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

Zarreen’s Khagina- Scrambled Eggs with Potatoes in the Pakistani Manner

Tuesday, March 20, 2012 By 21 Comments

Khagina

Aglio, olio, peperoncino. Tossed with some spaghetti and it’s a full meal for the five friends who end up at your place after a night of hearing the legendary jazz pianist Chucho Valdés perform at the Villa Celimontana. There isn’t much in your fridge or pantry, but you are all hungry, and you do have that holy trinity of garlic, olive oil and red pepper chilli flakes in your pantry. Add a bottle or two of Morellino to the late-dinner mix, even if it may be a bit too tannic for a spicy pasta dish, but it is all you have in the house that night and besides, everyone loves a good bottle from the Maremma. To cleanse the palette after the pasta course, there is a packet of rughetta; arugula- in the fridge, and some tomatoes you bought from the Testaccio market that very morning- tiny, china-red orbs, which your friend slices and tosses with the peppery leaves, adding a drop or two of musky, tart, sweet balsamic vinegar and splashes of fruity, grassy olive oil, from your favourite casale in Umbria. [Read more...]

Filed Under: breakfast, brunch, eggs, Pakistani, spicy, vegetables/vegetarian

Chana Dal- Lentil Soup in the Pakistan Manner

Monday, February 20, 2012 By 38 Comments

Lentil Soup

There is a tiny panificio on the corner of Via Galvani and Via Mastro Giorgio in Testaccio where they sell wee rose-shaped hollow bread rolls called rosette. If you’re going to pop in to buy their rosette, make sure you go on a Thursday, because on that particular day, they prepare a fresh ciambella; ring-cake, which you buy thick slices of by the gram, warm in your oven for breakfast, slather with yoghurt and wash down with a caffè latte made with your favourite Palombini coffee beans. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Lentils, mains, soup, spicy, vegetables/vegetarian

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

Chutney Surkh-e-Murch: Red Pepper Chutney in the Afghan Manner

Sunday, August 21, 2011 By 28 Comments

Red Pepper Chutney

The Bullying. Stratford Landing Elementary School, Grade 2. In a suburb of Washington DC.

Ami used to make me sandwiches for lunch so I wouldn’t have to eat the horrid spaghetti in bolognese sauce from the school cafeteria. This “Italian” dish was usually made with meat which looked more like cat food, straight out of a tin. All the other children used to bring soft sandwiches smeared with peanut butter and grape jelly, and even though I pleaded for those sarnies, Ami said no. It wasn’t good for you- all that sugar and carbs. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Afghan, condiment, spicy, vegetables/vegetarian

Ami’s Palao – Caramelised / Spiced Pilaf in the Pakistani Manner

Monday, May 30, 2011 By 31 Comments

I don’t have friendships which have lasted thirty-some odd years.

I don’t have friends from kindergarten that I grew up and stayed up late at night with around the bonfire during summer camp, singeing marshmallows till they were gooey enough to be sandwiched between graham crackers with some chocolate tucked in. I don’t have a collection of yearbooks on my bookshelf which I can share with friends and laugh over that nerdy Grade Two portrait, the one in which my hair is parted in the middle and swept up on both sides with a candy-pink barrette, (thanks, Ami). [Read more...]

Filed Under: mains, Pakistani, rice, spicy, vegetables/vegetarian

Spiced/Masala Omelette in the Pakistani Manner

Monday, May 23, 2011 By 32 Comments

Masala Omelette

Blog post is in response to a request from my friend AFC- who loved his masala omelettes during his business trips to India.

I like to eat my masala omelette placed between two pieces of soft, untoasted bread and eaten like a sarnie with some sweet chili sauce. It’s a childhood thing, you know, that ‘nursery food’ texture we all remember. The masala omelette is to the Pakistani kitchen what pancakes are to an American kitchen. The only pancakes I ever had as a child were out of a box, and that too, slathered with Aunt Jemima’s Kitchen syrup. [Read more...]

Filed Under: breakfast, brunch, eggs, Pakistani, spicy, vegetables/vegetarian

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
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