One of my favorite salads growing up in Nepal was Pomelo (Chinese grapefruit) salad made in a similar style as coleslaw. However, instead of a mayonnaise-based dressing, which is used in coleslaw, pomelo salad has a yogurt based dressing. The pomelo salad is known as Bhogatee Sadeko in Nepali, which roughly translates to marinated/seasoned (sadeko) pomelo (bhogatee, often spelled bhogate and mistranslated as grapefruit). It is also known as bhogatee (polmelo) paun (sour) in Newari language.

Pomelo, Citrus grandis or Citrus maxima, is perhaps the largest citrus fruit, about 7 inches or more in diameter, with a pale greenish yellow rind, which is a inch or so thick. Pomelo tastes like a bit like grapefruit but is sweeter, less tart,  and is not bitter.

Pomelo is native to southeastern Asia, and is cultivated and consumed in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Thailand , Nepal, Philippines, Vietnam, etc. The attempts to introduce pomelo to the United States in the beginning of the twentieth century failed mainly due to inferior cultivar and enthusiasm. Currently, pomelo isn’t easily found in your everyday local grocery stores in the United States. However, it can be easily obtained at most local gourmet, Asian grocery stores and often in big box discount stores such as Costco.

In Nepal, pomelo is harvested around the beginning of the winter. A typical warm winter weekend may involve the family basking in sun on roof deck or porch and peeling off thick pomelo rinds for salad. The chef of the house, which is usually mom, marinates/spice up (sadeko) pomelo, while kids make hats out of pomelo rind and play.

During this thanksgiving, my cousin Sabi surprised us by making this traditional pomelo salad. This is how she made it. There is no exact amount for the recipe because there is no standard way of making it. Sugar and salt is added according to taste and also depends on the flavors, sweetness, and tartness of fruits used.

1 part pomelo
1 part other fruits (apples, bananas, oranges or any other fruits)
½ part plain yogurt
¼ part roasted ground sesame powder
salt
sugar
red chili pepper and/or paprika (a pinch per cup of salad)

1/8 part vegetable oil
fenugreek seeds (¼ teaspoon per cup of salad)
turmeric (a pinch per cup of salad)

Peal citrus fruits and add cut fruit pieces. You can substitute pomelo with sweet grapefruit, if you couldn’t find pomelo.

Yogurt is used as the base for this pomelo salad dressing.

Spice up salad dressing by adding spices.

Yogurt and ground roasted sesame are the key ingredients for the pomelo salad dressing. Add roasted sesame powder. You can make your own roasted sesame powder. Start by pan roasting sesame until it slightly browns, but be careful as it will start crackling and jumping off the pan. Let the roasted sesame cool. Ground it.

In the final step of its preparation; you temper the fruit salad mixed with yogurt and spices by adding warm oil seasoned with fenugreek. To season the oil, heat it with fenugreek seeds as shown in aloo sadeko. After fenugreek seeds turn black, turn off the heat, wait a bit and add the warm (be careful!) oil to the salad. Mix and eat.

Eating the pomelo salad after a long time brought back fond memories of my childhood — next time I will be sure to make a pomelo hat for myself.

I wish I took a second serving….

In most grocery stores, containers of Baba Ganoush could be easily confused with similar looking hummus — often displayed together in a dip aisle. Both have a similar off white color, are of Middle Eastern origin, and have dash of tahini (sesame paste) – but the similarities end there.

Baba Ganoush is cooked mashed eggplant dish that can be served as an appetizer, salad, side dish or more commonly, in this country, as a dip with pita bread or vegetables (celery, baby carrots, cucumber etc). I heard somewhere that in Arabic it means dad (baba) and spoiled (ganoush). Whereas, hummus is made from chickpeas.

A simple Baba Ganoush recipe calls for roasting eggplant on open flame (or baking), peeling off the purple skin, mashing up and add sesame paste tahini and other seasoning. Many similar eggplant dish are served around the world such as Indian Baingan Bharta, Bulgarian Kyopolou, Greek Melitzanosalata, Lebanese Mutabal, Turkish Patlican Salatasi, Israeli Salat Hatzilim, etc.

This is my interpretation of Baba Ganoush

Get regular American eggplant (brinjal). American eggplants are dark purple in color, elongated oval size and about one to one and half pound in weight. Make incision mark on opposite sides.

