Spelt Flour Buttermilk Pancakes with Caramelised Apples

Sunday, January 9, 2011 By 25 Comments

Recipe created by my dear friend BH and myself. BH adores spelt flour and has shown me how to incorporate it in my repertoire.

I could never understand why we didn’t eat Uncle Ben’s rice at home; the kind that Mrs. Ferris, my friend Sarah’s mum boiled in its own bag and served us alongside roast chicken. Each grain was plum and served slightly watery.

Why did we have to have basmati rice all the time? Sometimes laced with cumin and sometimes cooked in a cinnamon, cloves and cardamom-infused chicken stock. [Read more...]

Filed Under: breakfast, brunch, vegetables/vegetarian

The Spice Spoon Featured on The Kitchn

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 By 11 Comments

I am featured on my favourite website this morning- The Kitchn. Click here.


Zain, my husband and I never go out for brunch on weekends — because Saturday and Sunday are the two days when he gets deep into the kitchen and prepares all sorts of omelettes for us. [Read more...]

Filed Under: eggs, Interviews / Features, Irani/Persian, Press, vegetables/vegetarian

Borani Kadu: Roasted Butternut Squash Verrines in the Afghan Manner

Sunday, November 7, 2010 By 23 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

Aloo Baingan: Potatoes & Aubergine in the Pakistani Manner

Monday, October 11, 2010 By 32 Comments

It was our last summer in London. Post-graduate degrees in hand, we were going to leave the UK soon. I was to join my parents in Washington DC; S was to return to Karachi and Z was moving to Islamabad, her new home after having grown up in Manila. We spent our days walking around Covent Garden pausing to hear a street performer sing an aria, stopping at Caffè Nero for a creamy cappuccino, walking into Karen Millen to ogle the silk dresses (at that age, yes, Karen Millen was l’alta moda) or sitting in Z’s kitchen with her flatmates on the Pentonville Road in her uni housing, while she prepared a Pakistani scrambled egg dish of potatoes, cumin and green chilies for us. And there was tea, lots of tea, along with chocolate digestive biscuits for pudding. [Read more...]

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

Pakoras (Spicy Tempura) in the Pakistani Manner

Sunday, July 25, 2010 By 32 Comments

Pray, Love and Eat

Guest Post written by Baba, my father.

Every child has a lucky day; mine was Thursday. It was the day Agha, my father, would take my brother and I to meet our grandparents and cousins inside Lahore’s Old City. [Read more...]

Filed Under: appetiser, Pakistani, spicy, street food, vegetables/vegetarian

A Picnic Potato Salad in the Afghan Manner: Borani Kachalu

Sunday, June 20, 2010 By 35 Comments

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 (yoghurt-based cold salad), brunch, vegetables/vegetarian

Spiced Glazed Carrots in the Pakistani Manner

Sunday, April 25, 2010 By 24 Comments

Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great was a mere thirteen years of age when he ascended the throne. While still a relatively young Emperor, he commissioned the construction of a new capital, known as Fatehpur Sikri. The buildings, a fusion of Islamic, Hindu and Jain architecture, reflect the Great Emperor’s beliefs of universal religious tolerance. It was under his rule that the Islamic jizya tax was revoked for non-Muslims and a new faith called the Din-i-Ilahi (Faith of the Divine) was created by him in an attempt to bring the diverse religions of the Mughal Empire together. To this day, only 18 people are said to have belonged to this faith, but one cannot help but admire Emperor Akbar for trying to unify his peoples. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Pakistani, spicy, vegetables/vegetarian

Roasted Beet ‘Carpaccio’ in the Persian Manner: Borani-e-Labu

Sunday, April 11, 2010 By 25 Comments

“A monarch, regardless of being a queen or a king, must defend his or her land and treat the people with justice,” declared the Sassanian Empress Porandokht, (AD 630-31). An advocate of sexual egalitarianism, she was the first female monarch to rule over the Sassanian Empire. Under her 16-month rule, before she died, Empress Porandokht signed a peace treaty with the Byzantines and reformed her empire by re-structuring and lowering taxes.

Every era has had their crop of strong women, and Mader, my paternal grandmother, was most certainly one from hers. [Read more...]

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

Winner- Food52 Competition-To be Published in ‘Food52′ Cookbook

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 By 16 Comments


Click here for the winning recipe, and here for my interview, (above).

I am pleased and honoured to share with my readers that my recipe for Borani Esfanaaj won the Food52 competition for ‘Your Best Spinach Recipe’ this week and will be published in a crowdsourced cookbook entitled ‘Food52′ by HarperStudio. (Here is my recipe and the story of inspiration behind it, on my blog). [Read more...]

Filed Under: Interviews / Features, Irani/Persian, Press, vegetables/vegetarian, Winner of Competition

Dal- Lentils in the Pakistani / Afghan Manner

Sunday, March 21, 2010 By 48 Comments

La vita è bella

“It’s your last night here, what would you like to eat, Baba?,” I ask my father.
I know he likes the straccetti alla rughetta at Da Francesco in Piazza del Fico.
“A home-cooked meal. Dal and chawal,” he answers. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Afghan, Lentils, mains, Pakistani, soup, vegetables/vegetarian
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