Sabrina’s Kitchen – ‘Seafood and Spice’ Menu

STARTERS

Naan-o-Paneer
Marinated feta cheese in lemon zest, shallots and herbs served with Lavaash bread
***
Bamieh
Slow cooked spiced tomato sauce with garlic and whole okra
***
Blood Orange and Radicchio Salad
With sumac, dill and pomegranate vinaigrette dressing
***
Saffron and Spice Salted Calamari
With a homemade Quince Dip

***
Maast-o-Khiar
Yoghurt and cucumber with dried mint, fresh mint, raisins, walnuts and rose petals
***

MAIN COURSES

Mahi Shekampor
Whole trout stuffed with a spicy, citrus-spiked herb stuffing
***
Maygoo Polow
Perfectly steamed Persian rice with cumin, saffron, chilli, coriander, raisins and prawns
***
Ghelyeh Mahi
Slow cooked herb stew flavoured with tamarind and studded with seafood
***
Cumin Roasted Tubers
With a honey lemon dressing, fresh goats cheese, barberries and herbs
***

DESSERT

Cinnamon and Citrus-Perfumed Almond Pastries
Served with orange-infused clotted cream & rose petal jam

***
Fresh Mint Tea
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Follow me on Twitter: @SabrinaGhayour

In the Middle East, soups are more of a meal then just some watery, unsatisfying affair. We really put a lot into every soup to make it worthy of a main attraction, rather than just a measly side-show. This Eastern-spiced pot of goodness is a wonderful soup that is more of a meal, than just a soup alone. It should be said that there really are no rules when making this soup or indeed any soup; the simple truth is that soup should contain whatever you have lying around the house and in your fridge, combined with a few little tricks from the spice cupboard and some proper seasoning (salt and pepper is EVERYTHING). And feel free to add/discard any of the below ingredients (except for potato, which is a thickener, unless you double butternut squash quantity) as no matter what you add into it, parsnips, kohlrabi, sweet potatoes, herbs etc, you really can’t go wrong.

Ingredients

2 400g tins of chick peas (retain water)
750g peeled butternut squash, diced into 1.5 inch rough chunks
3 leeks, finely chopped (green hard ends trimmed away)
2 large or 3 small onions, diced
4 heaped teaspoons of ground cumin
1 heaped teaspoon of ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika powder (sweet/dulce not hot/piccante one!)
3 teaspoons of crushed chilli paste (available in all supermarkets)
3 medium sized potatoes, skin on and cut into 1.5 inch rough chunks
2 fresh ears of corn, kernels cut off
1 large courgette, finely diced
Very generous seasoning of Maldon sea salt
Ground black pepper to taste
Olive oil
Hot water from the kettle

**hand held blitzer / liquidiser**

Method

In a large pot over a medium flame, drizzle enough olive oil to generously coat the bottom of the pan and then add in the butternut squash, onions, leeks and potatoes and sauté them (without browning them) until they soften slightly. Once softened, add the spices and chilli paste and give the ingredients a good stir to make sure the spices are evenly coating the vegetables. Then using hot water from a kettle, simply cover the vegetables completely with water, add a generous amount of Maldon sea salt (I would suggest at least 4 heaped teaspoons, crushed) and a good amount of black pepper, stir once more and allow to cook for about 30 minutes on a gentle boil.

After cooking time has elapsed, insert a skewer/knife into the butternut squash and if it is cooked (i.e. soft) then using a liquidiser, blitz the soup ingredients together until you get a lovely, even smooth soup. Once smooth, add the two tins of chick peas and the water they come in, into the pot and stir well. At this stage you can decide if you need to add some more water to achieve your desired soup consistency as well as checking the soup’s seasoning to see if more salt/pepper needed. Cook for another 20 minutes or so at which stage you can finally add your sweet corn kernels and diced courgette pieces to the soup and cook for a final 20 minutes before serving. Garnish with a little parsley for added vibrance and you can also brown some chick peas along with some caramelised onions too, if desired.