Bake eggplants for 40+ minutes in 400°F oven. If possible, flip in the middle. The baking time depends on the size of the eggplant. When eggplants are done, they collapse

Let it cool. Peel off the skin.

Mash it with knife or lightly puree in food processor. I pulsed in couple of times in my blender.

Since I didn’t have tahini, I decided to use sesame seed powder. So, I roasted and grounded sesame seeds, then added it to mashed eggplants.

Add salt, lime juice (about 1/2 for each eggplant), chopped mashed roasted garlic (few pods, optional) and cumin (a pinch, optional).

Garnish by drizzling some extra virgin olive oil and sprinkling paprika.

Ramadan Mubarak to all our readers!
August 11, 2010 – September 9^th, 2010

I started fasting for Ramadan when I was eleven or twelve years old.  I’d have to do a fact check on the exact age with my mom since she remembers it better than I do.  The first few days were the hardest.  It would get easier along the way, until the week or so after Ramadan when every time I ate during the day I felt like I was making a mistake or doing something wrong.  It’s interesting how a month can make or break a habit.

We fast from sunrise to sunset each day during Ramadan.  It is especially challenging during the summer months when the days are longer and the weather is hot.  The highlight of the day is definitely after the call for maghrib salat (prayer after sunset) when it’s time to break the fast.

Muslims host iftar parties for relatives, friends, and/or the community to share in the breaking of fast together.  Breaking fast with someone is considered a blessing even if you aren’t fasting.  It is also a good deed to feed those who are fasting during the month of Ramadan.  And God knows we can all use those extra brownie points.

This year I hosted my second ever iftar party.  Last year, I had a dozen or so guests and I was just starting out learning to cook.  This year I have some experience under my belt and of course, the rest is left to God to make my food delicious or not.  I hosted 33 guests on the 14^th of August which is also Pakistan Independence Day, so obviously it was themed accordingly!

I set the menu as follows:

Appetizers
Kajoor (dates)
Keema samosas (shaped like dumplings)
Aloo samosas
Chaana chaat
Vegetable Pakoras – Eggplant and Zucchini

Entrée
Palak Paneer
Lamb Korma
Chicken Biryani
Chicken Jalfrezie

Dessert
Pineapple cupcakes with cream cheese icing
Chai
Roofza with milk
Roofza with water

It is traditional in my culture to have an iftari which is more snacks based (see appetizers list) and follow it with a dinner later in the evening.  This was the largest dinner party I have thrown.  It was definitely a lot of work to cook for that many guests.  Of course, I had my mom on video chat and on the phone guiding me, but it also took a lot of planning and coordinated execution.

First I thought of my theme.  I am a proud Pakistani American and saw the opportunity to combine the celebration of Ramadan iftar with the celebration of Pakistani Independence day – 8.14.10.  That set my color scheme: Green.  I sent out a custom evite to all my guests 6 weeks in advance.  Reserving the first weekend in Ramadan is very difficult because there will be many competing parties.  I bought green glasses, white silverware and of course it helps that proud Pakistanis have lots of souvenirs, flags and symbols to scatter around the house.  I got my holiday lights out and put them up, I used a giant Pakistani flag as a table cover, put out village souvenirs near the cupcakes at first and then near the drinks when we needed the freezer.

I rearranged all the furniture in the house to comfortably seat guests.  I went for an open floor plan, removed all tables from the center, and created a large oval.  I threw floor cushions in various spaces so people could sit on the carpet with comfort.  I put small tables near chairs so people could rest their glasses.  I developed an icebreaker so people would be forced to be creative, come out of their comfort zone and engage with the wider crowd.

Then I thought about my menu for about 10 days.  I finally settled on the above mentioned menu. I bought green food coloring for my cupcakes as well as green icing to decorate them.  I asked everyone to either wear green or South Asian clothes.  My guest-list consisted of mixed races and faiths so it was great to have people join in the theme even when they were not Pakistani or Muslim.

My biggest concern was whether the quantity of food would be enough.  At least a dozen of the guests were not fasting.  The rest were so they had neither drank or eaten anything all day.  Having many items is actually a plus because everyone will take a little of everything and then the dish can go a long way.  I knew the main dish was the biryani.

