Week 21 - Stone Fruit

I'm not the biggest fan of mixing fruit with savory dishes, but I was hoping to find something for this challenge week that wouldn't be too sweet. It wasn't really stone fruit season here when I did this challenge, so I decided to go with some preserves. We had apricot preserves left over from Easter when A made hot cross buns, so I went with apricot chicken, based on a recipe I found on Savory Nothings.

The first step was to brown the chicken and then add onions. This step unexpectedly took a while, and the chicken got a little overdone, because apparently this chicken was super watery, maybe because it was super huge. I think we got it from BJ's, where the four chicken breasts were over five pounds, and maybe the biggest I had ever seen. But once the chicken finally browned, it was time to deglaze with some orange juice, add a cup of apricot jam (had just enough left), a couple tbsp of soy sauce and BBQ sauce, and a tbsp of honey, reduce the sauce, and then top everything with scallions.

We thought this was really good. I could taste the sweetness of the apricot, but it wasn't cloyingly sweet. instead nicely balanced by the other ingredients. It was also not as sticky as I thought it would be. B didn't eat any of it (the whole sauce thing again), but we liked it. It reminded us of the sauce for sweet and sour chicken. I'm not as into sweet sauces, so we might not do it again, but it was good for the challenge

Week 47 - Macanese

We've been to Macau once. It was a one-day excursion over 17 years ago during a trip to Hong Kong, and I don't remember much. (Of course, I was behind on recapping anything back then too, so I never got up to it and now most of those memories are gone.) I remember taking the ferry there, trying to go to a casino just to look around (Vegas-style) and having our water confiscated and then not staying long anyway, a lot of walking around and difficulty getting taxis, having more luck understanding things in Portuguese than Chinese, and having some traditional Macanese dishes for lunch.

Years ago with everything under construction ... It looks so different now

I have vague memories of what we ate (the photos help with that), but only one dish name persisted in my memory - minchi. (I know now that the others were some assorted fritters and African chicken, but that took some researching.) It seemed like an easy choice to make minchi for this challenge in honor of that trip. I couldn't remember exactly what it tasted like, but I was hopeful that following a recipe (like this one from What to Cook Today) might awaken some long-buried memories.

Minchi is a simple dish of ground meat and potatoes, often eaten with rice and topped with a fried egg. With B's allergy, we were definitely skipping the fried egg, but the rest of it looked doable. I substituted Impossible Burger for the ground beef, but otherwise generally followed the recipe, hoping that it would reawaken those memories. The first step was to air-fry the potatoes, then to cook onion and garlic in a skillet, add bay leaves and ground meat, add cumin and all the other seasonings (soy sauce, Worcestershire, brown sugar, and white pepper), and then when everything is cooked, add in the fried potatoes.

The dish looked fairly similar to our photo of minchi from Macau (other than the egg on top of that one), but did it taste the same? I don't know if I can say it's exactly like that one since it's been too many years, but it was close enough to taste somewhat familiar, which was good enough for me. It also just tasted really good, whether or not it was the same dish, so we were happy with dinner. B wasn't that into it, but he's kind of anti-sauce at the moment, so not that surprising. Very glad the challenge had a Macanese week so we could explore this, and would absolutely make this again.

Week 49 - Modernist

Back in 2014, the first year I (unofficially) did the 52 week cooking challenge, one of the themes came up as molecular. It was one of the few challenges that year that I skipped (more here), since I didn't want to buy any new ingredients or equipment that I was probably not going to use again, and I also just couldn't find anything I wanted to make. Fast-forward to 2022, and my philosophy about it hasn't really changed, but now I actually had to do the modernist challenge if I wanted to complete the challenge for the year. What was I going to make?! Thankfully, someone linked recipes from the Modernist Cuisine site/cookbook, and there were a couple there that piqued my interest.

One thing I hadn't realized until scrolling through those recipes was that food made in microwave could also fall under the umbrella of modernist cooking. That made a huge difference in getting this challenge done! We've made fish before in the microwave, so I didn't want to do that again, but I was very intrigued by their recipe for a microwaved eggplant parmesan. 

The ingredients for this challenge were:

- eggplant, about 1 lb

- olive oil

- garlic marinara sauce

- ricotta cheese

- mozzarella cheese rounds

- 1/2 cup torn basil leaves

- grated parmigiano reggiano

- panko breadcrumbs

We ate some tomato parmesan focaccia from Trader Joe's on the side (was hoping for more olive fugasse but they had none). I intended to price this out, since I was curious about how much these challenge meals were adding up to considering the increased price of groceries, but it's been over three months now, and that's just too much work to figure out.

