ROMANESQUE CAULIFLOWER AFGHAN STYLE - ALMOST GULPEA

By Humaira

Growing up in a low income suburb of San Jose, I was mostly exposed to fruit and vegetables my Afghan refugee parents could find on sale, in Food4Less—red mushy apples, seeded green grapes, cauliflower, iceberg lettuce—organic heirloom tomatoes were not to be found in our shopping cart.

After living in San Francisco for the past twenty years, my shopping cart contents have gone organic, exotic and seasonal. Despite my expanded palette, it wasn't until a couple of year ago that I first laid eyes on a Romanesque cauliflower (a.k.a. Romanesco broccoli). There it was, in my organic veggie box—cone shaped creature with pokey green florets nestled among familiar cucumber, tomato and berries. I shoved the genetically mutated creature in the back of my fridge's vegetable container and forgot about it.

Since our first meeting, I've grown to love this delicate and nutty vegetable. I often toss the florets in olive oil and roast it. Sometimes I saute' or mash it, but my masterpiece was when I cooked it Afghan style—simmered in a thick sauce of onions, garlic, turmeric, cumin and tomatoes.

This recipe is similar to my traditional Afghan Gulpea/cauliflower recipe. If Romanesco cauliflower was available in Afghanistan, they would make it this way and I hope this summer you'll give this recipe a try.

Romansque Cauliflower Afghan Style

Qorma e Gulpea

3 tbsp. olive oil

1 large onion, pureed in a food processor or finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, pureed in a food processor or finely chopped

1 teaspoon. ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon cumin

1 tsp. salt

2 tomatoes diced

1/4 cup vegetable 

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 1/2 head Romasque cauliflower, washed, stem removed, cut into large pieces

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large, heavy-bottom pot. Add the onion and brown for about 10 minutes until golden brown. Add the garlic cook, for an additional 2 minutes.  Add all the remaining ingredients except for the Romanesque. Stir well and simmer for about 8 minutes until the liquid reduces and you have a thick, oniony sauce.

Add the Romasque and stir to cover all pieces with sauce.  If you feel you don't have enough sauce to coat the cauliflower, add another 1/4 cup of the broth.

Put the lid on the pot, cook on low for 20 minutes (stirring every five minutes) or until the Romasque can be easily pierced by a fork. Remove the lid and cook uncovered for another 5 minutes to allow the sauce to reduce. The cooking time will vary but you want the result to be fork-tender, but not mushy.

Serve with nan, pit bread, or challaw, the Afghan white rice. A dollop of plain yogurt makes a heavenly addition.

MAKE, BAKE, SIP AND CHILL YOGURT—THE WORLD'S HEALTHIEST FOOD

by Humaira

Cheryl Sternman Rule made her first homemade yogurt on a gas stove in Eritrea where she taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer. Almost twenty years later, I consider her one of the foremost experts on yogurt in the United States.

I was honored when Cheryl reached out to me to learn about yogurt’s role in Afghan cuisine for her beautifully written and photographed book “Yogurt Culture”.  This book is chock full of yogurt recipes to sip, slurp, dine, bake, chill, and lick. My copy is marked up with stars and tags for mouthwatering recipes I plan to make. However, one recipe I’m quite familiar with is Afghan noodle soup aush, which you can find on page 166.

Cheryl has been writing professionally for newspapers, magazines, and websites since 2004. In 2008, Cheryl won the Greenbrier Award given by the Symposium for Professional Food Writers.

Humaira asks Cheryl a few questions about her career choice as a food writer, yogurt and Cheryl’s favorite recipe in the book.

Humaira: What attracted you to food writing?

Cheryl: I’d alway loved writing—creative writing, essay writing, and academic writing.  When I got my first job after grad-school, I was hired as a researcher but ended up doing a lot of writing as well due to my natural affinity for the craft. A few years later, I made the decision to change careers (from education to food), and transitioned the topic of my writing then as well. I love how creative and relatable food writing is, and how powerful a tool it can be to inspire people in their everyday lives.

Humaira: In your travels, what have you seen as a commonality among yogurt eating cultures/countries?

Cheryl: One of the biggest commonalities, I think, not just from travels but from talking to people from wildly different cultural backgrounds, is how similar the process is from place to place. Because yogurt comes in so many varieties in the U.S. and the packaging styles diverge so much here, I think we forget how simple a food yogurt really is. Across the world, people just make yogurt in whatever pot they'd normally use for cooking and set it aside someplace warm to incubate. It's incredibly simple.

Humaira: I add yogurt to my Ramen noodles which horrifies my husband. What is dish you like to add yogurt to which horrifies/shocks others? And, what is your favorite recipe in Yogurt Culture?

Cheryl: I really add yogurt to everything nowadays, so I don't think anyone in my family is shocked by anything anymore! They use almost as much yogurt now as I do. I have a lot of favorite recipes. The Greek yogurt with lemon vinaigrette is one of them, probably because it's so easy, and so, so good.

Greek Yogurt with Lemon Vinaigrette

Makes 2¼ Cups Dip

A bold pool of lemon vinaigrette adds a sunny hue to a bowl of yogurt, creating a dip with two colors, two textures, and two flavors. I ate a version of it in the morning at a small Israeli inn called Pausa.