I like to serve up the soup finishing it off with a drizzle of good olive oil, argan oil (check out http://www.myarganic.co.uk ) or even flavoured chilli/garlic oils (such as Belazu http://www.belazu.com/ ) and a nice hunk of crusty, rustic bread.

Lamb Koftas / Koofteh

500g minced lamb (minced beef also works)
4 inches grated ginger
2 red chillies
4-6 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon of turmeric
8 spring onions (white parts only)
1 heaped teaspoon of cinnamon
2 heaped teaspoon of ground cumin powder
1 tablespoon of Maldon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon of cracked black pepper
1 very generous handful of coriander
Tablespoon of cooking oil

Method

Place the lamb mince into a mixing bowl then finely chop your chillies and garlic and thinly slice your spring onions and add them to the lamb. Add all your seasonings and spices to the lamb and finely chop your coriander and also add to the lamb. Using your hands, really work in all the ingredients into the mince and ensure the are all well incorporated and divide the mixture into balls (roughly the size of golf balls) and pat them down to flatten them. They should be approximately 3 inches wide and about 1 inch thick.

In a preheated frying pan on a medium-high heat, add your oil and without over-crowding your frying pan, fry several of the patties at once. Once in the pan, don’t keep moving them around, just leave them to colour nicely on each side, allowing 6-8 minutes cooking time on each side. Once cooked through, serve immediately. Great with rice, but naan bread or tortilla wraps are also a great way to eat them, perfect with a drizzle of thick Greek yoghurt.

The Mughal Empire was an imperial power in the Indian subcontinent from 1526 to 1757, though it was thought the remnants of the Empire lingered for another century thereafter. The Mughals were actually Muslims and direct descendants of Genghis Khan himself and at the height of their power in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, they controlled most of the subcontinent, from Bengal in the east to Balochistan in the west, Kashmir in the north to the Kaveri. The population of the empire at that time has been estimated as between 110 and 150 million, over a territory of more than 3.2 million square kilometres (All facts thanks to Wikipedia)

So that is the history bit out of the way, but what about the food? Well the Mughals (especially Emperor Shah Jahan, pictured above) were incredibly lavish, decadent and indulgent in everything they did and Mughal (or Mughlai) Cuisine was a spectacle to behold. The cuisine is strongly influenced by the Persian cuisine of Iran and made popular the combinations of meat and poultry with fruits and nuts, which were thought of as incredibly opulent and luxurious. The flavours of Mughal cuisine vary from extremely mild to spicy and are often associated with distinctive aromas and flavourings from ground and whole spices. The feasts are always elaborate with a wide variety of dishes and the menus are meat-heavy.

Myself and Asma Khan (@AsmaKhanCooks on Twitter) will ue to create a very special Mughal Empire Feast at Asma’s home in West London on Tuesday 20th November 2012 starting from 7pm. Here is the menu to whet your whistle and get you in the mood for some decadent feasting and my email below for bookings and enquiries. Spaces are limited and bookings are on a first come first serve basis.

Mughal Empire Feast Menu

Tuesday 20^th November 2012 at The Drapers Arms, Islington

 STARTERS

Keema Ka Samosa

Delicate, crisp pastry parcels filled with spiced minced beef

***

Haleem

Smooth dip of slow-cooked lamb with lentils, wheat and barley

***

Raita

Yoghurt and grated cucumber with golden raisins, dill, dried mint and rose petals

***

Pomegranate Kachumber

Salad of diced cucumber, red onion, tomatoes and fresh pomegranate

***

Kotlet Patties

Spiced lamb patties served with yoghurt and pomegranate molasses drizzle

 MAIN COURSE

Murgh Pulao

A traditional Mughal Empire dish of delicately flavoured chicken Biryani

Studded with prunes and garnished with pistachio and almond slivers

***

Shalgam Jardaloo Gosht

Based on a traditional dish of the Mughal Empire, slow cooked lamb

neck with saffron, turnips, apricots and spiced

***

Baigan Partha

Smoked aubergine with garlic, tomatoes and coriander

  ***

Paneer Korma

A traditional Korma sauce of rich yoghurt, ground almonds and

pistachios with delicate morsels of paneer cheese

 DESSERT

 Chai Carrot Cake

Spiced tea-infused carrot cake with cardamom, pistachios, almonds and coconut, served with rose water cream and pistachio slivers