I was actually impressed by how this turned out and how simple it was to make in the microwave. The first steps of microwaving the eggplant were easy, and it really did end up with very tender slices. The only issue with our eggplant was that it wasn't "strong" enough to hold the rest of the ingredients in the stack, but I had to use baby eggplant because all the larger eggplant at two different stores that day looked terrible. So instead of one large circle wherever eggplant was required, I had two or three smaller pieces instead. Still turned out okay!

As far as flavor, we thought it reminded us a little more of lasagna than eggplant parmesan, but that could be because the ricotta was a pretty dominant flavor and the eggplant got a little bit lost since the pieces were so small. Either way, it was delicious. Would I make it again? Not sure. It was pretty simple to make, and it did taste good, but I haven't made eggplant parmesan the "regular" way, so I don't know yet which way we like better.

Week 51 - Georgian

When I think of Georgian food, the dish that immediately comes to mind is khachapuri. We've never been to a Georgian restaurant to try it since we've often seen egg included in the middle of the boat with the cheese, but in researching dishes for this challenge, I learned that there are actually multiple variations of khachapuri! I guess it's just the general name for Georgian cheese-filled bread (learn something new every day). The one we're most familiar with (the cheese boat one) is adjaruli khachapuri, but I found another type - imeruli khachapuri - that, based on recipes, didn't have to include egg. I did check out a bunch of other dishes, but kept coming back to this. After all, khachapuri is Georgia's national dish, so a logical first choice to start our exploration of the country's cuisine.

I looked at three different sites to see how they made imeruli khachapuri (1, 2, 3), and from there, came up with an adaptation of it which I hoped would work. Having never eaten it before, I have no idea how close it is to the real thing. The ingredients I used were:

- 300g all-purpose flour

- 150g oat milk (lukewarm)

- water (added little by little)

- 6g instant yeast

- 6g salt

- 16 oz shredded mozzarella

- 2 flax eggs

- 2 tbsp melted butter

To make the dough, the flour, milk. and yeast were mixed together, with water added little by little, and then salt at the end. After kneading the dough for a while, I let it rest for about 2 hours. I was aiming for more but I got a little sidetracked by watching the Netherlands-Argentina World Cup match and started far later than I planned. Well, that and the time spent trying to figure out if our yeast was still alive. We bought it back during the bread-baking stage of the pandemic and froze it, taking it out a little at a time, but this batch was in the fridge for a while and I wasn't sure if it would work. (Thankfully it did, but that was another 10 minutes' delay.)

I was a little concerned when I pulled the dough out after it rested, because it did expand a little in size but nowhere near as much as I was expecting it to. I split it in two pieces, rolled them out, and then made the cheese mixture to go inside. This is where most people seemed to add eggs, so I added a couple of flax eggs to help bind the mixture together. I was going to do a mix of half mozzarella and half feta, since that seemed to be the recommendation if you couldn't get actual Georgian cheese, but our feta didn't smell so great anymore, leaving us with just mozzarella inside. We didn't have any other cheese at home besides shredded Mexican cheese or jalapeño goat cheese, so didn't have much choice.

Rolling out the dough with the cheese inside was easier than I thought it would be, although I did get some holes in the dough from overstuffing it. After the first one burst in two spots, I put less cheese in the second one, but the same thing happened again (but smaller holes). I baked them at 375 degrees for about 17 minutes, and then after they came out, brushed them with butter and let them sit on the pan for a bit longer while I cooked other things.

I didn't have high hopes for this after the dough not rising much, not having the feta cheese, and all the leaking cheese on the baking sheet, but we thought they came out really well! The dough had a good chew to it, and it was fluffier than I was expecting. The cheese tasted good, but it really was missing that saltiness and brininess from the feta.

Week 9 - Thai

So behind on catching up from last year's challenge! I've already made Week 9's dish for this year, so I really need to get going!

The Week 9 challenge was Thai, one of our favorite cuisines but one that we haven't had as often in recent years. Although I made larb gai back in 2017 when the challenge theme was also Thai, and in 2015 when the challenge theme was ground meat, it had been so long since I'd made it that I thought it was time to try it again. I used the same recipe from Eating Thai Food, and it was just as good as I remembered. I always forget that I can make this at home, and that I should do it more often.

