LAMB AND MINT STUFFED PEPPER WITH YOGURT FETA SAUCE

By Katie

Having spent the past few weeks exploring the wilds of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as part of my summer vacation, I came back in awe of the landscape's raw beauty and weak at the knees for cowboys (sorry hubby). I also returned over-nourished with enough elk, bison, beef and pork to last me through the New Year, deficient in veggies, and craving ethnic flavors. We had some good eats out on the prairie, but nary a whiff of exotic spices.

So a few days into my return, I set to work with my favorite Afghan seasonings, a moderate portion of meat, and a few favorite summer vegetables. The result is this recipe for red peppers stuffed with ground lamb, rice, zucchini, warming spices, and fresh mint. The peppers are roasted until tender and served with yogurt feta sauce. The recipe is similar to dolma e murch-e-shireen, a traditional Afghan vegetable dish, minus the sauce. That part I made up. It's a worthy embellishment, but feel free to leave it out if you are a slave to authenticity, or just don’t feel like the extra trouble.

We eat a lot of ethnic food at home. “Are we having Afghan again?” is a common refrain amongst my three children, who, to be fair, are adventurous eaters. So it was heartening that as the heady aroma of the Afghan peppers hit the far corners of my house, it drew the kids into the kitchen to comment on the tantalizing smells and sample the savory lamb as I stuffed the peppers.

Lamb and Mint Stuffed Peppers

with Yogurt Feta Sauce

1 1/3 cups basmati rice

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 lb. ground lamb

2 tsp. Kosher salt

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. ground coriander

½ tsp. ground cumin

½ tsp. ground black pepper

1/3 cup finely chopped fresh mint

1/2 cup water

6 red bell peppers

1 cup plain yogurt

2 ounces feta cheese

¾ tsp. dried, ground garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cook the rice using your preferred method.

While the rice is cooking, sauté the onion in the olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes. Add the lamb, salt, paprika, coriander, cumin, and black pepper, and continue to sauté for 8 minutes until the meat is cooked through and the flavors bloom. Add the diced zucchini and sauté another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the mint and water.

Cut off the top ¼ of each pepper and scoop out the seeds. Fill the peppers with the lamb mixture, packing it firmly down. You may have a little leftover filling, which you can save or set on the table in a little serving dish. Put the peppers in a roasting pan large enough to comfortably fit all six of them. Set the tops back on the peppers.

Fill the roasting pan with water until it is about 1 inch deep. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until tender. Serve on individual plates with a few spoonfuls of the yogurt sauce. If you want to serve this as a side dish, cut the peppers in half down the center.

Yogurt Feta Sauce (optional)

Puree the yogurt, feta and garlic in a food processor or blender until smooth.

Serves 6 as a main course, 12 as a side dish.

Except where otherwise noted, all content on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.

ROASTED EGGPLANT DIP - LAGHTAQ

By Katie

In my early teens I babysat for a family in my neighborhood whose fridge was stocked with all manner of exotic foods; at least exotic to my 13-year old self. In particular I remember a jar of what appeared to be preserved baby vegetables with a foreign sounding name. It was called “horse de oovers.”I couldn’t imagine what country it was from but I figured it was perhaps a Swedish delicacy.

It wasn’t until I took up French a year or two later that I learned the label actually read “hors d’oeurves”, just a fancy name for appetizers. I never did venture into that little jar of pickled vegetables. Likely I was far too busy making a dent in the family’s supply of Haagen Daz. Or perhaps I have just never been a fan of appetizers. 

Afghans aren't particularly big on hors d’oeurves either. There is no such thing as the cocktail hour. Never mind that there are no cocktails; this is a teetotaling country after all. But Afghans are very fond of eggplant. They pickle it, make stews out of it, fry it, roast it and braise it. This Banjan recipe features sliced eggplant smothered in paprika, turmeric and coriander-spiced tomato sauce. The whole lot is then baked until very tender and pureed. It is served with a generous helping of garlicky Greek yogurt.

Banjan makes a superb side dish, is wonderful on sandwiches, and yes, is a delicious hors d’oevre along with toasted pita chips. It’s the perfect sort of thing to set out for a summer buffet. Banjan also makes a killer leftover, so be sure to squirrel some away before your guests gobble it all down. Label the Tupperware “horse de oovers”. That way anyone poking around in your fridge will think you are very exotic, and perhaps very Swedish.