Fresh Mint Tea

 £35.00 per person / Email: sabrinaghayour@hotmail.com to book

Persian food is supposedly trending this year yet nobody has really embraced this trend and done anything to showcase its wonderful versatility and delicate flavour. I have therefore made it my mission to show as many people as possible, just how special Persian flavours really are through a series of pop-up collaborations with some of London’s top Chefs at The Modern Pantry, titled ‘Passage to Persia’.

Passage to Persia is a celebration of the unique flavours, ingredients and techniques of Persian cuisine. Myself and Chef Patron of The Modern Pantry, Anna Hansen, will be hosting 4 very special dinners in October and November to showcase Persian cuisine and share it with the hungry diners of London who are looking for something new and interesting to excite their palates.

In addition to myself and Anna Hansen, I have chosen three other chefs with varying culinary styles and cooking backgrounds to complete our four very special one-off evenings at The Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell. Each dinner will see a different renowned chefs give their own interpretation of Persian cuisine by using Persian ingredients and drawing inspiration from the food of Iran to present a special menu fusing Persian flavours and cookery techniques with each Chefs own unique style of cooking.

The chosen chefs will work closely with both myself and Anna in creating a special menu using known and lesser-known Persian ingredients alongside seasonal British produce to showcase the flavours of a forgotten empire in a unique culinary style, specific to each Chef. Myself and Anna will join each Chef in the kitchen to prepare the menu for diners on each of the four evenings. The chefs are:

Monday 22nd October – Ben Spalding (FULLY BOOKED)
Monday 29th October – Anna Hansen & Sabrina Ghayour collaboration
Monday 5th November – Omar Allibhoy
Monday 12th November – Tim Anderson

(Biographies of the chefs, included below).

Each chef will prepare a 4-course menu for 30 guests using produce from Allens of Mayfair, Natoora and Belazu Foods. Special ‘Black Moth Vodka’ Persian-inspired cocktails will be served on arrival and include wine pairings courtesy of Gonzalez Byass along with tea pairings courtesy of fine tea merchants Lalani & Co.

The Passage to Persia dinners will reveal just how versatile and delicate the ingredients and flavours of Persian cookery really are, dispelling the myths that Persian food is all about kebabs and instead giving diners a glimpse into the food of a culture that is untapped and unexplored by people outside of the Middle East. It’s about time Persian food was put on the map and Passage to Persia is just the beginning.

Dinner are priced at 65.00 per person including arrival cocktail, 4-course meal, wine & tea pairings and service charge. To make a booking, please email: enquiries@themodernpantry.co.uk

We look forward to meeting and feeding you, Persian style!

~BIOS~

 Ben Spalding

At just 26, Ben quickly became one of London’s most innovative and most talked about Chefs after being appointed Head Chef at Simon Rogan’s (Chef Patron of L’Enclume) 2 year London pop-up Roganic. Ben has also worked as a chef consultant at The Ledbury and has done a series of pop-ups in London including his own ‘Stripped Back’ concept on Saturdays at Broadway Market. Ben is soon to join ‘John Salt’ restaurant in Islington as Head Chef.

 Omar Allibhoy

At just 28, Omar is the owner of the critically acclaimed Tapas Revolution in Westfield London and Bluewater. He is also the Executive Chef at London’s renowned El Pirata De Tapas, which was featured in Gordon Ramsay’s Best Restaurant. His career truly took off after training under the watchful eye of world-renowned three Michelin starred chef Ferran Adria of El Bulli and he has also worked at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze.

 Tim Anderson

Tim emerged as the winner of BBC1’s Masterchef 2011 and is now a freelance chef and food writer. His cooking is primarily influenced by his American heritage and his love for regional Japanese cuisine. His Izakaya will open in East London in 2013.

