Dear Friends,
My family and I are in Medina Al-Munawwarah, breathing in the kindness and light of this city. Alhamdulillah. There isn’t much that can be said about the two Sacred Mosques. All you can do is be awed, humbled, and pray to your heart’s content. This evening we go to Makkah for Umrah, InshAllah.
You’re all in my duas,
Taiyyaba
(Coincidentally, also my 100 blogpost anniversary. Great way to celebrate!)
Oh dear. I’ve neglected you, my dear blogpost. I’m so sorry. It’s just that, I haven’t been cooking much and I’ve been too tired to think and philosophize and actually write it down. I’ll try harder to keep up with you, I promise.
For the next three weeks, though, I’ll be traveling, so I won’t be able to update you. (See? I’ve been busy packing too! I can’t cook when I’ll be leaving for three weeks!) Think of it as a vacation for you. When I come back, I’ll have so many stories and pictures to share with you of visiting family in Pakistan and Syria and making Umrah and visiting Medina, InshAllah. Don’t worry!
Get some rest, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t miss me too much!
Love,
Taiyyaba
Okay, so it doesn’t *look* all that pretty, but it tastes great.
We go through a lot of rice at my house. I think my Irish-German-Syrian husband has a bit of Asian in him, because the man will not eat bread except at breakfast. There must always be rice, and plenty of it. Rice, however, can get old and stale….or just a bit boring if it’s plain boiled rice.
My mom and I have a “never throw out anything unless it’s gone bad” compulsion, so I have this really simple way of jazzing up a-few-days-old rice into fresh dinner. Using broth and soy sauce, I make a cross between risotto (because you can make it as creamy as you want) and fried rice (because I usually opt for Asian flavors). It’s also a great way to use up leftover anything, because already-cooked chicken, seafood, beef, vegetables can be added with some extra flavor to jazz up otherwise plain rice.
The last one I made was a Ginger Beef Rice, so that’s the recipe I’ll share. Measurements (and ingredients) are variable, because you can add more/less/none/something else to change up the flavors.
Recipe in here: (more…)
….. which is just a fancy term for “cook veggies. add pasta.” This is really simple, which is what makes it perfect. There’s no cream sauce or fancy-schmancy stuff. Just veggies, garlic, and pasta. The sauteed veggies give off a broth, too, so this would be great by itself with some crusty bread or scooped over couscous.
I love the Farmer’s Market. Have I told you this before? Well, I do. I love the Farmer’s Market. In the fall and winter, you get apples, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes. In the summer, you get everything you could ever want – berries, peaches, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, fresh herbs.
This dish isn’t fancy. It just tastes good, because it highlights the summer market’s best picks with very simple ingredients. The chicken, cooked slowly, stays soft and releases a broth that flavors the vegetables. Crusty croutons soak up all the juices. *sigh* It’s beautiful.
The trick to the flavor and moistness of the chicken is the marination. I use this trick for all kinds of chicken – for grilling, flouring or breading and pan-frying, or baking, like this.
Here you go: (more…)
On a summer day in Pakistan, things move at a leisurely pace. Offices are closed from noon to four o’clock and everything has to get done early in the morning or late at night. Lunch is a few chapattis with a spicy saalan, followed by a long nap. It’s just too hot to do anything else.
This beautiful ruby red syrup, named “the nurturer of the soul,” is made from roses and kewra, a Pandanus flower extract. Rooh Afza is the star of many summer treats. It provides a beautiful pink contrast when drizzled over top of Kulfi, a creamy-white cardamom ice cream, or mixed in with the faloodah (vermicelli noodles), or tukhmalanga (basil seeds) that top the kulfi. I can imagine someone more creative and less lazy than me using this syrup in various ways at a Valentine’s Day party or something equally as cute. (Speaking of cute, look at the Rooh Afza bottlecap to the left. Aww.)
Especially during the loadshedding hours, where power is cut off in sectors of the cities to save the system from overload, everyone sits around with woven reed pankhiyaan, or “little fans” (or, as my Farat Phuppo calls them, “hand AC’s”) drinking something cold. My favorite of these cooling summer drinks is ice-cold water sweetened with Rooh Afza.
Summer Rooh Afza
I love the taste of this syrup, so I prefer a higher proportion of syrup to water than other people may. This drink is very dependent on personal taste, and this is how I like it.
1 tbs. Rooh Afza
1 cup cold water
Ice
Pour the Rooh Afza into a shaker or pyrex glass measuring cup. Pour the cold water on top of it and stir/whisk/mix very well until the syrup is completely dissolved in the water. Fill a glass with ice and pour the Rooh Afza water on top. (Some people also add fresh lemon juice.) Enjoy!
And, as befits a culture influenced by Persians, Arabs, and Mughals, an eminent poet also wrote a poem about Rooh Afza.
‘If you look at its colour, it enchants your heart. If you taste it, you find its flavour enlivening. In fragrance it excels other flowers. In efficacy it is quite an elixir. Its refreshing and invigorating effect is beyond reckoning. A sharbat like Rooh Afza has never been produced, nor ever shall be.’ — Sa’il Dehlavi
Ramadan Rooh Afza
There’s another version of Rooh Afza that is a particular treat in Ramadan. Instead of water, the syrup is mixed with cold milk and served with spicy samosas and pakoras at Iftar, after the day’s fast. It’s probably not smart to eat spicy food after you’ve had nothing in your stomach all day, but try telling a Pakistani to eat bland food. We’ve been known to carry around bottles of Tabasco in our purses. So, the sweetness and softness of the milk gives both quick energy and a bit of cushion against the savory-spicy food. I use the same proportion of milk to Rooh Afza as with the Summer Rooh Afza.
More information about Rooh Afza
Rooh Afza comes in a bottle and can be found at South Asian grocery stores. Experiment with it as an accent to desserts, drinks, or anything you can think of, and let me know how it turns out!
On the history and cultural effects of Rooh Afza, from Hamdard Laboratories
RoohAfza.com, featuring I *heart* Rooh Afza tshirts and mugs
100th Anniversary of Rooh Afza (created in 1907 by Hakeem Abdul Majeed)
Ackawi is an Arab cheese packed in water; it has a texture very similar to buffalo mozarella (maybe a little saltier) but it doesn’t melt as readily. It’s a classic part of an Arab breakfast, wrapped in bread and dipped in honey or jam. This was an experiment in making something like mozarella sticks with an Arab flair, and I think it was a success! Ackawi doesn’t get gooey and melty when you fry it – it holds its shape, but is still soft. The za’atar-breadcrumb crust adds an extra crisp and an herby-savory tang, but is totally optional. You could fry it without the crust and then sprinkle with za’atar or even honey for a sweet snack.
Wait. What is this za’atar of which you speak? I’ll leave this one to Desert Candy. And she’s right about the best way to eat za’atar: dip bread in olive oil, then za’atar, consume. Repeat.
Recipe hiding in the link below. Also check out Fried Haloumi with Basil by Too Many Chefs.