I had to make as much of that as I could.  Knowing my nature and tendencies to do things big, I have pots that will cook large quantities.  I made 8 cups of uncooked basmati rice for the party.  I began by creating the chicken masala for the biryani.  I then boiled my rice with salt, bay leaves and black cardamom.  Once the rice had boiled I strained it and divided it into two halves.  I layered one half of the rice on the bottom of the large pot and put in all of the chicken masala on top, then I layered the rest of the rice on top.  I added the yellow food coloring and put the entire pot in the oven at 180⁰F to keep warm until the guests arrived two hours later.

I served all the appetizers first. I fried the samosas and pakoras right before the breaking of the fast so they would be fresh and hot.  In the meantime, I kept all the entrees warm.  Fifteen minutes after everyone had a chance to eat the appetizers I reviewed the table, removed what was finished and set up the entrees.

After dinner, I facilitated the ice breaker, served dessert and chai.

All in all it was really memorable for me and I am glad I did it.  I definitely think it was crazy to cook for so many people, but now that I have this under my belt it won’t be as overwhelming the next time around.

More photographs on DesiGrub’s facebook page

I first went to Myanmar Restaurant in Falls Church VA few years back. I was not immensely impressed. The food was decent but not great enough to go again due to its location. Basically, it didn’t live up to my friend’s stellar review. For me, Burmese cuisine uses many of pan-Indian spices with components of Thai cuisines. Some Nepali expats find similarities between some of the Burmese dishes with their own cuisine.

This time, on insistence from another friend, who might have heard from the same group of friends, I went to the restaurant again. I already had sushi before going to Myanmar Restaurant, so I was not hungry. My plan was to either get a drink and/or share an appetizer.

I passed up the drink. Everyone chose Singha beer. If you have never had this Thai beer, it is a lager style beer with somewhat light sweet aftertaste like Jamaican Red Stripe.

We started with “crispy chicken” appetizer, which is boneless chickens in thick spongy coat of batter served with a broth-like sauce. The chicken appetizer came with 6 pieces. Since we went in a group of 7 people, one of a friend N’chal asked if it is possibility to get an extra piece. The waitress gave a polite smile but didn’t say yes. But our crispy chicken did come with the extra piece.

“Mango salad” was thinly sliced pieces of tart mango, onion and cabbage. It had crushed peanuts and cilantro. I am sure it was coated with roasted ground chickpea flour because giving it the nutty flavor. This is perhaps the most uniquely Burmese dish. I highly recommend any of Burmese style salad unless you are allergic to chickpeas.

I was supposed to share the “fillet fish curry” with M’deep. The fish curry came in a tomato broth and we had option of choosing salmon, catfish, or tilapia. I believe we chose catfish. The fish curry was good enough that Mr. M’deep, who was slightly hesitant about spiciness of the dish, decided to finish majority of it even though it was spicy hot.

Most of us went there for their “mutton curry” (goat) which is made of curry and onion based sauce. The dish lived up to its expectation. It was hot but spices were balanced well and meat was cooked perfectly tender. Unfortunately, they ran out of the mutton dish and had only one serving. We shared and tried another dish called “chili chicken”, which is a hot spicy chicken dish with onion and chilies. Cucumber served in side did help to cool off the extra heat from the spices. This dish is recommended with reservation to those who can stomach the heat.

A few other dishes we got such as sautéed beef kabob was average. Everything else seemed reasonably well prepared and priced in this mom and pop establishment. I haven’t tried any other Burmese restaurants in the DC area (Burma Restaurant‎ in DC and Mandalay Restaurant & Café in Silver Spring, MD), so can’t give my opinion based on comparison. Nevertheless, I would definitely go to Myanmar Restaurant again. If you want to go there I recommend their fish, mutton, and out of all, for their unique salads.

I have been to Kabob Bazaar near Clarendon metro numerous times. Usually, it’s for a quick kabob lunch. This time, I was meeting a friend after a long time and we took our time to chat over 3 course meal in Kabob Bazaar.

Our meal started with falafel platter. The falafels were slightly burnt outside but tasted crispy and had decent flavor. Falafel looked a bit rustic and seemed homemade (when I inquired, they are not homemade). Along with our appetizer, we got a salty yogurt drink with mint, dogdh. We opted for homemade dogdh, which is less carbonated and spicier than a bottled version. It was indeed refreshing in the hot summer afternoon if you can stomach a cold salty and spicy yogurt drink.