 Anna Hansen

Born in Canada and raised in New Zealand, Anna studied business management before venturing out into the world of food. She first trained as a chef under Fergus Henderson in 1992 at his first restaurant venture, The French House Dining Room. She then worked with Peter Gordon in 1994 at Green Street and again in 1998 at The Sugar Club, Soho. In 2001, Anna, Peter Gordon and partners opened their award-winning Marylebone restaurant, The Providores. In 2005 Anna left The Providores to focus on developing The Modern Pantry, which opened its doors to critical acclaim in August 2008. Since opening, The Modern Pantry has gained two AA rosettes and been listed as a “Bib Gourmand” in the Michelin Guide 2009. She has since appeared on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen a number of times.  The New Zealand Society awarded her the accolade of New Zealander of the Year 2010 and in 2012 Anna was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours.

Anna’s culinary philosophy is driven by the desire to please and excite the palate by renewing everyday cooking with modern ingredients and global inspiration, The Modern Pantry, in fact.

Hospitality is of paramount importance to us and the guest is always treated like royalty in our homes. We have this strange custom in our culture called ‘ta’arof’ – which means ‘to offer’ and is a gesture of politeness and respect. It is the practise of putting others before yourself but can often involve people going to quite hilarious lengths in doing so. In one instance, I recall my mother and my aunt bickering for a good 10 minutes over who was going to pay the bill in a restaurant “No, I’m paying. No, I insist, put your money away for goodness sake!” Ta’arof can be applied to anything although, in today’s society, one does question if ta’arof is still as genuine as it once used to be. Either way, along with our ‘bend-over-backward’ style of hospitality, it is something we are famous for doing in Iran.

My own family left Iran when I was just two years old and so I didn’t have the good fortune of seeing the Tehran that my mother would talk of fondly. I wish I could tell you tales of how I learnt to cook by watching my mother and grandmother but the reality is I didn’t. Neither my mother nor my grandmother knew how to cook and therefore passed no pearls of wisdom on to me. The few dishes that became part of my grandmother’s repertoire were things she mastered once we had arrived in London. By my twenties, I realised that nobody was going to pass on the secrets of Persian cookery to me and I made it my mission to teach myself all the most important Persian dishes, if only to cater to my own cravings.Although real home cooking was scarce in our household, I was still fortunate enough to have a few food-related memories from my childhood. My grandmother would rope me into various arduous tasks each time she cooked. Picking the leaves off of half a dozen bunches of herbs, shelling cardamom pods or broad beans and removing the stems from barberries (tiny sour berries used in a popular rice dish). If I close my eyes, I can still smell those ingredients on my hands and recall my grandmother’s glare as she would check to see if I was finished or not.

There are a few important things that you need to know about the culinary traditions of Persia and its people. The first thing is that food, in every case, should always be abundant; not only in quantity but variety. Generally, catering for double the amount of people eating is perfectly normal in our culture. To under-cater is the worst form of embarrassment that could ever befall any host. Secondly, rice is the absolute centre of any Persian meal. No matter what you are eating, nine times out of ten, rice will always find its way to the table whether served with a stew or as its own stand-alone dish with meat or chicken. Lastly, we rarely eat alone; it’s like an unwritten rule of our culture that suggests that food is always meant to be shared, almost as if the flavour of food improves when done so.

‘Khoresh’ stews are the cornerstone of Persian cookery and ingredients are adapted to the produce that is available in each region. Some stews include both sweet and savoury ingredients as well as both vegetables and fruit. Variations differ depending on family and regional preference and traditionally Khoresh is made using lamb but many people use beef and sometimes chicken too. The secret to making a really good Khoresh is slow cooking, which enables the flavours to amalgamate and intensify, creating a dish with depth and abundant flavour.

Persian food is vibrant and diverse with combinations that are unique in both flavour and texture but also very regional. There are a myriad of dishes that in essence are kept pretty simple as well as the more opulent and intensely-flavoured dishes as well. At parties and gatherings, the feast you prepare almost becomes a show-like spectacle aimed to wow your guests and become a talking-point of the evening. As time goes by, the traditions of our kitchen are often lost or forgotten but the food of my people and the memories of my childhood are sacred to me and so I try to preserve the traditions and recipes of my heritage as much as possible.