Roasted Eggplant Spread with Garlicky Yogurt

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 large cloves garlic, peeled, chopped

1 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric

¼ cup tomato sauce

1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1 1/2 tsp. ground paprika

1 1/2 tsp. Kosher salt

¾ tsp. ground black pepper

1/2 cup vegetable broth

1 large eggplant, peeled, cut into 1/3- inch slices

1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, thinly sliced

Yogurt sauce (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the oil in a sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and turmeric, turn the heat to low and sauté for a few minutes. Don’t let the garlic burn. Add the tomato sauce, coriander, paprika, salt, pepper and broth. Stir, turn up the heat and bring to a boil. Turn down heat to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes.

Layer the eggplant and pepper slices in a 9x13 inch roasting pan. Pour the sauce over the vegetables, moving the eggplant and peppers around a bit so they are lightly coated with the sauce. Set in the oven to bake.

After 25 minutes, stir the vegetables around in the pan to coat them with the juices. Continue to bake another 30 minutes or until the eggplant is very tender. Transfer the contents of the roasting pan to a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Serve warm or cold with Yogurt Sauce spooned over the top and pita bread cut into wedges, brushed with olive oil, dusted with salt and toasted.

Yogurt sauce

¾ cup Greek-style yogurt

1 tsp. dried garlic

3/4 tsp. Kosher salt

In a small bowl, mix together the ingredients.

Except where otherwise noted, all content on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.

TENDER LAMB KEBAB WITH CINNAMON - KEBAB DAYGEE

By Katie

My first job at age 16, not counting a brief stint at a burger joint from which I was "laid off" (who gets laid off at 16?), was working the cash register at a gourmet food store. The place was changing owners, my new boss having just arrived from Korea with little English and no experience in the retail food business. He grappled to understand this foreign concept called “gourmet”. His first day on the job was spent wandering the aisles, pulling food from the shelves, looking up, brows creased, and asking “is this gourmet?”Duck liver pate? (yes), canned tuna? (no), organic carrots? (sort of), caviar (definitely), and so on it went as he worked his way through the store’s inventory.

I felt a little like my kind-hearted Korean boss recently when I was trying to wrap my mind around the Afghan concept of a kebab. To me kebabs are one thing: skewered meat or chicken, sometimes threaded with onions or cherry tomatoes, cooked on a hot grill. In Afghanistan, it seems, kebabs can be virtually anything: meat or chicken, skewered or not, barbecued or oven baked or pan fried, cut into chunks or ground or eaten as a chop. Yikes. Having prepared and eaten a number of different varieties, I can only surmise that a kebab is some kind of cooked animal protein served with nan bread. Done.

This recipe here comes from Humaira’s sister Nabila, who is a talented home cook in her own right. It is distinctly un-kebab-like according to my Western definition. What’s important is that, kebab or not, it is divine. Sliced onions and hefty chunks of lamb marinate a good long while in Greek yogurt, fresh garlic and coriander, and then bake in the oven at a high heat until fork tender. The juicy results are sprinkled with cinnamon and served with nan bread and hopefully something crunchy like a crisp salad or sliced cucumbers. It’s a completely no-fuss dish that could very well be my new favorite on the Afghan food front (watch out Chicken Lawang!).

Tender Lamb Kebab with Cinnamon

½ cup Greek yogurt

2 tbsp. olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp. dried ground coriander

½ tsp. black pepper

2 tsp. Kosher salt

2 lbs. lamb stew meat, cut into 2-inch chunks

2 large onions, peeled, sliced thin

Ground cinnamon

In a large bowl mix together the yogurt, oil, garlic, coriander, pepper and salt and stir well. Add the lamb and onions and coat evenly with the yogurt mixture. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour, preferably overnight.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pull the lamb out a half hour before you a ready to cook. Put the lamb into large pot or Dutch oven and cover with a lid. Put it into the oven and cook until the lamb is very tender (about 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours). Remove the lid, give it a stir, and continue to cook another 20 to 30 minutes until some of the liquid has reduced and you have a thick, oniony sauce.

Sprinkle the meat lightly with cinnamon and serve with warm nan bread and plain yogurt. You can season the yogurt with a little salt and stir in some grated cucumbers or chopped mint if you like.

Serves 4

Except where otherwise noted, all content on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.