Our adapted version of the larb recipe consisted of ground meat (used chicken here), roasted rice powder, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, shallots, red onion, scallions, mint, and cilantro. Usually, there would also be Thai chili flakes, which I've used in the past, but we skipped that here in the hopes that B would eat it (but I can't remember if he did). Larb just makes me so happy, so I was very glad to make it again.

Since I had made larb before for two other (unofficial) challenges, I wanted to add on something else to make this Thai night different - mango sticky rice! Larb is one of my favorite savory Thai dishes, and mango sticky rice is one of my favorite desserts, so they were a good match. It's been over a year now since we made this, so I don't remember any specific recipe that we followed, or if we mostly went from our memories of what mango sticky rice should taste like.

For mango sticky rice, you need a nice, ripe, sweet mango (and we had a perfect Ataulfo one ready for it). The other main components are glutinous rice and a coconut sauce, made from heated coconut milk with sugar dissolved in it. The hardest part of this was making the glutinous rice because we didn't really have a perfect steamer for it. I guess we could have put the rice on parchment paper in our regular steamer, but instead we tried a method I found online from She Simmers, where you put the rice on a splatter guard over boiling water, cover it with a metal bowl, and steam it. It worked far better than we expected. Whenever we get good mangoes, we may have to make this again, since it's such a great dessert. Very happy with our Thai night!

Gandana Bolani

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I love, love, love garlic chives. In reading the Parwana cookbook, I learned that in Afghanistan, there is a type of leek called gandana that is often used as a filling for bolani, and that outside Afghanistan, it's often substituted with garlic chives (similar taste and texture). That sounded delicious. I had made bolani once before for the 52 week cooking challenge, and since we already revisited one dish for the AtWCC from this cookbook, why not do another (and another and another)? In addition to the gandana bolani, I also decided to do kachaloo bolani, which was bolani stuffed with potato.

The first step for bolani was to make the dough. This version consisted of flour, yeast, water, oil, and salt. This was different from the last version which was not a yeast dough. After proofing twice, the dough is rolled out into circles, then filled and sealed. Unlike the last time, where I got mostly strips and ovals, I did get a few circles this time and other almost-circles or shapes that somewhat resembled circles. I guess over that two year span, I got a little bit better at that.

For the filling last time, I made mashed potatoes and mixed them with scallions, spinach, and seasonings. For the potato one this time, I added onions (from the recipe) and scallions (because I had extra), and I will confess that I used instant mashed potatoes. There was enough to do with the dough rolling and making two fillings that I just didn't think I had the time to peel and mash potatoes too. (I was right.) The filling was fine with instant. Instant mashed potatoes are so underrated.

The chive filling was the one I was most excited about. It called for 2 cups of finely chopped garlic chives, along with a bunch of cilantro, scallions, onion, and seasonings, so lots of chopping, lots of time-consuming prep. This filling was fantastic, even eaten alone by the spoonful, so I was at least relieved that even if the bolani didn't turn out that well, the filling would be good. Our bunch of garlic chives was gigantic (wish I had taken an ingredients picture, but I was short on time and space), but it was far more than 2 cups of garlic chives. I guess I should have found a second recipe to use them in, but instead I used them all here. The leftover filling was amazing mixed into oatmeal for breakfast. I could eat that all the time if I had a daily-replenishing bowl of chive filling.

The last time I made bolani, I baked them, but this time, they went into the air fryer. That process took a little longer since the air fryer could only fit two or three at a time, but I think we liked the results better. The last time, the outside was crispy like a cracker, and everything was kind of bland, which was not the case here. It still didn't look like a thin flatbread, but it was just like eating a stuffed bread roll. The potato filling here was also a little on the blander side, but the chives one was wonderful. I have no idea how the bolani in the recipe photo (or what we had at the restaurant) were so flat while ours were huge, but at least these were tasty.

The last component was a chutney for dipping. A few days before I made these, Eater had published an article about bolani (talk about timing). In it, they profiled a refugee in Albania (funny coincidence, we were in the Albania part of the AtWCC as well when we made this) who started an Afghan restaurant that served bolani. I didn't want to make two days of bolani, so I decided to try the chutney recipe from the article even if I didn't make the bolani itself. The chutney was a blend of tomatoes, jalapeño, garlic, vinegar, salt, and sugar.