So many of our ingredients remain a complete mystery to the western world but slowly some are making their way into the main stream. Pomegranate, persimmon and quince are now more popular than ever before and spices like saffron, cumin and sumac are sold in every supermarket. Rose water and pomegranate molasses also seem more familiar now but what about dried limes, rose petals and verjuice? They don’t seem to get used as much. Our food is neither spicy nor abrasive and the use of herbs, tomatoes and citrus are abundant. Whilst meat is a key component, there is an endless array of seafood and vegetarian dishes to indulge in also.

London alone has nearly thirty Persian restaurants, most of which serve the traditional charcoal-grilled meat but nothing reflective of true home cooking. Whilst preserving authenticity is important to me, in the interest of a lighter way of eating, I make a lot of modern Persian dishes at home, utilising many of the classic ingredients but simplifying the processes involved. The modern slant seems to work very well and creates vibrant and flavoursome dishes for everyday eating and this kind of gentle introduction has proven to be very popular with my friends.

Think of Persian culture as a treasure trove of unexplored delights, begging to be opened. A land steeped in history with quirky customs, beautiful landscapes and warm-hearted people that have been overshadowed by political opinion not shared by the majority, but most importantly, home to some of the best food and produce, you will ever eat. Now if that’s not enough of an incentive to try Persian food, then nothing is. I really hope you enjoy it!

I first discovered ‘Mister Truffle’ on Twitter (@MisterTruffle) a few months back and so when my fabulous Spring truffle arrived, I wanted to do something special with it. It’s easy to pair truffles with European food but fusing it with Persian food, is an entirely different affair. Persian food is rich in tomatoey-ness and also acidity from lemon juice… these just happen to be two things that are pretty unpleasant when combined with truffles. So what to do? Then it hit me! There is an incredibly delicious broad bean dish hailing from the northern provinces of Mazandaran and Gilan, by the Caspian Sea, that would work brilliantly with truffles!

Baghala Ghatogh (Baghala or Baghali, meaning broad bean) is a dish usually eaten as a side dish, but in today’s society starter, side or mains are all perfectly acceptable too. The dish is HEAVY in garlic but for some reason doesn’t feel overpowering. Scrimping on the garlic and the dill is a big mistake as the whole crux of the dish is based on these two flavours combines with the beans and topped (rather regally) with a cracked egg. I chose a fried egg on this occasion, but the tradition is to crack on egg on the finished bean mixture whilst in the pan, let it cook through and serve it straight away. Either way, it is still a stand-out dish for me and one of my favourite dishes from my childhood.

‘Baghala Ghatogh’ – Persian Broad Beans with Garlic, Dill & Truffles

1 kg of frozen broad beans (available from M&S, Sainsburys & Middle Eastern supermarkets), shelled with all skin removed
4 large free range eggs
1 whole bulb of garlic, cloves bashed then sliced
3 small packets of fresh dill, finely chopped
3 teaspoons of turmeric powder
2 generous pinches of saffron (Persian saffron is the most superior in the world)
Cooking oil
Knob of butter
Maldon Sea Salt
30g of black or white truffle (entirely your preference)

METHOD
This is a one-pan dish, so preheat a large cooking pot over a medium heat (lower if using gas!) and add a drizzle of olive oil and lightly sweat the garlic down, cooking it til it becomes slightly translucent and cooked through. If it begins to brown too quickly, remove from heart, turning heat down and return a few minutes later. Then add your shelled broad beans and turn the heat up just a little and stir well.

