AFGHAN BEEF AND BEAN SOUP - SHORWA-E-GOSHT

By Humaira

One cannot claim to be an Afghan cook without a pressure cooker amongst your kitchenware. Jeja (my mom) is a big fan of hers. It’s understandable since so many Afghan recipes require slow cooking to bring out the best flavors. The pressure cooker is a great way to speed up the process.

I have to admit a deep-seated fear of pressure cookers that goes back to my childhood during which I would overhear Jeja and her sisters sharing stories of pressure cookers exploding when people tried to open them too soon. This was a regular topic of conversation amongst the cooks in my family. In Kabul, our kitchen would be cleared of all children and pets when the pressure cooker was in use.

Pressure cookers have come a long way since then, but Jeja still handles hers with caution. I overcame my pressure cooker phobia by investing in a good one six years ago. I confess that it sat in my pantry collecting dust for the first two years, but once I read the instructions and learned how to use it, I became a big fan as well.

Shorwa, which means “soup” in Dari, is one of my favorite Afghan dishes and is the perfect sort of thing to prepare in a pressure cooker. When I lived in Kabul, we used to eat shorwa on laundry day, a day when nothing else got done except for loads of laundry washed by hand in large tubs of water in our yard. Shorwa was meant to be a simple dish served at an uneventful meal and never to guests.

The people of Ghazni, a province located 70 kilometers southwest of Kabul where my dad is from, are known for making the best shorwa. It’s a rich and hearty soup made with meat, potatoes and in Jeja’s recipe, legumes. In Ghazni they generally serve the shorwa in a large communal bowl. Everyone rips their nan (Afghan bread) into small pieces, throws it into the shorwa and enjoys the soup using their hand. I have only witnessed this once, when I was a little girl visiting Ghazni. My relatives knew I was from Kabul and not used to eating shorwa this way. I was given my own bowl and a tattered metal utensil vaguely resembling a spoon.

Whether you choose to serve shorwa communally or in individual bowls, we hope you will give this recipe a try. I served it to my family for a simple Saturday meal using fresh ingredients and probably better grade meat than one would find in a shorwa in Afghanistan. It was a hit with my family, big and small.

Afghan Beef and Bean Soup

Shorwa e Gosht

One large red onion, roughly chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 lbs beef stew or steak tips, cut into 1-inch pieces

3 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 tbsp. tomato paste

1 tbsp. ground coriander

½ tbsp. ground turmeric

1 tbsp. Kosher salt

½ tsp. black pepper

8 cups water

1 medium russet potato, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 15 oz. can red kidney beans, rinsed

1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, rinsed

1 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro

Add oil to a large pressure cooker and set over medium-high heat. Add the onion, brown for 5 minutes until soft, add the garlic and the meat. Mix well and cook for about 10 minutes until the meat is cooked through and a thick sauce forms. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, coriander, turmeric, salt, pepper and the water, mix well. Set the lid on the pressure cooker and lock in place. All pressures cookers are different so make sure you read the directions for your pressure cooker so you know how to use it.

Over high heat, bring the soup to high pressure (where you hear the sound of pressure releasing), this takes around 10-15 minutes depending on your pressure cooker size. Lower the heat to medium/high while maintaining the high pressure (fizzling sound continues) for 10 minutes. Turn off the soup and set it aside for natural pressure release. This will let the pressure come down on its own while cooking the meat and concentrating the flavors.

Once the pressure has released, open the lid. Add the potatoes, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, and cilantro to the soup. Bring the soup to a gentle boil with these ingredients and cook until the meat and potatoes are tender (10 to 20 minutes).Serve hot with nan, pita or flour tortillas.

Serves 6-8

Loading up on energy right before a soccer game

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

GOOD FOOD AND GOOD BYES

by Katie

A few weeks back, Humaira talked about how she and I are parting ways, at least as far as this blog is concerned.  Having been drawn into my own work on Mom's Kitchen Handbook, along with writing a cookbook, I stepped back from things here some months ago.  It makes beautiful sense to me that Afghan Cooking Unveiled morph into something broader, with Humaira fully at the helm.  I'm excited to watch it all evolve.

It's funny... even though I haven't been writing or developing Afghan recipes for many months, I still find myself craving the food.  My kids know that when the counter is stacked with spice jars and Greek yogurt, they can expect something a little more exotic than the norm. This recipe for Sabzi is always a favorite and I thought it worth sharing as part of this final post.  A braised spinach dish accented with loads of dill and lemon, it's  everything that classic Afghan cooking should be: nourishing, comforting, clever in its simple use of seasonings, inexpensive, and immensely easy to make.

Today as I sat eating leftover Sabzi for lunch with a spoonful of yogurt and warm pita bread, I thought about what I have loved best about collaborating on this blog (besides the fun of working with Humaira).  It's been the deep realization of how food connects us all.  Researching and writing about the cooking of Afghanistan has given me an appreciation for its people, history and culture, that you can't get from watching the news or reading the paper.  When I make a big pot of Aush, I think of all the Afghan moms across the planet doing the same for their children.  When I bring Kadoo to a potluck, I share a taste of a culture that is so different from our own.