2 cups plain Greek yogurt, preferably whole-milk

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon pine nuts, lightly toasted in a dry skillet

¼ teaspoon za'atara, or a few leaves fresh parsley, chopped

Warm whole-wheat pita triangles, for serving

MAKE. In a large bowl, beat the yogurt until light and smooth. Scrape it into a shallow, wide serving bowl and smooth with the back of a spoon to create a wide indentation. In a small bowl or liquid measur­ing cup, whisk the oil and lemon juice until emulsified; season well with salt and pepper. Pour the vinaigrette over the yogurt so it floods the indentation. Sprinkle with the pine nuts and za'atara or parsley. Taste, adding a bit more salt, if desired. Serve with warm pita.

Yo! Za'atar is a type of wild thyme often mixed with sumac (a brick-red, sour spice), salt, and sesame seeds. Look for it in Middle Eastern markets.

Excerpted from Yogurt Culture, © 2015 by Cheryl Sternman Rule. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

INSPIRING AFGHANS SHAPE THE FUTURE OF AFGHANISTAN

By

Humaira Ghilzai

My latest visit to Afghanistan was to attend to business relating to Afghan Friends Network, which I co-founded twelve years ago. I spent six days in meetings with administrators and students we serve through our programs in Ghazni, Afghanistan.

Those were the best six days of my three week trip.

Afghan Friends Network partners with local educators in Ghazni Province to help students in grades 7-12 with math, physics, chemistry, biology and english. AFN currently has two Khurasan Learning Centers (KLC) for girls and one for boys. We serve over 750 students.

The current science, math and English curriculums in the overcrowded and understaffed schools in Ghazni Province are dismal. Most schools have short school days in order to accommodate the large number of students in need of education. In a typical year at a public school, teachers are able to cover about half of the curriculum for that grade. The result is that most students aren’t able to gain a good understanding of the covered subjects. Girls are particularly impacted because of the historical lack of access to basic education.

Historic Ghazni towers. Photo by Aref Yaqoubi

By providing students with dedicated coursework in science, math and English they are able to perform better in school. We also found they are better prepared for Afghanistan’s college entry exams for the 55,000 coveted spots available in Afghanistan universities.  To put this in perspective here is a little data. In January of 2015 over 460,000 high school graduates took the Konkor exam (similar to SAT). Only 55,000 students were placed in public universities without a tuition. Around 70,000 students were accepted to two-year colleges. This leaves 335,000 students with no options and a hopeless future. Private universities are advertised all over Kabul but they are expensive and not readily available in the provinces.  

Our brave scholarship students who attend University in Kabul

In AFN we look for solutions not problems. Of course we were thrilled to see that our graduating students at the KLCs, with improved understanding of certain subjects and assistance in college entrance exams were acing the Konkor exam. They were able to secure competitive spots in medical, engineering and other coveted programs, but many of them were not able to attend university because their families didn’t have the bus fare to send them to Kabul. That is when we started our scholarship program.

Here I am with the boys scholarship students. The student with blacked out eyes does not want his photos on social media for security reasons. The gentleman on the far right is the AFN boys scholarship coordinator.

On this trip, I had the honor of meeting with twelve of our current scholarship students—we have eight students who have successfully graduated from University and are currently working at jobs that pay well.

Over tea, sweets and noqul (sugar covered almonds)  we discussed their families, their education and their hopes for the future.

Raheb...

It was rewarding to meet Raheb who is in his third year of pre-law and at the 92 percentile of his class. He plans to attend law school in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar and once he returns to Afghanistan, he will seek a career in foreign service and diplomacy. I was blown away with his vision, confidence and clear plan for the future. I have no doubt he will one day be the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Afghanistan.

Khatera...

And then there was Khatera who crashed my meeting with the university scholarship girls (I met separately with the boys) to personally plead her case for a scholarship. Here is Khatera’s story in her own words…

“There are 13 members in my family. It has been a while my father is suffering from heart disease and he is not able to work now. One of my brothers was kidnapped by unknown people and they killed him after 20 days. My family economic situation is very bad.

I was in 7th grade when me and my friends were attending Khurasan Center. I was studying preparation for (college entry) exam and I had a computer class too. After working very hard and by the help of Khurasan Center, I attended (college entry) exam and I got 279. I was accepted in Kabul University majoring Computer Science but I was not able to fulfill my university expenses.

I am hoping to receive scholarship this year from AFN so that I can continue my lessons, it will be great help for me, I will be very happy and thankful. Please reconsider me for scholarship this year because I really need to attend my classes.”

Needless to say, the AFN board couldn’t turn down Khatera’s personal and written plea. She is now the sixteenth member of our scholarship program.

Meeting these young students were the highlight of my trip. It’s mind boggling to think that we are transforming these young people’s lives with a $50 stipend during the nine month school year.

Without this stipend, most of them would not be able to leave their villages in Ghazni to attend university in the “far away city” Kabul.

After meeting these young students, I came back with a renewed hope for Afghanistan’s future. If you want to sponsor one of our scholarship students drop a note at info@afghanfriends.net. We’ll send you the booklet on our scholarship program along with details on each student. I hope their determination and vision gives you hope, too.