Add your turmeric, saffron and several generous teaspoons of Maldon sea salt, crushed and lastly add your chopped dill. Mix all the ingredients well together to incorporate the spices and allow the beans to cook just a little more, almost til they change from bright grassy green, to a slightly duller green. This is when they are cooked properly; the process should take about 10 minutes after adding your spices and lastly grate or shave your truffle into the mixture and stir welll. Once you reach this stage, crack 4 free range eggs onto different areas in the pan and simply allow them to cook through, using the heat from the beans. This will take no more than 5 or so minutes. Serves immediately, with some bread (Persian flatbread or Tortilla wraps are nice and thin and therefore ideal) and enjoy!

Ms Marmite Lover - Global Feast 2012

http://www.GlobalFeast2012.com/

I am so proud to have been invited to be a part of something unique and as special as the beautifully conceived Global Feast 2012. An exciting concept showcasing culinary diversity from around the world with wonderful food, talented Chefs in a truly remarkable setting. What’s even cooler than that is I am cooking up my menu with the wonderfully talented Sally Butcher of Persia in Peckham shop and author of ‘Persia in Peckham’ & ‘Veggiestan’ as well as Kerstin Rodgers, a.k.a. MsMarmiteLover, author of ‘Supperclub’. Together we will be doing a Middle Eastern Feast on Wednesday 1st August 2012.

Global Feast offers a journey through the best of world food, enwrapped by Worldscape – the tallest table in the world, made from its contours, designed by atmos. The entire event divides the world into 20 equal evenings, each momentarily focussed upon for a unique and unrepeatable moment in an epic journey eastwards through the key culinary regions of the world. The menu explores both London & the world – with a guest local chef each night joining culinary curator Kerstin Rodgers (The Underground Restaurant).

The table that Alex has designed will be 20 metres long, 6 metres wide in part and 2.5 metres tall (around the Himalayas). It’s a sculptural contoured depiction of our world as a table that seats 80 people.

Chefs include:
Arno Maasdorp of Saltoun Supper club, Chai lounge , Urvashi Roe TheBotanicalBaker , Sumayya Jamil of Pukka Paki supper club, Pistachio Rose, Cherry Smart of FedbyTang supper club, Plus Six Five supper club , Uyen Luu of Leluu supper club aided by The Skinny Bib and Chef Anna Hansen of The Modern Pantry .

For full Chef bios, feast dates and information: CLICK HERE

Each night there will be food and music and talks. Most nights it will cost £55 which includes canapes, a three course meal and alcohol. Over 20 successive evenings during the London Olympics, 80 guests will gather at the Old Town Hall in Stratford to travel through the cultures and cuisines of the entire world, tasting a different specialty each night.

Tickets for the Feast cost £55 on weekdays and £65 on weekends. This price includes:

• a welcome cocktail
• welcome canapés
• a 3-course meal (unique each evening)
• a drink with the meal
• a range of entertainment
• access to the Worldscape installation
• access to the World Bar until 2am (4am on weekends)

Daily Schedule

• 18:00 Bar opens
• 18:30 Welcome cocktail and canapés
• 19:30 Starter
• 20:00 Entertainment begins
• 20:30 Main Course
• 21:30 Dessert
• 02:00 Bar closes (4am on Friday/Saturday)

Bios

Kerstin Rodgers, a.k.a. MsMarmitelover, launched the underground restaurant movement in the UK in 2009 with her acclaimed eponymous supper club – well-documented by her blog The English Can Cook. Her site Find a Supper Club, is the central place for supper clubs to advertise their dates and locations. Her book Supper Club: Recipes and Notes from the Underground Restaurant, published by Harper Collins in 2011, was widely praised by chefs and critics.

Atmos is an award-winning studio, founded by Alex Haw, producing highly-bespoke sculptural art and architecture. Their focus is on producing highly-crafted sensual spaces and designs that deploy cutting-edge fabrication technologies to produce kineaesthetic sensory experiences that are meaningful and beautiful. Much of their work involves digital mapping technologies, exploring the connectivity of people to their precise place in the world. Atmos were part of the team behind the Olympic CLOUD which Mayor Boris Johnson called “fantastic, remarkable”.

