My first experience with Afghan food was a couple of months ago when my manager (born in Afghanistan, raised in USA) brought some of her mom's homemade fare to the office for the team. Although our team consists of just five people, there was enough food to feed the entire corner of our office. (Uh... it's a pretty big corner.)
I had no clue what I was eating, but I know good food when I see it. And logic tells me that if an Afghan mother (or any mother for that matter) is confident enough and proud enough to prepare party-sized trays of her own home-cooked deliciosities, then gosh darnit, that stuff has got to be good.
A look at what Marya brought in:
Homemade qabalee. Qabalee is a combination of pallow rice, raisins, carrots, and meat buried within. Pallow rice is rice that has been baked after having been tossed in syrup made with carmelized sugar. Zeera, or cumin seeds, helps perk up the rice. There's nothing that can come between me and the Japanese, short-grain sticky rice that I've grown up with, but I welcome long-grain rice from other cultures whole-heartedly. Pallow rice, I welcome you into my life with arms wide open.
Shola. Contained within the puffy rice is lamb and finely minced vegetables such as onions and celery. At first glance this dish looks a bit like oatmeal, and the color doesn't do the flavor the least bit of justice. If you judge this book by its cover, you're definitely gonna miss out. It's sweet, but it's got spices. It's soft, but it's not mushy. It looks bland, but oh lord, it's full of flavor. I just can't get over how the oil and juices from the meat seep from below... almost like hot lava bubbling up from a volcano, ready-to-burst... and how every other bite of the engorged sticky rice has a surprise of lamb. Oh sweet heavens, this stuff is good.
Beef qorma. These chunks of beef have been stewed with onions, garlic, ground coriander, crushed tomatoes, and cauliflower. It complements the qabalee and the shola really well. With the qabalee, the gravy (the qorma part of it) helps give the rice an extra hand in spice, but I discovered that this beef deliciousness really shines on a bed of the shola. Because the shola is so thick, the gravy has nowhere to escape; the shola can enclose the meat and its gravy within its congealed grains. Your mouth gets nothin' but flavor. Perrrrfect.
Many thanks to Mrs. Hameed for introducing a new cuisine to all of us in the office. Marya, you've got one mean-cookin' mama!
