‘Cooking Along the Silk Route’ in Washington, DC

Friday, May 10, 2013 By 2 Comments

Tahchin Workshop Tahchin, Persian rice timbale with saffron-poached chicken

*ONLY TWO SPACES LEFT*

On Saturday, June 22nd, I will be hosting a lunch which is themed ‘Cooking Along the Silk Route‘. As such, we will prepare dishes from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and then share a meal together, family-style, in a beautiful home in the Washington, DC suburbs, (near Tyson’s Galleria).

While we cook together, we will :

  • Learn how to prepare a mocktail, appetiser and main dish. I will provide my homemade dessert for the meal.
  • Prepare and assemble the dishes in groups of 3-4.
  • Enjoy a lovely Saturday chatting and eating with others who adore food from my part of the world!

Sample Menu:
Pakistani Sekenjabeen – Sweet & Sour Sparkling Lime Mocktail with Mint
Afghan Aushak* – Leek pâté dumplings, served atop yoghurt and crowned with savoury mince
Persian Tahchin (see photo above) – Rice timbale with saffron-poached chicken
Pakistani Kheer aur morabba – Rosewater-fragranced rice pudding with seasonal fruit compote

Timing:
10am-1.30pm
Lunch will be served between 1.30 and 2.00pm.

If you would like to join us:
Please e-mail me at shayma (at) thespicespoon (dot) com.

*We are using store-bought wonton wrappers.

Filed Under: Afghan, events, Irani/Persian, Pakistani, Silk Route, workshop

My Express Tribune Magazine Cover – ‘Shayma Saadat, Mistress of Spices’

Monday, April 22, 2013 By 8 Comments

Shayma Saadat Cover Story

My interview appeared in The Express Tribune Magazine, (which works in partnership with the International Herald Tribune), this Sunday. Many thanks to the editorial team at the Express Tribune.

Here is the link to the magazine pages – Shayma Saadat Mistress of Spices. It is also available online here.

Filed Under: Interviews / Features, Magazine Cover, Press

Baingan Bharta – Roasted Eggplant / Aubergine Dip in the Pakistani Manner

Saturday, April 20, 2013 By 12 Comments

Baingan Bharta

I don’t remember Amma Subraayi. Our family’s seamstress, she died a few years after I was born, and by that time we had already moved to Washington, DC. My Nani Ami bought the jewel-toned fabrics for our razais, (winter quilts) and Amma Subraayi would stitch them painstakingly, by hand, with a curved upholstery needle. Sitting under the winter sun on my grandparents’ rear terrace, she laid the fabric out on a woven bed called a charpai and nimbly stitched the fabric together, stuffing it with cotton for weeks on end. Each razai was stitched in its own geometric pattern and with special fabric. Ami’s was a plaid burgundy and my Khala’s (aunt’s), was a candy-coloured orange with a floral design. [Read more...]

Filed Under: appetiser, borani (yoghurt-based cold salad), Pakistani, vegetables/vegetarian

My Workshop – How to Make Aushak, Afghan Dumplings

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 By 3 Comments

Shayma Saadat workshop

*SOLD OUT*

Crisis. That’s the face of a punctilious cook who can’t use a certain oil over another one for shallow-frying. When you’re teaching participants to make blinis in your first ever workshop, you unnecessarily stress over such trivial matters. To make matters trickier, you feel nauseous and soporific because you are expecting Tiny Spoon, unbeknownst to everyone at the workshop.

I was invited to host my first workshop last year in February, which turned out to be a lovely experience – we finally settled on olive oil (as the picture depicts) – and all the participants went home happy after having a few sips of Pomegranate & Rosewater Essence Sparkling Wine Cocktails.

I am in the kitchen again, (this time, stress-free) – teaching another workshop. I will be over at The Depanneur showing you how to make aushak – dumplings which hail from the Afghan kitchen.

The cost is $40+HST – more information on the workshop and how to sign up for it is available here.

Filed Under: Afghan, events

My Pop-up Event – Nowruz Supperclub at The Depanneur

Monday, March 18, 2013 By 6 Comments

Shayma Saadat Nowruz Pop-Up

I am on instagram – follow me here. 

Here are some pictures from our pop-up – sold out this past Saturday! A huge thank you to all the lovely guests.

*SOLD OUT* [Read more...]

Filed Under: events

Speaking at TEDx

Saturday, February 16, 2013 By 16 Comments

Dear readers, I am honoured to have been invited to speak at TEDxWaterloo on March 27, 2013 in my capacity as a food writer and photographer. I hope to see many of you there. For those of you who won’t be able to attend, the event will be live-streamed. My talk will also be on the TEDxWaterloo site soon after the event. Here is the link to my bio on the TEDx page.

Filed Under: Press, Speaking Engagements, TEDx

BBC Good Food Magazine India

Monday, October 1, 2012 By 28 Comments

I was commissioned by BBC Good Food Magazine, India to develop and photograph a ‘Pakistani Feast’ as an 8-page feature for their current (October, 2012) issue. [Read more...]

Filed Under: BBC Good Food Magazine, Pakistani, Press

Announcing the Arrival of ‘Tiny Spoon’

Friday, September 14, 2012 By 50 Comments

Tiny Spoon

I wanted to share with you that our ‘Tiny Spoon’, our little darling baby, came into the world this August! That is what my ‘non-food related project’ was, and the reason why I have not been able to cook, write or blog as of recent.

I wanted to thank all of you for your readership, encouragement and support. I will be back in The Spice Spoon kitchen, inshallah later this year. And no, I won’t be blogging about baby food :)

I hope all of you had a lovely summer.

x shayma

Filed Under: Tiny Spoon

My ‘Letter to Pakistan’ in Newsline Magazine Pakistan

Wednesday, August 8, 2012 By 16 Comments

I am honoured to have been featured alongside Pakistan’s novelists, barristers, journalists and milkmen for a Cover Story on “Letters to Pakistan” to commemorate our 65th Independence Anniversary. My piece is a nostalgic one, about my childhood in Lahore in my Nani Ami’s; maternal grandmother’s home, near the Canal Bank with the weeping willow trees on the bamboo trees street; bhanson wali sarak.

NB – The magazine accidentally changed my phrase bhanson (bamboos), to bhainson (buffaloes) - which is wrong. 

Shayma Saadat Newsline Magazine

It must be white-hot right now, your sun shining strong above the canals of Lahore, where children come to wade in the brown water to cool themselves off. Summers remind me of siestas in my Nani Ami’s home on the bhanson (bamboos) wali sarak, when all the bedrooms would turn ink-dark by pulling down the bamboo blinds after a long, lazy meal of her spicy ginger-laced chicken stew, scooped up with light-as-air tandoori rotis from nearby Dharampura. I would love to have mangoes from your fertile Punjabi earth, those fragrant chaunsa mangoes, egg- yolk yellow from inside, through which my knife slices like butter, the juices running down my arm with each bite, seated at my grandmother’s dining table. Or maybe one of your anwar ratols or the parrot-green skinned langras, all reminiscent of my childhood in my city of birth, Lahore. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Press

Morabayeh Holou – Peach Compote in the Afghan Manner

Sunday, July 22, 2012 By 19 Comments

Peach Compote

Dear All,

Thank you for all your kind messages regarding my lack of blogging as of late. I haven’t given up on blogging; I am just working on a non-food related project which has made it difficult for me to devote time to my blog at the moment. Inshallah, I hope to be back in the Fall with new recipes / posts. Thank you so much for your readership and warm and encouraging messages. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Afghan, breakfast, brunch, condiment
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