Latitudinal Cuisine is an ongoing project to connect people by cooking, eating and discussing world food. Set up by Alex Haw in April 2009, the group organises collective weekly dinners in London – and increasingly around the world – where guests cook food from the longitude corresponding to the day of the year. Starting on day 1 of the year at Longitude 1, the meals scan through 360 degrees of world food in 360 days, exploring eastwards a degree a day.

Doing interesting things to chicken at home can be really boring, but I do love Indian food and this Murgh Tikka (which literally translated means ‘chicken pieces’) is just the ticket.

The flavour is incredible and will rival that of any Indian takeaway. Even though it would ordinarily be prepared using a special clay oven ‘Tandoor’ – my home-made version is almost every bit as good and done using a bog standard domestic oven. You can make the marinade as spicy as you like but adjusting the chilli heat… My recipe means its pretty damn hot, as it should be, but for a softer heat, 1/2 the chilli quantity.

Murgh Tikka

6 chicken breasts
400g thick Greek yoghurt
4 green ‘finger’ chillies (seeds and all)
5 inches of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
5 fat garlic cloves
1 generous handful of fresh mint leaves
2 generous handful of fresh coriander leaves & stalks
Juice of 1/2 fat/juicy lemon
1 heaped teaspoon of chilli powder
1 heaped teaspoon of ginger powder
2 heaped teaspoons of cumin powder
2 heaped teaspoons of garam masala
1 heaped teaspoon of coriander powder
2 teaspoons of crushed Maldon sea salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Preheat the oven to the highest temperature possible (and yes, you can use a grill too) and line a large baking tray with oven paper.

In a large bowl, pour in the yoghurt and all the spices and ingredients EXCEPT the lemon juice and salt. The using a hand blender, blitz everything together thoroughly until the marinade is as smooth and even as possible.

Cut the chicken into bitesize chunks (about 2 inch squared roughly) and place the pieces in a bowl, pouring over the lemon juice and salt and giving it a good stir to coat all the pieces evenly. Then pour over the yoghurt marinade and mix well to ensure all pieces are well coated in the mixture and cover and place in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour. Of course, the chicken would benefit from overnight marination, but hey! We don’t always have that much time now, do we?

Once marinated, remove each piece using a slotted spoon to avoid excess sauce entering the oven pan and lay all the pieces of chicken out on the tray and cook the chicken for 18-20 minutes max, when the pieces should have slightly charred edges but remain beautifully moist on the inside.

Serve with basmati rice and a simple salad, just like my Afghani salad recipe here and a little spicy mango pickle or chutney… or fill some flat bread with the chicken, drizzle some yoghurt/Tzatziki and mango and enjoy!

My Aunt is married to a lovely Afghani man and his mother used to make awesome food when I was a kid. They live in Switzerland and she is very elderly now so sadly no longer cooks, but I do still remember the flavours of and textures of her cooking. She used to make a delicious rice with a heavy layering of spice, lots of chillies and tender lamb… very similar to a Biryani, but the rice is spiced all the way through. How delicious it was and on my recent trip to Switzerland, the family gave me a big old jar of the special spice mix, which I’m looking forward to experimenting with.

A wonderful refreshing accompaniment was this salad and of course, the recipe is very simple and it makes the perfect accompaniment to most meat, fish and vegetarian dishes. The only difference between the Persian ‘Shirazi’ salad, is the addition of fresh coriander.

Afghani Salad (serves 2)

1/2 large cucumber (do not even THINK about deseeding it!)
8 baby plum tomatoes (halved) or normal tomatoes diced into large chunks
1/2 large red onion
1 packet of fresh coriander (not the large bunches)
Juice of a whole lemon
Good glug of extra virgin olive oil
Maldon sea salt
Black pepper

So quantities obviously do not need to be exact… in fact use as much of everything as you so desire. Split the cucumber lengthways and cut into 1/2 cm slices, roughly dice the red onions and add them along with the tomatoes into a salad bowl. Wash and roughly chop all your coriander and add into the bowl, drizzle with olive oil, add you lemon juice and salt and pepper. Then mix all the ingredients well and leave them for about 30 minutes to draw out the juices of the ingredients. Lastly, give it all one final mix and then serve.