Usually, we would try to tone down the spice of these dishes for B, but he hadn't been very into dipping or sauces, so we just made it the same way but with one jalapeño instead of two and removing all the seeds. We were right in our prediction, and he had no interest in the chutney, but we really liked it. It was such a good match for the bolani. It reminded us a little bit of the salad dressing at our favorite Yemeni spot which we have always loved, and now we have the recipe for something close to that!

Even though they didn't turn out looking like the photo, we deemed our second Parwana experiment a success, and couldn't wait to see what else was in the cookbook!

Parwana

I've mentioned the Parwana cookbook here before, and besides the pizza, it was a big reason why we revisited our exploration of Afghan cuisine. The cookbook existed back when we cooked the first time in 2020, but somehow, in all my googling, I never found out about it until early 2022. I usually like including recipes from a cookbook in the challenge when I can, so it didn't feel right to leave it out just because I didn't find it in time. Looking through the cookbook, I found a recipe for a meat kofta sauce which accompanies aushak, and it sounded remarkably similar to the one we had tried at Ariana. I wondered, even though that was meant to go with the aushak, if I put it over noodles, would that actually get a little closer to what we remembered about aushe burida?

The first thing I noticed about the Parwana recipe was that the meat sauce included chana dal, a component that I remembered from Ariana but didn't have in our previous version. It also included pureed tomatoes, onion, garlic, ground lamb (which I substituted with Impossible), turmeric, curry powder, crushed coriander seeds (I used ground), tomato paste, and white vinegar. The spices were a little different from the first time, but the general flavor profile was very similar.

The third component to the dish, after the noodles and the meat sauce, was the yogurt topping. I had forgotten when I made this that the Ariana description specifically included mint in the yogurt sauce, so I decided to try out a yogurt dressing in the Parwana cookbook that just consisted of plain yogurt and garlic powder. This came from a recipe for aush, a thick soup with hand-rolled, knife-cut noodles and seasonal vegetables. That also reminded me a lot of the dish from Ariana since it included the noodles, the same meat kofta sauce, and the yogurt dressing, but it was in more of a soup form with additional vegetables. Could it be that this dish is more common in this form, and maybe that's why I couldn't find any recipes for the dish we got at Ariana itself? B doesn't really eat soup still, so I stuck with just trying to replicate the noodle dish by itself, but I was certainly intrigued by the (possible) connection.

The sauce was wonderful. At the time we had this, it had been even more years since we had the original dish, so it was even harder to compare, but we were very happy with this kofta sauce over some fettuccine (because I still didn't have time or space to add on a pasta-making project to this one). The yogurt sauce didn't add as much as the last one with the fresh garlic and the mint, so I think in the future, we'll probably mesh the two recipes together and make the meat kofta sauce from here plus the yogurt sauce that we had before. Whether or not that's authentic, and even close to what we tried originally that made us fall in love with this sauce, we're happy with what we have now!

Week 8 - Flu Remedies

They just announced Week 8 of the 2023 challenge, so I better start getting these 2022 posts done...

Khichdi is one of those comforting dishes, kind of like congee, that are so soothing when you're sick. I am so slow at recapping that I made this almost a year ago now, and as a result, my memories, other than what I wrote in our cookbook, are a little hazy. One of my resolutions this year is to be better about these recaps and catching up, because otherwise I won't remember what I liked and how I made it! (Note: I wrote that in the beginning of January, and I have been better about this year's posts but just haven't put them up yet.\ because I'm not done with 2022!)

I found this recipe for dal khichdi on Indian Healthy Recipes, and liked that it was a quick Instant Pot recipe. The ingredient list was long, including rice, moong dal, lots of spices and seasonings, and vegetables (tomato, green beans, potatoes, and spinach for us). We had most things in the pantry already, just not the moong dal and the asafoetida (I had recently gotten rid of our old one, since we bought it in London back in 2015), so it was also a convenient meal to make.

Gathering the ingredients and measuring things was probably the hardest part of this recipe, and even that wasn't very difficult. For prep, the rice and dal soaked for a little bit, the only thing I had to chop was an onion since I used a bunch of cans, and then it was just measuring things out. Ingredients got added to the Instant Pot a little at a time while sautéing, and then once the water went in, that was it. Set the Instant Pot to go, let it cook on high pressure for about 8 minutes, release, and done. I love easy meals like that.

