Dr. Laura Tedesco meeting Afghan elders
I’m really excited to share my interview with Dr. Laura Tedesco, the Cultural Heritage Program Manager for The State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and the star of the Monuments Woman Podcast, about her extraordinary journey to preserve Afghanistan’s cultural heritage sites.
As you can imagine, when an Afghan catches up with an old friend that conversation is not going to be short so we cut the interview into two parts.
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Maash Palau is a vegetarian and gluten-free rice and mung bean dish, cooked with an assortment of dried fruit. Traditionally this dish is made without meat and seasoned with browned onions and char masala (four spices). Char masala is Afghanistan’s answer to India’s garam masala or Chinese five spices.
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Humaira’s meatless Aush, Afghan noodle soup
Six months ago our family became vegetarian (following my 17-year-old daughter’s lead) and as the main cook in our family, I had to rethink many of my family’s favorite Afghan dishes to adapt it for our meat-free lifestyle. This has proven to be a bit tricky since Afghan cuisine relies heavily on onions and meat to create a base for many of the beloved dishes like Palau, Aushak, and Afghan chili, Mawshawa, just to name a few.
For Aush, I was in a quandary about how to make a flavorful kofta, tangy meat sauce, with plant based-meat. You see, kofta is normally made with ground beef, tomato sauce and a variety of spices that create a subtle but flavorful accompaniment for the pasta noodles that are boiled in water and spiced only with salt.
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