Chicken Lawang

There's something extremely evocative about a dish that's full of rich spices. I suppose it's the aromatic quality spices have -- that smell of foreign wood and earth -- that can almost transport you to a place you've only seen in photographs. Especially in a place like Afghanistan, which was pretty damn neat when it was at peace and which is pretty damn gorgeous despite all of the strife today.

I've never been, but these are the spices that sent people off in caravels before they even knew what they were bound to hit when they got there. I completely understand why.

This dish does take a couple of hours to make, but it is really wonderful.

Ingredients:
2 small onions, finely minced
4-6 cloves of garlic, also finely minced
maybe 1/4 cup olive oil
about as much chicken as you'd expect 3 or 4 people to want to eat, or about, what, 400-500g? I remember this being "about five dollars' worth of chicken".
turmeric
cumin, ground
coriander, ground
cloves, ground
cardamom, ground
black pepper, ground
(dried red pepper, to taste. This is not a traditionally spicy dish, but it does work well with a bit of heat, if you enjoy that kind of thing.)
1 large tub (about 450 g, but need not be exact) plain yogurt, and a couple coffee filters with which to strain it
salt
fresh cilantro/coriander leaves
1-2 cups chicken stock
1-2 tbsp lemon juice (bottled is fine)


1. Begin straining the yogurt. This will not only make it much thicker, but also remove some of the bitter flavor. Do this by carefully placing some coffee filters (I like to use a couple, for good measure) or some paper towels (in a pinch) in a strainer, and setting it over a bowl that can catch the liquid. This yogurt will continue straining for the next two hours.

2. Chop the onions. This is a lot of onion to mince. I wore a diving mask to avoid onion-eye. Yes, really. It was awesome.

3. On medium to medium-high heat, add about half of the olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Stir occasionally for about 5 minutes.

4. Add the garlic, and continue stirring for another 5 minutes. If at any point your onions begin to brown, stop, because that is the point we are looking for. The onions should start to brown in the oil. Interestingly, this is also the beginning of the Qabili Palau recipe.

5. Add the other half of the oil and the chicken, and stir, turning the heat down so the mixture doesn't burn. Set a timer for 10 minutes, but come back in 5, just in case. Stir it then.

6. After 10 minutes, stir in the spices. At this point, the oil and onions should be forming a sauce, and you want to incorporate the spices into that mixture. Stir through evenly. It should be a really neat color. Double-check that the heat is on quite low. Cover with a lid.

7. Set a timer for 30 minutes, wandering back into the kitchen now and then to stir and to check that the sauce has enough flavor. Add a little chicken broth as the sauce begins to thicken, reserving a bit for the end.

8. After all this, if there is still oil pooling on top, strain it off with a ladle, by all means.

9. Turn off the heat, dump the lemon juice into the rest of the chicken broth, and add this mixture, stirring slowly.

10. Remove the lid and wait for the chicken to come down near room temperature -- perhaps another 25 minutes. This gives you the time to finish that episode of Psych you started in step 7. Now would also be a good time to put a pot of Basmati rice on to steam.

8. Go get that yogurt that's been straining. Mix it slowly into the sauce. Once the yogurt is thoroughly incorporated, begin to heat this back up to serving temperature.

9. While heating, stir. While stirring, mix in the cilantro/coriander leaves. I like to reserve a few for use as a garnish.

Lime Sparkle -- Afghanistan, Sort Of

Afghanistan week is still going strong -- tonight's Chicken Lawang (recipe and photos to follow) was especially good. We're talking plate-lickingly good. There was just one thing -- it was very deeply flavored, and as such, a little heavy. I made this to complement it.

To be fair, this is not an authentic recipe -- it's merely a simple syrup made with fresh limes, mixed with cold soda water. Still, limes exist in Afghan cooking, and I thought I'd expand. I have it on good authority from some people who are apparently really into cans that Afghanistan has some kind of lime soda, so there.

This is a recipe with no waste, and not by coincidence. If you buy two limes and 2 liters of soda water, you will use all the lime up exactly.

Simple Lime Sparkle

Peels from 2 fresh limes, in largish strips, not chopped
Juice from 1 1/2 limes
250 g water
150ish g sugar
1/2 lime, sliced
cold soda water

1. Heating the water, blanch the lime peel, just until vivid green. Do not allow the peels to turn olive-colored.

2. When the peels have brightened and softened slightly, remove them from the water with a slotted spoon and turn off the heat.

3. Add the sugar, stirring until combined. Try not to turn the heat back on, as the lime oil the peel has infused into the water will turn bitter. (Citrus tends to become bitter if heated for too long.) Don't worry too much. Just don't start boiling the stuff.

4. As the mixture is cooling down (about enough that you can touch it without discomfort), add the lime juice and stir it evenly into the mixture.

5. Pour this syrup into a bottle for easy use.

6. To make the soda, combine the syrup with cold soda water. Feel free to judge how much you want for yourself, but for a light, refreshing drink, the ratio is best at 1 part syrup to 4 or 5 parts soda water, though your mileage may vary. Taste it until it's nice for you. For a heavier drink, simply add more syrup. Garnish with a fresh slice of lime, and ideally, let it sit for a minute until you can taste the juice from that, too.

A Canadian friend I regularly use as a food guinea pig and I sat around at the table, sipping glass after glass of these, until we realized we'd gone through almost all of the syrup. I suppose you could do worse, as far as soda goes.

Ubiquitous Yogurt -- Dogh

When I first read about Dogh, (or 'Dough', but I'm going to favor the less confusing spelling), I thought, "How unique!" How far from the truth I was.

Though I'm in Afghanistan this week, I've certainly been trying to do a little bit of research ahead of time, and I admit my research has largely only covered the "A"s. Still, it seems to me that if you stuck the pointy end of your compass in, let's say, Syria, and the pencil end in, say, Poland, and drew a circle from there, you'd find a version of this dish in every country inside the circle.

All told, the dogh was alright. Mine came out a little thick, so I ended up having it with a spoon, but it complemented the Qabili Palau wonderfully. I'm sure that's no coincidence. I'm not exactly a daily consumer of yogurt, but I would definitely make it again, especially in these hot Japanese summers.

The Adventure Begins! To Afghanistan!

We decided to start with a fairly simple dish -- Qabili Palau. I admit that this sounded appealing to me from the minute I saw the name. The Scrabble possibilities alone...

To be honest, this is just the kind of thing I was hoping to get from this project. It's a good, solid, traditional dish, and yet it has a certain mystique.

It starts with a sauce based on caramelized onions, chicken broth, cumin, black pepper, and cardamom. The sauce was absolutely beautiful -- pungent with that sweet onion/cardamom kick. My only complaint was that it simply didn't come out when the rice was baked in it later on. If I did it again, I'd make more sauce, and possibly keep some aside for finishing at the end of the dish.

Ben (the boyfriend) made it as well, and he said his turned out almost dessert-level sweet. He liked it, but perhaps the sugar's also something to watch.

Traditionally, this is served with the chicken underneath, and the carrot/raisin/almond mixture on top, but I opted to plate the elements separately to better showcase them.