The khichdi was really warming, comforting, and tasty. It was also great timing for this challenge, as I was actually sick when I made this. Seemed to help!

Afghan Pesto Pizza

A few days after the kofta pizza, it was time for our second Afghan pizza! I used the same recipe page from Afghan Culture Unveiled, this time for the pesto pizza. I hadn't been sure originally if I was going to make both or just the kofta one, but we had a bunch of cilantro laying around, which was a main ingredient in this pesto, so it made a lot of sense to make this too.

Instead of making my own pizza dough or even using a ball of pre-made pizza dough, this time I opted for some prepared pizza crusts from Trader Joe's. That saved a lot of time and effort, since I didn't even have to let the dough sit or roll it out. I had never tried these before, and they barely fit into our reusable bags and our fridge, but now having tried them, I am a fan since they are incredibly convenient.

The pesto consisted of a bunch of scallions, a lot of cilantro, fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. In the 1.5-year span since we first did our Afghan food exploration, we became proud owners of an immersion blender, which was perfect for making this (and which I probably would use in the future if we were making something like the shor nakhod again).

The last component (besides the cheese topping) was a combination of yogurt and feta cheese designed to mimic quroot, since I had no idea where to find that and the recipe recommended this combo as a substitute.

The yogurt sauce went on top of the crust, followed by the pesto, and then the whole pizza was topped with mozzarella cheese. Everything together was amazing. I was so impressed by the combination that I knew immediately that I would want to make this again sometime. The pesto just had so much flavor, and it was different from any other pizza or flatbread we'd had before. Although we were eating a lot of pizza in a very short time, I was glad that we had expanded the AtWCC to add a pizza for each place, because we had already had two great pizzas!

Kofta Pizza

At the end of the last post, I mentioned rounding out our exploration of Afghan cuisine and moving on to Alabama, so it would be logical if you thought the next post in this series was going to be either a summary of our Afghan journey or our first Alabama dish. Surprise! It's another post about Afghan cuisine here.

As the AtWCC has progressed over the past few years, it's evolved in so many ways. We broadened our "walk around the world" to include countries out of order (mostly thanks to the 52 week cooking challenge, but also other things). I originally was only going to do a few dishes for each country, since it's impossible to cover everything from everywhere, but then decided to keep going until it felt "done," like we'd had a good sampling of different types of offerings.

The most recent evolution of the challenge was to include a pizza for every location. I had already been aiming to spotlight bread for each location (whether making it myself or just focusing on bread, now that the bread-baking height of the pandemic has passed), but considering one of B's favorite foods is pizza, that seemed like the next logical addition. Pizza or flatbreads or similar foods exist in so many places, but even where they don't, making a pizza with ingredients celebrating a particular locale seemed like it would work. Not a great addition for my cholesterol or triglycerides, especially since the whole wheat pizza dough at Trader Joe's seems to have been discontinued, but definitely a fun exploration.

Since the pizza idea didn't arise until spring 2022, and we were already working our way through Albania at that point, that meant going back to the places we "finished" to make some "catch-up" pizzas. The first place we returned was where we started, Afghanistan, but we didn't only return to make pizzas. Earlier in 2022, I learned about a cookbook called Parwana, full of Afghan history, culture, and family stories, written by a family that runs restaurants in Australia. I'm not sure how I didn't find it before in all my googling for Afghan cookbooks, but alas, I did not. I was so intrigued by so many recipes there that I started making those alongside all the rest of our AtWCC projects. With all those additional meals to make, it did feel sometimes like we would never be done with the As, but it's been so worth it. More on the Parwana recipes in future posts.

Back to the pizza. One of the blogs about Afghanistan culture and food that I really enjoyed during the first part of our journey was Afghan Culture Unveiled, and sure enough, they had some ideas for pizzas right there! There was a pesto one and a kofta one, and I decided to go for the kofta one first. The first step was making the meat sauce. The recipe used lamb, but I went for beefless beef, which was combined with onion, garlic, tomato, tomato paste, salt, pepper, paprika, and ground coriander. On top of the meat sauce went some rounds of mozzarella and sprinkles of feta.

