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.

SPRING LAMB AND RHUBARB STEW - QORMA-E-RAWASH

Spring Lamb and Rhubarb Stew

By Katie

As a young girl, I spent nearly as much time in the backyard of our neighbors, the Switzers, as I did in my own neck of the woods. Part of the draw was their abundant vegetable garden, which held far more appeal than the colorful patch of annuals my mother always planted. We’d wander amongst the plants, pulling peas and plucking strawberries. Best of all was the rhubarb, which we’d snap off like stalks of celery and eat raw, dunked in granulated sugar…. ….dunk, bite, dunk, bite. Good thing we didn’t sink our teeth into the sturdy leaves; it turns out they are quite toxic.

I’m not sure I ate properly cooked rhubarb until I discovered the delights of strawberry rhubarb pie as an adult. And it wasn’t until I started cooking Afghan food that I considered using rhubarb for anything but dessert. Ever the resourceful ones, Afghans use rhubarb in pickles, jams and most especially for savory stews. It is a vegetable, after all.

Rhubarb is thought to have its roots in Asia and was originally highly sought after for its medicinal qualities. Apparently it cleanses the blood. I’m not sure what that means exactly; I just know that it’s only here for a brief stint in the spring, and that time is now. The tart, tender-when-cooked, drop dead gorgeous qualities of rhubarb make for some pretty wonderful dishes.

This recipe here is new to both Humaira and me. We adapted it from Helen Saberi’s Afghan Food & Cookery. It’s a qorma, basically a stew, made with lamb, seasoned with cardamom, cumin and black pepper. It cooks a good long while until the lamb is fork tender, and almost candied from loads of onions. Then the whole thing is finished off when pieces of rhubarb are tucked in amongst the meat and it all continues to cook until everything is meltingly tender. Over rice it’s a luscious and unique dish.

Spring Lamb and Rhubarb Stew

Qorma e Rawash

1 ½ lbs. lamb stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes

Salt and black pepper

4 tbsp. olive oil, divided

2 large yellow onions, finely chopped

1 tbsp. tomato sauce

¾ tsp. ground cumin

½ tsp. ground cardamom

Water

1 lb. rhubarb, cut into 2-inch lengths.

1/3 cup roughly chopped cilantro

Liberally season the lamb with the salt and pepper. Heat 2 tbsp. of the oil in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy, lidded pot over medium-high heat. Cook the meat until deeply browned on all sides. Remove the meat from the pot and set aside. 

Add the remaining 2 tbsp. of oil to the Dutch oven and add the onions. Cook over medium heat until tender and golden brown. Add the lamb back to the pot along with ¼ tsp. black pepper, tomato, cumin, cardamom, and ½ cup of water. Put the lid on the pot, and cook at a gentle simmer over low heat until the lamb is tender. Check the lamb every 15 minutes or so and add water, ¼ cup at a time, if there is not much liquid in the pot. Once the lamb is very tender, add the rhubarb, tucking it in between the pieces of lamb. Put the lid back on and cook until the rhubarb is tender (10 to 20 minutes depending on the thickness of the stalks) but not losing its shape. Sprinkle the cilantro over the top and serve with challaw or steamed basmati rice.

Serving 4

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

AFGHAN PIZZA WITH NAN DOUGH

By Katie

If you are “in the know” about food then you’ve probably heard of Mozza, Mario Batali’s Los Angeles pizza outpost, or Little Star, San Francisco’s answer to deep dish deliciousness. But what about Gandomak , or Everest or even Pizza Express? Ring a bell?

Probably not. That’s because you have to cross the Atlas Mountains to get to them. They’re in Kabul, Afghanistan, a city where pizza is apparently all the rage. Who knew? I’m particularly tickled by a place called AFC, that’s short for Afghan Fried Chicken. Unlike its American fast food counterpart, AFC has a reputation for a pretty decent slice. Or so I hear.

Since we like to stay on top of the trends, we thought we’d create our own Afghan pizza. Building on the Afghan flat bread (nan) Humaira posted last week, I’ve developed a couple of recipes that bring together the flavors of Afghan cooking with everything that’s good about pizza. Consider it the newest in fusion cuisine: Afghan-Ital.

The first pizza features a pesto using a classic Afghan combination: scallions, cilantro and lemon juice. This is spread over a thin layer of quroot, which is dried yogurt that has been reconstituted in water. It’s very hard to find so the recipe suggests substituting a mixture of feta and yogurt to achieve the rich tanginess of quroot.

The second pie was inspired by a recipe for Turkish pizza I got years ago from cookbook author Joanne Weir. I’ve tinkered with the seasonings, using paprika and coriander in place of cinnamon, allspice and cloves. Feel free to make your own pizza dough in place of the nan, or use store-bought (we won’t tell). Then, the next time you visit a pizzeria in Kabul, you’ll feel right at home.

Afghan Pesto Pizza

This makes enough pesto for one 12-inch pie. You can double or triple the recipe.

1 bunch scallions, white and light greens parts only

1 cup loosely packed cilantro (stems ok, too)

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

2 tbsp. olive oil

Big pinch salt

2 tbsp. quroot *

3 ounces fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

1/3 of the nan dough (recipe in the post below), or favorite pizza dough

Heat oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, set it in the oven to heat up.

Put the scallions, cilantro, lemon juice, olive oil and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process until it becomes a smooth, thick paste. If you don’t have a food processor you can do this using a mortar and pestle.

Shape your nan or pizza dough into a thin, 12-inch round pie. Set the dough on a baking sheet or a pizza paddle that is lightly dusted with cornmeal. Spread the quroot (or feta/yogurt mixture) evenly over the dough. Next, spread the pesto on top of the quroot. Distribute the mozzarella evenly over the dough. Put the pizza in the oven either on the pizza stone or baking sheet. Bake until the crust is a deep golden brown, about 10 minutes.

·Quroot is a thick, yogurt-like ingredient that is tricky to find. You can simply leave it out or substitute 1 oz. feta cheese mixed thoroughly with 1 tbsp. plain yogurt.

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Afghan Pizza with Lamb Kofta

This makes enough for one 12-inch pizza. The recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

1 tbsp. olive oil

½ medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ lb. ground lamb (or beef)

1/4 cup peeled, seeded, diced tomato (canned or fresh)

1 tbsp. tomato paste

¼ tsp. Kosher salt

½ tsp. paprika

½ tsp. ground coriander

¼ tsp. ground black pepper

1 pinch red pepper flakes

1/3 of the nan dough (recipe in the post below), or favorite pizza dough

2 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced

1 ½ oz. feta cheese

Heat oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, set it in the oven to heat up.

Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté another minute or two. Add the lamb, tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, paprika, coriander, black pepper and pepper flakes to the pan. Cook for another 15 minutes, breaking up that lamb and stirring from time to time.

Shape your nan or pizza dough into a thin, 12-inch round pie. Set the dough on a baking sheet or a pizza paddle that is lightly dusted with cornmeal. Distribute the lamb evenly over the dough. Lay the mozzarella over the lamb and then sprinkle with the feta cheese. Put the pizza in the oven either on the pizza stone or the baking sheet. Bake until the crust is a deep golden brown, about 10 minutes.

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