AFGHAN PIZZA WITH NAN DOUGH

By Katie

If you are “in the know” about food then you’ve probably heard of Mozza, Mario Batali’s Los Angeles pizza outpost, or Little Star, San Francisco’s answer to deep dish deliciousness. But what about Gandomak , or Everest or even Pizza Express? Ring a bell?

Probably not. That’s because you have to cross the Atlas Mountains to get to them. They’re in Kabul, Afghanistan, a city where pizza is apparently all the rage. Who knew? I’m particularly tickled by a place called AFC, that’s short for Afghan Fried Chicken. Unlike its American fast food counterpart, AFC has a reputation for a pretty decent slice. Or so I hear.

Since we like to stay on top of the trends, we thought we’d create our own Afghan pizza. Building on the Afghan flat bread (nan) Humaira posted last week, I’ve developed a couple of recipes that bring together the flavors of Afghan cooking with everything that’s good about pizza. Consider it the newest in fusion cuisine: Afghan-Ital.

The first pizza features a pesto using a classic Afghan combination: scallions, cilantro and lemon juice. This is spread over a thin layer of quroot, which is dried yogurt that has been reconstituted in water. It’s very hard to find so the recipe suggests substituting a mixture of feta and yogurt to achieve the rich tanginess of quroot.

The second pie was inspired by a recipe for Turkish pizza I got years ago from cookbook author Joanne Weir. I’ve tinkered with the seasonings, using paprika and coriander in place of cinnamon, allspice and cloves. Feel free to make your own pizza dough in place of the nan, or use store-bought (we won’t tell). Then, the next time you visit a pizzeria in Kabul, you’ll feel right at home.

Afghan Pesto Pizza

This makes enough pesto for one 12-inch pie. You can double or triple the recipe.

1 bunch scallions, white and light greens parts only

1 cup loosely packed cilantro (stems ok, too)

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

2 tbsp. olive oil

Big pinch salt

2 tbsp. quroot *

3 ounces fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

1/3 of the nan dough (recipe in the post below), or favorite pizza dough

Heat oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, set it in the oven to heat up.

Put the scallions, cilantro, lemon juice, olive oil and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process until it becomes a smooth, thick paste. If you don’t have a food processor you can do this using a mortar and pestle.

Shape your nan or pizza dough into a thin, 12-inch round pie. Set the dough on a baking sheet or a pizza paddle that is lightly dusted with cornmeal. Spread the quroot (or feta/yogurt mixture) evenly over the dough. Next, spread the pesto on top of the quroot. Distribute the mozzarella evenly over the dough. Put the pizza in the oven either on the pizza stone or baking sheet. Bake until the crust is a deep golden brown, about 10 minutes.

·Quroot is a thick, yogurt-like ingredient that is tricky to find. You can simply leave it out or substitute 1 oz. feta cheese mixed thoroughly with 1 tbsp. plain yogurt.

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Afghan Pizza with Lamb Kofta

This makes enough for one 12-inch pizza. The recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

1 tbsp. olive oil

½ medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ lb. ground lamb (or beef)

1/4 cup peeled, seeded, diced tomato (canned or fresh)

1 tbsp. tomato paste

¼ tsp. Kosher salt

½ tsp. paprika

½ tsp. ground coriander

¼ tsp. ground black pepper

1 pinch red pepper flakes

1/3 of the nan dough (recipe in the post below), or favorite pizza dough

2 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced

1 ½ oz. feta cheese

Heat oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, set it in the oven to heat up.

Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté another minute or two. Add the lamb, tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, paprika, coriander, black pepper and pepper flakes to the pan. Cook for another 15 minutes, breaking up that lamb and stirring from time to time.

Shape your nan or pizza dough into a thin, 12-inch round pie. Set the dough on a baking sheet or a pizza paddle that is lightly dusted with cornmeal. Distribute the lamb evenly over the dough. Lay the mozzarella over the lamb and then sprinkle with the feta cheese. Put the pizza in the oven either on the pizza stone or the baking sheet. Bake until the crust is a deep golden brown, about 10 minutes.

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HOMEMADE AFGHAN FLAT BREAD - NAN

By Humaira

Two years ago I took Katie on a tour of “Little Kabul”, the Afghan district of Fremont located about an hour outside of San Francisco that stretches all of three blocks. I saved the best for last and finished up the outing with a visit to Maiwand Market, a bustling Afghan grocery store and bakery. The market is one of the largest producers of Afghan nan  in the Bay Area, churning out over 2,000 loaves a day. Despite the fact we were stuffed with kebabs, the smell of the bread was irresistible and we couldn’t walk away empty handed. The question was: one loaf or two? The loaves measure a couple of feet long. We spent five minutes contemplating whether we could eat that much nan? Would it be wasted? Do we have room in our freezers? As we went back and forth an Afghan lady walked up, ordered 20 loaves, and walked off, cradling her armful of bread. Without missing a beat, we quickly settled on two loaves and left.

Afghans eat a lot of nan:with every meal, with or without rice. Every Afghan village and every neighborhood in Kabul has a bakery (nanwayee) outfitted with a clay oven (tandoor) built into the earth. The tandoor is round with a big opening and runs about five feet deep. Most home cooks prepare their own dough and bring it to the tandoor, which is kept piping hot all day. The bread baker takes the dough, forms it into a long oval shape measuring about three feet long and a half- inch thick and using a paddle covered with thick wet cloth, presses the dough onto the searing hot wall of the tandoor. The humidity and high heat bakes the bread in minutes and gives it a delicious flavor. The bakery charges the family by making a notch in a stick for every piece that is baked. The family pays at the end of the week based on how many notches are in the stick. Nan tastes best right from the oven.