This pizza was a great way to kick off our AtWCC pizzas! The sauce was delicious on its own, and it made for a good base for the cheese. I think if I made it again, I would just use shredded mozzarella instead of the rounds so it would be spread and melted more evenly, but that's about it. It reminded me a bit of a lasagna pizza with a meat sauce on the bottom topped with cheese. Despite pizza being one of his favorite foods, B actually didn't eat much of the pizza, but that might have been my fault for giving him too many mozzarella rounds and crumbles of feta before dinner. We ate this with a salad on the side, and it was a wonderful pizza night!

Kabuli Pulao

I had put together an entire list of recipes I wanted to try to make for the Afghanistan portion of AtWCC, but there was one conspicuous absence from the list - kabuli pulao, Afghanistan's national dish. Most of the recipes I had come across for kabuli pulao at that point seemed so complicated, and the last thing I needed was to attempt a recipe that was going to literally take all day. It just didn't seem right, though, to explore Afghanistan's cuisine without making the national dish, especially since it was something we could actually make and eat (i.e., not something with eggs or deep-fried or requiring red meat). I went back and searched some more, and I found what seemed like a doable recipe for kabuli pulao on International Cuisine, so that became the final piece of our exploration of Afghan cuisine.

The ingredients for our version of kabuli pulao (switching the meat to chicken and leaving out the apricots) were:

- 1 cup basmati rice

- 3-4 medium carrots

- 1 large boneless skinless chicken breast (about 0.75 lbs)

- 1-2 tbsp olive oil

- about 1 tbsp cumin

- 4 cardamom pods

- 2 cinnamon sticks

- 1 small box of raisins

- 2 small pinches of saffron threads

- salt and freshly ground black pepper

- 2 tbsp sugar

I intended to follow the recipe closely (since we've made a similar dish, plov, before, which has not always been the most flavorful), but my slowness moving around the limited space in the kitchen, trying to balance this with making naan from scratch, and things on the stove cooking faster than expected led to some unplanned modifications. The steps we followed were:

1. Wash rice and soak for 20 minutes. Drain and cook according to package instructions, but cut the time in half (and then drain and set aside if necessary).

[I added the amount of water the package said to, and cooked it for about 12-13 minutes instead of their recommended 20 (got sidetracked working on other prep). When I opened the pot, the rice had absorbed all the water, and it was fully-cooked instead of being half-boiled rice. As a result, I could skip the steps of draining it and setting it aside, and I didn't have to time the final simmering.]

2. Prep work - peel and grate carrots, cut chicken.

[I seriously estimated wrong for timing on this step, because I forgot just how long it takes to grate carrots!]

3. In a large skillet over medium heat, add the olive oil, and then cook the chicken until golden brown.

[The next step after this was supposed to be adding a cup of water and some salt, and letting it simmer until the meat became tender, but I was already being splashed with hot oil when I stirred the chicken and had no desire for it to become worse. Also, chicken is already more tender than lamb, so a long, tenderizing simmer wasn't as necessary. Plus, it was so much later in the night than I was expecting when I got to this point, so I didn't feel like doing that.]

4. Add the carrots, raisins, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon sticks, salt, and pepper. Stir well. Add about 1/2 cup of water, cover, and cook for a few minutes.

[The cumin was supposed to be added with the rice while it cooked, but I forgot. I added about 2 tsp here and more in the next step.]

5. Add the rice and saffron, and stir well. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

[This was where I added some more cumin and also some black pepper.]

6. Heat the sugar in a small pan over low heat until it melts, and then add 1/2 cup of water, and mix well. During this process, add (regular) water (not the water from the first sentence) a couple tbsp at a time to the rice mixture in the skillet if it's starting to stick.

[I added water a lot, at least 5-6 times, probably more. It kept sticking to the bottom of the skillet, but at least the browned bits added flavor. This step took much longer than expected, and if I were to do this again, I would start this much, much earlier. I had never melted sugar before, so when it wasn't working, I looked it up where it said it could take as long as 5 minutes, so I went to work on the naan dough, and before I knew it, it had burned, so we had to do it again. This time, it seemed to refuse to melt so we added the water early and then mixed it up. Seemed fine.]

7. Add the sugar mixture to the rice and stir well. Cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes to let the flavors meld.

[I didn't actually count the minutes, but just left it there until the naan was done.]

