Side Dishes

6 recipes

Borani Banjan

Borani banjan is an Afghan aubergine dish that does the same work as a moussaka or a melitzanosalata: pan-fried aubergine slices, a quick spiced tomato sauce, and a generous lid of garlic-and-mint yogurt that bridges all the warm and cold elements. The aubergine slices salt and sweat for half an hour first (which keeps them from drinking too much oil) before they fry hard in olive oil until golden and silky. Onion and tomato cook to a quick sauce with turmeric and a kick of chilli. The aubergine and sauce layer in a wide dish, then the chaka (yogurt whisked with garlic and salt) spoons over the whole thing while it is still warm. Scatter dried mint and drizzle olive oil to finish. Eat warm or at room temperature, with bread.

1 hour 20 minutes Serves4

Chalow

Chalow is Afghanistan's foundational rice method, and once you have it down you can build any Afghan rice dish on top of it (kabuli pulao starts from a chalow base, for example). The technique is parboil-then-steam. Long-grain basmati rinses thoroughly until the water runs almost clear, soaks for half an hour, then boils hard in plenty of salted water for five or six minutes (the grains should be 70% cooked: soft outside, just a touch firm in the middle). Drain, return to a dry pot, drizzle a little oil over the top, clamp the lid on with the heat at its absolute lowest for twenty minutes (this is the dum). What comes out is rice with separate, fluffy grains and a thin gold crust on the bottom of the pot. The crust is the cook's reward; scrape it up and eat it first.

1 hour 10 minutes Serves4

Kadu Bouranee

Kadu bouranee is Afghanistan's sweet-and-savoury pumpkin dish: cubes of butternut squash or pumpkin braised slowly with onion and a touch of sugar until they collapse, plated under cold garlic-and-mint yogurt while the pumpkin is still warm. The temperature contrast is the whole pleasure of the dish. You brown the pumpkin briefly in oil with chopped onion, add sugar, tomato and a splash of stock, then cover and cook low until the pumpkin is completely yielding to a spoon (around forty minutes). Spoon into a wide dish, blanket with garlic yogurt (chaka) straight from the fridge, scatter dried mint over the top. Eat with naan, scooping pumpkin and yogurt up together.

1 hour Serves4

Naan-E Afghani

Naan-e-afghani is the long lozenge-shaped flatbread you'll see hanging from cords in bakery windows across Afghan cities, scored down its length with three fingertip-trails and scattered with nigella and sesame seeds. The dough is straightforward (plain flour, fast-action yeast, salt, sugar, a glug of oil and warm water), kneads to smooth, rises for an hour, then divides into long ovals. Each oval is pressed and stretched on a floured bench into a 40-50 cm flat lozenge (the shape matters: thin in the middle, slightly thicker at the rim). Three fingertip trails down the length, a scatter of nigella and sesame, then slid onto a hot baking stone (or an upturned heavy baking tray) at your oven's maximum heat. Eight minutes and it is done, blistered and chewy. Tear, dip, wrap, eat warm with anything Afghan.

2 hours 5 minutes Serves4

Salata Afghani

Salata afghani is the salad that goes alongside every Afghan main, no exceptions: tomato, cucumber and red onion diced fine and even, dressed with lemon, olive oil and dried mint, scattered with fresh coriander. The technique is in the cut. Everything dices the same size (about 5 mm) so a spoonful gives you a clean mouthful of all three vegetables. Whisk the dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, dried mint, salt and a small green chilli; toss it through the diced vegetables at the last minute (the salt draws a little water out and the flavours mingle without dissolving the cucumber). Fresh coriander goes on top right before serving.

12 minutes Serves4

Sambousak Afghani

Sambousak are Afghanistan's answer to the samosa: small triangular fried pastries with a spiced lamb filling, served as a starter or with afternoon tea alongside a green chutney. The filling is a quick fry-up of lamb mince with onion, leek, garlic, ginger, ground coriander, cumin, chilli and a hit of dried mint, then cooled completely before it goes into the wrappers. The dough work is the move: spring-roll pastry sheets get cut into long strips, then folded around a teaspoon of filling using the flag-fold (the strip wraps over the filling at a diagonal, then keeps folding triangle-over-triangle down its length until you have a closed triangle). Seal the seam with a flour-and-water paste, fry at 170°C for three minutes a side until amber. Eat warm with a mint-and-coriander chutney.

1 hour Serves6