Truth? I think food is the best way to bring people together.  Enough talk about drones and diplomacy. We'd probably all be a whole lot better off if we just got together and started cooking.

Afghan Braised Spinach

Qorma e Sabzi

6 tablespoons olive oil

6 ounces green onions, white and green parts, chopped (2 to 3 bunches)

1 teaspoon ground fenugreek (optional)

2 pounds frozen, chopped spinach, not defrosted (ideally organic leaf spinach)

1 tablespoon dried dill

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

In a large deep pan, heat the oil over medium-high and saute the onions until tender, about 7 minutes. 

Add the fenugreek if you are using it, and cook for another minute.   Add the frozen spinach and cook on medium heat, stirring regularly, until it defrosts and the liquid comes to a boil, about 15 minutes.  If the defrosted spinach doesn't produce any liquid, add a few tablespoons of water to pan.  Once the liquid boils, add the remaining ingredients, stir thoroughly, and drop the heat a bit so the liquid bubbles gently. 

Cook for another 10 to 15 more minutes until the liquid is largely absorbed and the spinach very tender.  Keep an eye on the spinach as it cooks, stirring occasionally. If the pan dries up, add little more water and continue cooking.

Note:  If you want this dish to be extra flavorful and super creamy, after you've followed this recipe, add 1 cup of vegetable or chicken broth to the spinach and continue to cook it for another 30 minutes

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

AFGHAN COOKING 101

By Humaira

During my nine years of non-profit work in Afghanistan I have had the great fortune of meeting a myriad of amazing people one of whom happens to be our guest blogger, Stetson Sanders. I met Stetson in March of 2011 in the province of Ghazni and I was blown away by his dedication, hard work and respect for the Afghan people. When he returned home to Sacramento I wanted to have a dinner party for him. Instead, Stetson asked if we for a cooking session instead. As my Afghan reader know, we Afghans never allow our guests to even lift a plate let alone allow them in preparing a meal. However, I put my old fashioned hospitality behind and decided to do a cooking session just as my guest had requested.

By guest blogger: Stetson Sanders

I recently had the pleasure of spending 15 months living and working in provincial Afghanistan. Of all the adventures and excitement, the opportunity to enjoy and learn about Afghan cuisine was one of the highlights. There wasn't always a lot of variety to the food, but the fresh vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes and assorted greens), and mouth-watering fruit (humongous and delicious watermelons) were always a treat. I found the main courses (palau and sabzi) to be filling but always fantastic and served with pride.  My favorite dishes were shola a kind of a risotto dish made with meat.  I had never heard of shola before Afghanistan. Mantoo is a meat dumpling mostly served at celebrations or events where were honored guests.  I have tried a similar dish in Central Asia; I found Tajiks and even Russians reluctantly attribute this dish to Uzbeks.

Stetson&HGcooking

After returning home from my assignment, I had the great fortune to join Humaira at her lovely home for a cooking session!  I'm not much of a cook and probably mostly a liability in the kitchen, so she designed a pretty straightforward menu (see below) for a novice cook like me. I was joined by a friend who is much more adept in the kitchen so she did all the heavy lifting.

All of the cooking was greatly aided by Humaira's prep work and equipment (food processor, etc.), which minimized the preparation that we had to do.   We started by preparing the sabzi, (braised spinach) which was pretty straightforward and turned out to be delicious!  Next, we used wonton dough to make aushak. Aushak is basically a dumpling filled with sautéed green onion then boiled for a few minutes. They are delicate so we had to be very fast on our feet when it came to removing the aushak from the water.  Aushak is served on a flat platter lightly coated with a garlic yogurt mixture, finished off with a generous amount of kofta a meat sauce. 

The final dish was kadoo made with winter squah. I only had kadoo once or twice in Afghanistan but over there they use pumpkin which is called kadoo in Dari. To end the evening, we enjoyed falooda, a homemade rosewater-infused ice cream on a bed of crushed ice and glass noodles, topped with chopped pistachios.  It might be attributable to the lack of cold storage capacity and limited electricity in rural Afghanistan, but I seldom ate desert.  My local counterparts usually finished meals with an apple, banana, or orange, so this was a nice introduction to a new treat that was light, but also sweet and satisfying.

The whole evening was fun, interesting, and empowering, as I now feel that I could prepare that meal for friends or family. Thanks, Humaira-jaan, for letting us in to you home...and to both Eva and Humaira for being patient while I learned the basics in an American kitchen!

StesonDinnerTable

Delicious spread

Afghan Cooking 101

Menu

Aushak, Afghan Dumplings

Sabzi, Braised Spinach

Kadoo, Slow Cooked Squash with Yogurt Sauce

Challaw, Afghan Baked White Rice

Salata

Dessert:

Falooda, Afghan Sundaes

StesonCookingFalloda

Falooda was the perfect ending to a wonderful meal

Recipes are on this blog, just follow the links

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