We really liked this! In contrast to some of the plov I've made before, this one just had so much more flavor, maybe due to the whole spices used or the saffron threads. Outside of grating the carrots and figuring out the sugar pan, none of the steps were especially time-consuming, so I could see this being something we make again (although maybe not with from-scratch bread-making at the same time). Very happy that this was how we rounded out our exploration of Afghan cuisine!

Afghan Naan Take Two

I don't remember how I got there, but in looking at Afghan recipes, I ended up on one for naan on My Ginger Garlic Kitchen. I had already made naan during our Afghan food exploration, but since it didn't come out that similar to the one we liked at our favorite Ariana, and the one on this site looked much closer, I figured, why not give it another try? At the time, we had one last meal scheduled for the Afghan part of the challenge (the kabuli pulao in the next post), so I decided to make the naan to accompany it.

The ingredients for this bread were very similar to the last one, just in different amounts:

- 3 cups + 1 tbsp flour

- 1 tsp salt

- 2.25 tsp yeast

- 1 tsp sugar

- 2 tbsp olive oil

- about 1 tbsp butter

- 1 cup + a few tbsp warm water

I had intended to do a cost comparison of the two, but over two years later, that's not going to happen, because I have no idea where my old pricing list is and I can't look up any current prices with all the inflation that has happened since then.

I followed the recipe fairly closely to make the naan, and the steps were:

1. In a small bowl, combine 1 cup of warm water, yeast, and sugar. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. (It should look foamy.)

2. In a large bowl, combine 3 cups of flour, salt, and olive oil. Mix well.

3. Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture, and mix well.

4. Knead for about 5 minutes until one big dough ball that's not too sticky.

5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, and let sit for about 2 hours for the dough to double in size (or close to it).

6. Gently punch down the dough after the proofing time.

7. Preheat oven to 400 degrees while rolling out the dough.

8. Divide dough into two balls. [See below about a possible step before this one.]

9. Create a mixture with the remaining flour and water, and apply it to your hands.

10. Using your hands, flatten out the dough balls into ovals about 1/4 inch thick. Use a fork to make patterns and lines.

11. Bake until browned, about 10 minutes. Melt butter while baking.

12. Brush with butter, cut into pieces, and place on a plate under a foil tent to keep warm and soft.

The results of this naan experiment were puzzling. The first ball rolled out so much better, but then didn't rise. The second ball had holes everywhere when I tried to roll it out, so I ended up rolling it back up into a ball, kneading it a little more, and then trying again. I couldn't get it as thin as the recipe suggested, but sort of gave up, but that one turned out better and actually rose.

When I went back to the recipe page and watched the demonstration video (which I probably should have done before I made it), I noticed that nowhere in the instructions did it say to knead the dough again between punching it down, dividing it, and rolling it into a ball, but in the video, there was another kneading step. I ended up kneading the second ball again because of my poor rolling, so was that why it turned out better? I'm not experienced enough at bread baking to know, so if anyone has any ideas on why they turned out differently, I'm all ears (or, I guess, eyes).

From the picture, I really thought this one was going to turn out more like the Afghan bread we were used to getting at restaurants, but it was fairly similar to the other one we made (well, at least the second oval that actually rose was). Both were soft and fluffy, but the other one seemed a little more consistently fluffy and would probably be the one we'd go back to again since it turned out more successfully in our kitchen.

Cotechino con Lenticchie

In our year in review for last year, I mentioned that we've done a lot of hoppin' John and collard greens for New Year's Day, but that this year we wanted to try something different. The plan was cotechino con lenticchie, the traditional Italian New Year's dish of pork sausage with lentils, maybe with some collard greens on the side for extra vegetables (although the side dish didn't end up happening). Pork and lentils are both supposed to be good luck ingredients, which is why they often feature in New Year's recipes.

I looked at two recipes when putting together our dinner plan: one from Spruce Eats and one from Not Quite Nigella, and combined them along with elements from the many YouTube recipes I watched. Cotechino is the star of the dish, a Northern Italian sausage, but I had no idea where to get it (and not much time to look), so I just went with sweet Italian pork sausage, a substitute I did see in some recipes. The sausage is simmered in broth until done (about 40-45 minutes) and then sliced up. I saw that some people gave it a quick saute in a pan afterwards, so I did that too. I also pulled off the casings post-boiling, which I think was a good move texturally. I saved the broth (straining out all the fat) to cook the lentils.

