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TASTES | Afghanistan: Recipes for Kado Borani and Pumpkin Mantu

 

OCTOBER 2010  |  TASTES  |  AFGHANISTAN  |  TRAVIS REISER

 

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2010 AT 06:50PM | Central Asian dumplings: aushuk (left), mantu (top), sambosi (right). By Jypsygen, Flickr CC.

 

That first meal one might have on the road in Afghanistan is a bowl full of turnip-stocked rice pilaf scooped out of an enormous caldron patrolled by bees. A glance away from the stall reveals an old woman snatching a bucket from a broken irrigation ditch filled with brown water, presumably to boil rice. However, a deeper look into many Afghan kitchens, along with a friendship with the right family, will land one diverse meals not only of pilaf, but of lamb or chicken, thick perferated bread, okra in garlic and oil, dumplings, yogurt, and piping hot glasses of green tea with cardamom.

 

One of the lesser known specialties of Afghanistan found primarily at restaurants in the diaspora or in the dining rooms of large family holidays is kado borani (pumpkin slices in yoghurt and tomato meat sauce) and mantu (dumplings, in this case filled with pumpkin). Since this week many in the United States as well as Americans overseas are celebrating a holiday to commemorate the dead called Halloween, which holds the pumpkin as a symbol, this seems to be a great time to make the connection between pumpkins West and pumpkins East.

 

If you don’t know about the American holiday of Halloween, let’s just say that it takes place on the last day of October (the first weeks of the cold dry season in the United States) when pumpkins are turning ripe to eat. During the holiday festivals, many people wear costumes. Many parents give children candy. And some people use the occasion to scare each other by pretending to be dead or severely injured or insane. Might seem like a very strange holiday if you haven’t experienced it, but it’s a lot of fun for people who like pumpkin pie, candy, and wild parties.

 

For those of you who don’t know Afghan cuisine, imagine a lamb, bread, and tea tradition highlighted by rice dishes made with lamb or chicken stock and simmered with almonds, orange peel, or grapes. Pumpkin, squash, turnip, okra, as well as nuts like pistachios and almonds all grow well in the country’s river valleys when agriculture is doing well.

 

The horrific shortages during the last three decades of war are primarily due to the blockages and isolation effects of conflict and a broken economy. Despite the stories one reads in the West about troubled politics, Afghanis in the diaspora, as well as families in the safer corners of the country, continue to innovate culinary culture to rival any other. It’s a sign of their resilience as a people.

 

Perhaps you’re an aid worker or diplomat working in Afghanistan who misses Halloween. Maybe you’re in the West and curious about a Halloween-Afghan cross-over snack. Or maybe you’re just plain hungry. Whichever, you’ll have to start by finding at least one ripe 3-5 pound pumpkin.

 

Kado Borani (Pumpkin slices with yogurt and/or tomato meat sauce. Thanks toMike’s Table for recipe details.)
Prepare everything well in advance as you’ll have to bake the pumpkin for some time.

 

Pumpkin, sweet pie variety if possible, not the large decorative kind (1, about 3-5 lbs)
Vegetable oil (1/8 cup)
Sugar (1 cup)
Yogurt Sauce (Yogurt – 1 cup, Garlic – 1 clove minced, Mint – 1/2 teaspoon dried, Salt – 1/4 teaspoon)
Tomato Meat Sauce (Vegetable Oil – 1/4 cup, Shallots (or equivalent amount of onion) – 3, Beef (or lamb) – 1 to 1.5 lbs ground, Tomato – 1 large, Garlic – 2 cloves, Coriander – 1.25 teaspoons ground, Salt – 1.5 teaspoon, Pepper – 1 teaspoon freshly ground, Turmeric – 1/2 teaspoon, Tomato Paste – 2 tablespoons, Water – 1 1/3 cups)
Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
Peel the rind well with a knife or peeler.
Cut the pumpkin in half and clear seeds and fibers.
Slice remaining pumpkin halves into 4 slices each for a total of 8 slices.
Rub down the 8 slices with all the vegetable oil, then roll it in all that sugar.
Lie the sugar-oiled slices in a pan and cover the pan with alluminum foil.
Bake on 350F for about 2.5 hours, baste with the juices in the pan, then add another 0.5 hour or until dark and translucent.

 

For the sauce you can choose yogurt, the tomato meat sauce, or preferrably both.

 

For the yogurt sauce, mix the yogurt, garlic, mint, and salt together and refrigerate until serving.

 

For the tomato meat sauce, start about 0.5 hours before the pumpkin is ready so they are equally hot for serving. Make sure the shallots (or onions) are minced finely, brown in the oil in a sauce pan. Brown the beef (or lamb) in the browned onion. Peel, seed, and finely chop the tomato, mince the garlic, and add these and everything else to the mix in the sauce pan except for tomato paste and water. Heat and stir for five minutes, then add the tomato paste and water. Increase heat to a boil then simmer for fifteen minutes.

 

 

If you’re hopefully using both sauces, pour the yogurt onto the served pumpkin slices first, then a dollop of the tomato meat sauce.

 

 

Pumpkin Mantu (dumplings)

 

 

Here the recipe is controversial. Probably the nicest way to serve Afghan pumpkin would be to offer kado borani and pumpkin mantu together alongside a lamb, orange peel and carrot rice pilaf. However, it’s more time saving to serve the kado borani for one meal then if you have left over pumpkin, use it for the mantu filling the next day.

 

 

For sweet pumpkin mantu, you can use the above recipe to prepare the pumpkin and leave the sauces and pumpkin separate. Follow the procedure above, then drop a dollop of the remaining sweet, browned pumpkin into pre-made Asian flat dumpling squares. Roll the squares into triangles and seal them (see the mantu and sambosy pictured above). Then you can boil them until soft and serve dry with either the yogurt and/or the tomato meat sauce, or for something different fry them in vegetable oil with a dash of sesame for taste until crispy and serve with the sauces that way.

 

 

For pumpkin mantu which is less sweet, either blend the above with oiled and bake softened butternut squash or with blended potato to reduce the proportion per dumpling.

 

 

For a Soviet era or Tajik touch, serve the dumplings, fried or boiled, dry with sour cream instead of sauce.
If you have a different take on these recipes or want to offer other Afghan dishes involving pumpkin or squash or turnip and so on, write in below. Remember, Afghanistan offers much more than war stories. Try the music and the food! Peace.

 

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