If you don’t happen to live in Fremont or Afghanistan you can still enjoy nan by making it in your home oven. Traditional nan is made using a starter (khamir toursh) but this recipe uses packet yeast. The secret is a super hot oven and the right amount of humidity. Get the oven piping hot and have a water spray bottle around for moisture. I cobbled together the recipe using tips from my mom, Afghan author Tamim Ansary, my baker friend Mari and Helen Saberi’s book Afghan Food & Cookery. My daughter Aria, an Afghan bread connoisseur, declared the results, “yummy!”. Your nan will not look like the one from Maiwand Market but it will hopefully be yummy too!

Afghan Flat Bread 

Nan

5 cups bread flour

2 tsp. Kosher salt

1 packet quick rising yeast

5 tsp. vegetable oil

2 cups warm water

1 tsp Nigella seeds (optional)

1 spray bottle filled with water

Put the flour, salt and yeast in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a dough blade. Process it for a few seconds to mix the ingredients. Continue to process as you dribble the oil into the flour. Next, slowly add the water to the flour with the processor running.If the mixture sticks to the sides of the processor, scrape it down and process some more. After a few minutes, the dough will come together in one smooth lump and it will move around the food processor. Let is swirl a couple of time and then it’s ready to rest.

If you don’t have a food processor, you can make the bread by hand. Pour all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix well. Add oil and mix further. Gradually add the water and knead the dough for 10 to 15 minutes the dough is smooth and elastic. Once the dough is done, set it in a large bowl, cover with 2 dish cloths and keep in a warm place for 2 hours. Punch down the dough. It is ready to be baked.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. If you have convection, turn it on. Cover a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and set in the oven to heat. Spread some flour on the work surface and pat your hands with flour to keep the dough from sticking to your hands. Divide the dough into three balls and work it gently into an oval that measures about 1 ½ feet long and ½- inch thick. As you stretch the dough it will pick up some of the flour from the work surface, make sure that you add more flour or the dough will stick to the work surface. Once the dough is shaped make three deep lines (don’t cut the dough) lengthwise on the surface of the dough with a knife.

Once the oven is very hot, remove the baking sheet. Gently lay the shaped dough onto the baking pan and sprinkle with nigella seeds. Gently press the seeds into the dough. Place the dough in the oven, spray 5-6 times with your spray bottle and bake for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, spray the bread around 5-6 times and continue to bake for another 5 minutes. The nan should be golden brown and crusty on the outside.

To keep the bread moist, wrap the warm bread in a large dishcloth until it cools down. Be sure to taste it while it is still warm. Cut in into 3-inch squares. Store in a Ziploc bag and place in the fridge. Reheat it in the toaster oven and enjoy it with feta cheese and a dab of cherry jam along with a cup of tea.

Ready for the oven.

Ready to eat

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AFGHAN SPICE BLEND FOR PALAU

By Katie

As the non-Afghan in this blogging duo I feel a particular responsibility to get my Afghan food facts straight. Humaira reviews all of my posts before they go live to make sure I don’t embarrass us both with some glaring misstep in my recipes (“No Katie, an Afghan would never use brown rice in her challaw”).

Humaira and I both strive to have our recipes be as authentic as possible. As self-appointed ambassadors for Afghan cooking, we’ve collectively wondered how much room there is to “play” with ingredients. It’s a little tricky. Luckily, Afghan food is not a cuisine of extremes. There aren’t a lot of unusual ingredients, strange tastes or searing spiciness. But I do find myself wanting to tinker with recipes and ratios to suit my own American tastes.

For example, in Afghanistan when you are served kofta (seasoned ground beef or lamb), the amount of oil used is a measure of the cook’s generosity. So when a host sets kofta swimming in fat in front of you, it’s a sort of honor. But I use a lighter hand with the olive oil bottle. To me, it’s more appealing, healthier and more balanced.

Also, I’m a nut for dark leafy greens. Much to my kids' chagrin, I manage to work kale, chard and beet greens into all manner of dishes throughout fall and winter. My favorite Afghan recipes are no exception. I’m particularly fond of melting chard into aush, a tasty Afghan soup. It’s not something you’d see back in Afghanistan and I’ve wondered if this renders my aush an interloper. But isn’t that the beauty of home cooking, the freedom to make each dish your own?

So, I was comforted when I attended a panel discussion of Central Asian chefs called “Spice Route Meets California Cuisine. ”The three presenters, Sri Gopinathan, chef of Campton Place, Hoss Zare, of Fly Trap, and Afreen Wahab, an academician, all agreed that bringing old world foods to new world cultures does sometimes mean making changes.

Interestingly the panelists pointed out that even within India, the country’s famous spice blend garam masala varies not just by region or even by village, but by cook. There is no “right” way to make it.Each housewife crafts her own version according to her personal taste.

Afghans have their own “garam masala” I suppose. It’s the spice mixture used in palau, Afghanistan’s classic chicken and rice dish. And every Afghan cook does it her own way. Ours has just a few ingredients: cumin, cardamom, and black pepper. My American twist on the combination is to use it as a spice rub for chicken, lamb or beef. This is hardly authentic, but wholly delicious.

Palau Spice Mixture

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 ½ tsp. ground cardamom

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Combine the spices. Use in palau (see recipe under main dishes) or as a spice rub for grilled lamb, beef or chicken along with a sprinkling of salt.

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Seasonings used in palau, clockwise from top left:  black pepper, salt, cumin, and cardamom

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