Lentil and Bulgur Kofte

Sun, 07 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My heart is hurting. The world is burning. There is no where I can go, or send my family members, that feels safe from natural disaster, disease or rampant violence. Perhaps this is the way it’s always been - just now we are hyper aware because we are hyper connected. The natural disaster stuff is not new. Climate change is. And as a Bangladeshi American, I worry about the effects of glacial melting for a sea-level country like Bangladesh. We already have climate refugees.

Tandoori Chicken

Sat, 14 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My mother, who is a great cook, simply gets green with envy at my oven utilization. She boasts to her friends how I simply toss a few ingredients together and put them all into the oven and set a timer on. No babysitting, freeing up your hands and mind to take care of the dishes, clean up a wee wee accident (what? that’s not a constant in your day to day?) or whatever else you might need to do. People in Bangladesh just don’t have ovens (or they didn’t at least when she was growing up), so the only method of food prep she’s ever known was stovetop. Luckily, I grew up in new york. I’ve used my oven to satisfy my sweet (and savory) tooth since I was a kid. So, given the craziness of everyday life here, it’s good to have a few of these marinades up your sleeves that you can prepare the morning of or night before, and toss in the oven half an hour before dinner time. I made these homefries to go along with the chicken. The bag said they’re a good source of potassium. Yay for good carbs! Salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and olive oil. 425 for 25 min. Wow! The spice mix is a little tricky to put together but I highly recommend it! There is a small amount of nutmeg (compared to everything else in it) but the flavor really comes through! The flavor is more vibrant than any Shan mix you may buy (and minus the preservatives). Just spend a little bit of time one afternoon or evening to prepare the mix and you’ll have access to delicious tandoori chicken any time! I’ve actually had it sitting in my cupboard for a while (over a year) because I wasn’t crazy about the recipe that went with the mix, but I tried my hand at creating my own recipe more recently and I was blown away! I integrated a few tricks I picked up from Smitten Kitchen, namely her recipe for Buttermilk Roast Chicken. One: that 1 tbsp of salt in the marinade achieves the same effect of brining your chicken. Two: a little bit of sugar goes a long way when roasting chicken. I never was a fan of sweet/savory flavor combinations, but the amount of sugar in this recipe doesn’t make the chicken sweet, rather helps keep all the flavors balanced. Another thing that’s helped my cooking recently is raw ginger. I’ve always had an aversion to it. The times I would bite down on a piece while eating haleem. The sharp, unpleasant flavor it adds to drinks. So I kind of carried that into my cooking, only using small pinches of the milder version, ginger powder. But when I started using the real deal, something amazing happened: the foods I cooked reached new heights. Like, can-compete-with-my-mom heights. I used to attribute the difference in our foods to the type of salt we use (she uses table salt, I use kosher or sea salt), thinking perhaps what she uses (or the volume of it) amplifies the flavor in a way that kosher salt doesn’t. But now I really believe ginger to hold the key. It adds a depth, a warmth, that is hard to achieve with black pepper or chili powder. All in all, ginger, nutmeg, tender fall-off-the-bone meat all knocks this recipe out of the park.

Spice on Kitchen3N

Lentil and Bulgur Kofte

Tandoori Chicken