worked much better (but sadly contain gluten).  To cater to the gluten-intolerant guest, we made a few non-fried samboosas using the spring roll skins.  This is where my inexperience with certain cuisines came into play.  As the recipe called for spring roll skins, I wonder how the author was able to get them to fry correctly when we were not.  Filling and frying each samboosa was not a lot of work, individually, but I made three dozen, and it took quite a while, even with a helper doing the frying while I wrapped.

The fried samboosas had a pleasant, mild flavor and were nice and crispy.  Leftovers were made passable by zapping in the microwave, but this dish is much better fresh out of the oil.  My guests gave them a 4.8 out of 7 – good, but not great.  One guest commented that it needed more filling.  I thought a bit more assertive flavor in the filling would have gone better with the fried wrapper.

The Main Dish:

When I read the recipe for Chicken Korma, I just salivated.  This was what I had hoped to find in Afghan cuisine – a lush, colorful dish with some spice and flavors that I really enjoy (garlic, ginger, turmeric, cilantro), plus a lot of sauce for the rice.  One Kosher problem - chicken korma is typically made with yogurt.  Fortunately, there are several alternatives, such as soy milk, almond milk, and, my choice, coconut milk yogurt (since my grocery store did not have any plain soy or almond milk yogurts in stock).  Since I had to triple the recipe, I ending up buying all the coconut milk yogurts in the store.  I am very glad that I decided not to eliminate the yogurt – it gave the dish a nice, creamy texture and moderated the spiciness.  I also helped tame the spiciness by eliminating the hot chili peppers; however, I kept the green chili peppers (but seeded them) to keep the dish flavorful – many of the guests, and especially my mother-in-law, are not fans of very spicy food.  Since I could not find sour plums, I used prunes instead.  No one noticed, or complained. 

The korma was the clear hit of the meal – the guests gave it 6.2 out of 7.  It is going into my “keepers” file of recipes!  One thing I would do differently next time is to use more dal and cook it for longer, in order for the dal to dissolve into the sauce and thicken it more.

The Starch:

As I mentioned, Kabuli Palaw is an Afghan national dish.  It is an aromatic rice dish with lamb, vegetables, and lentils.  Like the chicken korma, it is quite colorful; like the samboosas, the recipe was already mostly kosher-friendly.  One issue is that the recipe calls for mutton broth, and I cannot imagine where one would find kosher mutton broth, and I did not have the interest in making it on my own.  Instead, I used kosher chicken broth.  To keep the dish pareve, I sautéed the carrots in margarine, rather than butter as the recipe calls for.  The recipe suggested adding chopped pistachios, which I thought would give the dish a nice color contrast and crunch.  I was concerned about the amount of meat in the meal (appetizers, chicken, rice), so I halved the amount of lamb called for (and cut the lamb into small, half-inch squares).  This turned out not to be a good move – several of the guests commented that the rice needed more lamb.  The lamb, though, was extremely tasty, having been fried in the spice mixture (cumin seed, cardamom, and cinnamon), although I probably should have removed the cardamom seeds after frying, since biting into them is not a pleasant experience.  We also all felt that the palaw needed a sauce, which I, and a few other guests, solved by adding some of the sauce from the korma.  Overall, the palaw received a 4.8 out of 7, same as the samboosas – good, but not great.  Tough crowd!  Not a keeper.

The Vegetable:

The vegetable dish was Chakha Eggplant.  The dish consists of layered fried eggplant, onions, green pepper and tomatoes.  I always find it a real pain to fry eggplant, especially when making enough to feed 12 people.  Overall, I found the dish more work, and more time spent, than it was worth.  It was a fine tasting dish, but not really a standout. Perhaps that is because I did not use any yogurt (which the recipe called for).  I could not use regular yogurt, as it would make the dish dairy in a meat meal, and I used all the coconut milk yogurts that our local grocery store had in stock for the korma.  Most of the guests agreed that it was fine, but not special, except for one guest who gave it a 7.

Since I knew some of the guests were  
not fans of eggplant, I decided to also make a salad.  In my house, we often will make simple Israeli salad, consisting of finely chopped tomato and cucumber, with a simple lemon juice and olive oil dressing.  It seemed like a good complement, since it was very colorful, quite refreshing, and Israel is not that far from Afghanistan.  Thanks to my sous-chef, Davida Sue, for this part of the meal. 

Dessert consisted of fruit and a pareve chocolate birthday cake for my daughter, Rachel.  I’ve been making that same cake for each of my children’s birthdays for nearly 15 years, and it is always a hit (especially when I remember to include all the ingredients).

Overall, it was a rather successful meal.  No one went home hungry, including my mother-in-law.  All in all, a good start to this project.  Next up: Brazil.