For the lentils, I soaked them while I was preparing everything else, so they cooked really fast since I am so slow at prep. Before the lentils themselves went into the pot, I added onions, celery, carrots, garlic, sage, and tomato paste (one at a time, in steps), and then once ready added the lentils with the broth, topped up with another cup or two of water to fully cook the lentils. Once they were done, the sausage was put on top, and some parsley sprinkled for garnish.

This was a tasty dish. The lentils didn't have any seasoning besides the broth (a little distracted that night), but still had a fair amount of flavor (would have been better with some salt, pepper, and other stuff added, but too late once realized). Combined with the sausage, it was pretty good together.

While the plan was to eat this for dinner on New Year's Day, it ended up being a rushed dinner on the 2nd of the year. Unfortunately, B was sick all through New Year's, and on the 1st of the year, we were monitoring the severity of his symptoms, and it just got too late in the night to make it. I started cooking earlier on the 2nd even though his symptoms were worse, and finished making dinner shortly before we made the call to go to the hospital. So, I did fully make the dish, we did try it, and it was tasty, but I will probably never schedule it for New Year's (or possibly ever) again given all the surrounding circumstances that I do not want to repeat.

Qorma-e-Sabzi

The last component of our Afghan dinner, accompanying the chapli kebab and the naan and tomatoes, was qorma-e-sabzi, a slow-cooked, stewed spinach. I had been trying hard, despite the pandemic, to make sure we got enough vegetables in our diet, and a bowl of tomatoes just didn't feel like it would be enough to offset all that "meat" and bread. I wasn't sure how B would like it, since it's a little harder to eat spinach with your hands or rudimentary fork skills (wrote this post in 2020 too...), but at least it would be good for the adults. I liked the recipe I found on Mom's Kitchen Handbook because it looked simple and because it could be made in a pot without any extra equipment like a slow cooker.

The ingredients for our adapted version were:

- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)
- 1/2 of a big bunch of scallions ($0.64)
- 1/2 of a small bunch of cilantro ($1)
- 1 bag frozen spinach ($1.49)
- 1 tbsp dried dill ($0.10)
- 2 tsp ground coriander ($0.25)
- a couple dashes of cayenne pepper ($0.03)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)
- about 1.5 tbsp lemon juice ($0.29)
- water ($0)

The total amount of the spinach recipe was approximately $4.03, which when added to the other components (chapli kebab - $11.72, naan - $1.97, and a box of grape tomatoes - $2.69), resulted in a grand total of $20.41.

The recipe said that prep time would take 4 minutes and cook time 36 minutes, so it seemed like a simple enough recipe. I know I take a long time with prep, possibly longer than most amateur cooks, but I don't understand how 4 minutes is enough time to wash scallions, chop scallions, wash cilantro, pull cilantro leaves off the stems, and chop the cilantro, even for an experienced chef. What am I missing in terms of technique? We didn't even have the scallions and cilantro washed in 4 minutes. Anyway, the steps for our version of the spinach were:

1. Prep - chop scallions and cilantro.

2. Heat olive oil in a pot over medium heat. [I used too big of a pot for one bag of spinach. Learn from my mistake!]

3. Add the scallions, and cook for a few minutes until softened.

4. Add the frozen spinach, and let it cook until you can break up all the frozen chunks.

5. Add the dill, coriander, cayenne, and about 1/4 cup of water. Stir together and cook for 20 minutes on medium low heat. Keep stirring regularly, and add water, a tbsp or so at a time, to keep it from drying out. [This worked well until my focus shifted to rolling out the naan, and the spinach dried out a little while it was neglected. Didn't seem to hurt it that much though.]

6. Add the cilantro, salt, pepper, and lemon juice, stir, and let cook for another 10 minutes.

The recipe was fairly straightforward and simple, other than the need to keep monitoring the spinach to make sure it didn't dry out. It seems like a good recipe to make if you're actively cooking something else on the stove for that half-hour and can just give it a good stir and water replenishment every so often. That said, for a spinach side dish, the prep time for us with the scallions and cilantro (really, the cilantro more than anything) took too long to make this very often. I did like the flavors a lot, and it was delicious with the naan. But as predicted, B was not much of a fan, and got a little frustrated by it even after we helped him eat some of it. Maybe we'll revisit this when he's a little bit older because the flavors are great. (2023 note: Spinach is one of the few green vegetables B eats now, but only contained in other things, like spinach pie.) Maybe we'll also be faster at prepping cilantro by then (but probably not).