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 Guest Post for ‘Indian Simmer’- Chicken Kebab Sliders in the Pakistani Manner

Friday, April 20, 2012 By 12 Comments

chicken sliders

This week I had the honour of guest blogging for someone who has become a close friend of mine through the blogging world- Prerna of Indian Simmer. Prerna is a phenomenal cook and food writer from India who takes beautiful and poetic photos of food; some of the best in the food photography – let alone food blogging – world. You can see these photos for yourself in her post on nankhatai; eggless spiced biscuits or the one on jalebis; sweet, crackly fritters which are washed down with a cup of hot, milky tea.

Prerna is currently working on her first cookery book, the arrival of which we are all eagerly anticipating.

My post on Chicken Kebab Sliders in the Pakistani Manner is here on her lovely blog.

Filed Under: appetiser, guest posts, mains, Pakistani, spicy, street food, tea time snacks

Mast-o-Khiar- Cucumber & Walnut Dip in the Persian Manner and My Birthday

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 By 32 Comments

Mast-o-Khiar Cucumber Dip

That coral pink sludge we used to buy from the Sainsbury’s closest to our dorm was usually scooped up with salt and vinegar crisps. Taramosalata it was called. My Greek friend MM had introduced me to it, but I am sure it was quite different than the real stuff she was eating back home in Athens. We all loved it, we thought we were the ultimate gourmandes, eating in the common room together, bitching about that Italian Econometrics professor who didn’t really know what that damn Monte Carlo algorithm test was- and neither did we. [Read more...]

Filed Under: appetiser, condiment, Irani/Persian, vegetables/vegetarian

Fruit Chaat- Peach Salad in the Pakistani Manner

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 By 17 Comments

peach salad

I loved those kaanch ki churiyaan; glass bangles you’d find right before Eid at the Anarkali Bazaar in Lahore’s Old City. The vendors had every colour you could imagine- neon lemon, bubble-gum pink, dark and light violets and shimmery silver ones like mother-of-pearl. I loved going to the Anarkali Bazaar with my Nani Ami to buy my Eid outfit with matching churiyaan. Of course I had to buy the dull bangles, the plastic ones, which didn’t even make that all important ‘clink clink’ sound with every hand movement. Unlike the glass ones, you could easily stuff your hand into them. Glass bangles were supposed to be slipped on after lathering up your hands with soap and water so they would slide on effortlessly. I spent most of my childhood in envy of my cousins who wore glass bangles every Eid. But then again, I had slit my wrist at the age of three after taking a fall whilst wearing them. I even have the scar of five stitches to prove it. So as a child, I just had to lump it and wear the plastic ones. [Read more...]

Filed Under: appetiser, spicy, street food, tea time snacks

Ab Doogh Khiar- Cucumber Soup With Walnuts and Crunchy Shallots in the Persian Manner

Sunday, May 15, 2011 By 15 Comments

Persian cucumber soup

Her name was Bridget but we called her Aunty Brige. Not pronounced ‘bridge’, like the one which connects two points across a river, but Brige, with a long ‘i’, as in liege. She was tall and wore lots of white, flowing dresses which looked beautiful with her crown of wavy, strawberry blonde hair. One could imagine her sitting elegantly next to a harp, with her fingers plucking at the strings. Aunty Brige had light eyes; I cannot remember if they were green or blue or hazel, and they were always hidden behind large spectacles. [Read more...]

Filed Under: appetiser, brunch, Irani/Persian, soup, vegetables/vegetarian

Aloo Tiki- Potato Cutlets in the Pakistani Manner

Sunday, May 8, 2011 By 46 Comments

Aloo Tiki

Ami and Nani Ami

Ami and Nani Ami in Murree, Pakistan

It’s dreadfully difficult to find ice in Rome. It’s considered an American thing- ‘ma, tu sei Americana?‘, the server joked with my sister when she requested ice in her coca-cola. It was May, and my dear friend A and I were hosting a party on her terrace and we needed ice for making those sweet, tart mojitos. We were in a crisis- we had no idea where to get it from in Rome- and we needed lots of it. [Read more...]

Filed Under: appetiser, Pakistani, tea time snacks, vegetables/vegetarian

Boulani- Potato Turnovers in the Afghan Manner

Sunday, April 24, 2011 By 32 Comments

Afghan Boulani

Carb on carb is considered very naughty.

But we, the Afghans do it, the Pakistanis do it with our spiced potato sauté mopped up with pillowy naan; the Poles do it with their pierogies and you haven’t really lived yet if you haven’t been to that trattoria in Baschi, Umbria and had a silky raviolo stuffed with a velvety potato mash, served with a fruity olive oil and shavings of that musky, sweet, intense black truffle. That dish is called “i-want-to-lick-my-plate-and-the-person-who-created-this-combination”. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Afghan, appetiser, tea time snacks, vegetables/vegetarian

The Spice Spoon Will Be Back…

Tuesday, November 23, 2010 By 12 Comments

Heavy work schedule, just taking a break, dear readers. Inshallah, The Spice Spoon will be back…

Filed Under: appetiser, musings

Borani Kadu: Roasted Butternut Squash Verrines in the Afghan Manner

Sunday, November 7, 2010 By 25 Comments

Kadu Bharta.

Two words which sent shivers down my spine as a child-that Pakistani roasted squash dish which I just could not abide as a child. I don’t know whether it was the nursery food-like texture on my tongue of the cooked vegetable or the sight of it; one amorphous mound on my plate. I remember my parents scooping it all up with a chapati and adding spoonfuls of piquant mint chutney to the equation. It wasn’t for me. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Afghan, appetiser, borani (yoghurt-based cold salad), Irani/Persian, mains, vegetables/vegetarian

A Fresh Irani Appetiser: Noon-o-Panir-o-Sabzi and Women In Food

Monday, October 4, 2010 By 25 Comments

The Toronto air is so cold that it’s almost brittle. But it is familiar to me now. Just like the street outside my home with its pedestrian crossings or our neighbourhood Korean-owned Japanese restaurant which serves an insipid salmon roll, but a perfectly spicy kimchi soup. It is just the ticket for a cold evening.

Toronto is the place where, for the past year and a half, I have made a home with my husband and invited friends over for platters of basmati rice served with prawns drenched in fragrant coconut curry. It’s the place where thousands of dollars have been raised by my non-Pakistani colleagues at work when the floods struck Pakistan, my country of birth. The place where people are curious to know more about my culture and where I am from. The place where its people have welcomed my husband and I into their homes and their land. [Read more...]

Filed Under: appetiser, Irani/Persian
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