Archives for June 2010

posted on June 25, 2010 by

My First Published Article- Kheer: Rice Pudding in the Pakistani Manner with a Rhubarb-Strawberry Coulis

My first published article came out in Edible Toronto’s Summer Issue. Edible is a magazine based on sustainable food and the farm scene with over 65 chapters across the United States. The inimitable Gail Gordon Oliver is the founder of the Edible Toronto chapter in Canada. The article was about my move from Rome, Italy to Toronto, Canada a year and a half ago, and the aromas of my childhood which made me feel at home in a new city.

Here is the link to the article, which I have also pasted below, with the recipe and a video of myself talking about kheer.Read More

Filed Under: dessert / pudding, Pakistani, Press
posted on June 20, 2010 by

A Picnic Potato Salad in the Afghan Manner: Borani Kachalu

Baba tells me that Bobby Darin’s Dream Lover would play repeatedly at picnics with his friends in 1960s Lahore. But for real affectation, there had to be some Françoise Hardy. Baba also tells me that if you didn’t know her hit La maison où j’ai grandi, or at least pretend to know it, then you were essentially a nobody.

And there were no picnic invitations for nobodies.Read More

Filed Under: Afghan, appetiser, borani, brunch, vegetarian
posted on June 6, 2010 by

Cardamom Almond Cake with Raspberry Coulis

I was in the 7th grade when I baked my first cake. At school, we had been reading Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, in which Aunt Maudie bakes a Lane Cake for Aunt Alexandra’s homecoming. Our extra credit assignment was to prepare this cake.

I arrived at my Aunty Shelly’s to find she had measured out the ingredients and placed them along the wooden counter with the recipe in her Arabesque-like penmanship on a notecard. We were going to bake Lane Cake together; tall and ivory frosted, belying the four layers of neatly stacked sponge beneath. Each layer sandwiched together with a sweet, dense filling of buttery pecans, plumped-up raisins and aromatic coconut, held together with egg yolks and butter.

The kind of filling you lick off the spoon because it tastes even better than the cake itself.Read More

Filed Under: dessert / pudding