For my main course meal, I chose lamb kabob. I was pleasantly surprised when the waitress asked me for doneness of my kabob. Usually, you are not asked if you want medium rare or medium well, they just give you medium. I was kind of bummed out that I had to pick either rice or flatbread to accompany my lamb kabob. As much as I love rice, I can always make it at home. However, I don’t have a 800 F hot oven (tandoor) to make the flatbread. My choice of bread seemed ideal as it was freshly baked and big. My medium rare lamb kabob came on top of the bread with grilled vegetables such as mushroom and peppers. The kabob also came with generic and mediocre version of mast-o-khiar, Persian mint and cucumber yogurt sauce. The side of sumac was already on the table along with regular salt and black pepper shakers.

The lamb kabob meal was filling and we were stilling chatting over warm cup of freshly brewed Turkish tea. After a while, how could we refuse a good dessert? I chose saffron ice cream with pistachios and rose water while my friend chose pastries. The ice cream was full of the unique saffron flavor as suggested by its deep saffrony yellow color (unless artificial yellow color was added). If you have never tried saffron ice cream, I encourage you to go find a saffron ice cream in your local Indian grocery store.

Our 3 course meal at Kabob Bazaar was memorable. The food was good but taking our time to finish our meal over long conversation was priceless.

Perfect kabob = flavorful grilled marinated (or spiced) meat cooked succulent but tender enough to melt in your mouth. The major disappointment for kabob is a dry and chewy kabob. Generally, kabob is served with leavened flat-bread (often known as naan), rice and vegetables/salad.

There are four categories of kabobs;

Shish kabob or souvlaki or satay or sekuwa: marinated chunk of usually cubed boneless meat grilled over open charcoal. Shish kabobs are usually grilled with skewers. Shish kabobs need the highest quality meat because there is no processing of meat before cooking except marination. Since shish kabobs are cooked with just radiant heat, it can be most succulent and juicy kabob if cooked right.

Tandoor kabob or kathi kabob or bhatti Kabob: marinated chunk of (usually with bones) meat grilled in a high heat clay oven known as tandoor. Temperature in tandoor can go as high as 900°F. Tandoor Kabob is generally a bit dry than shish kabobs because both radiant heat (from fire) and convection heat (hot air) is cooking the kabobs. A famous example of tandoor kabob is the tandoori chicken served in virtually any non-vegetarian Indian restaurants.

Chapli kabob or kakori kabob or Kubideh kabob:  spiced ground meat usually cooked over charcoal grill. Since it’s made of ground meat, many inferior meats can be served as this kabob. Basically it’s like grilled burger (with more spice). A burger can be McDry burger or a heavenly delight (see best burgers in DC).

Doner kebab (Turkish) or Turkish kabob (Indian subcontinent and Iran) or shawarma (Arabic) or gyro (Greek) : vertical cone shaped kabob that are sliced to order. The traditional way to make doner kabob is to stack marinated slices of lamb meat on a rotating vertical skewer in the shape of an inverted cone topped with fat, tomatoes, and onion flavoring the meat in bottom with its drippings when heated. However, in west doner kebab is often industrially manufactured with ground meat. The traditional doner kabob is cooked in rotating charcoal or wood cooker. It is sort of old fashioned rotisserie meat.

Spices, marination, sauce, side ingredients and type of meat may change but the above four categories encompass essence of all kabobs. For example, in countries with large Muslim population, kabobs are made from lamb and sometimes with beef, in Indian subcontinent it has curry based spices, in Thailand it may be served with peanut sauce, Greeks make gyro from pork, which is taboo meat in Muslim countries, and serve with yogurt sauce.

For me Kabob is street food or at most a fast food such as oldstyle delis. So, I don’t like the idea of kabobs in a fancy restaurant. A kabob joint should be an unassuming place that serves the quality Kabob with possibly flatbread and should not be heavy on your wallet. My search for perfect kabob took me to these places in and around DC.

Moby Dick
Moby Dick is a DC based local kabob chain, with notably Georgetown and Dupont location. Kabobs in Moby Dick have Persian (Iranian) influence. One of my favorite kabob is Joojeh Kabob, which is grilled boneless piece of chicken marinated with seasoning such as saffron, black pepper and lemon juice. Another classic favorite is Kubideh kabob. Kubideh kabob generally means kabob made from ground meat such as lamb or beef.

In Moby Dick, it is sirloin. Many of Moby Dick’s entrees are very similar to the Persian national dish, Chelow kabob. Chelow kabob consist of steamed saffron basmati rice (Chelow) and kabob. Traditionally, Chelow kabob is served with grilled tomatoes on the side and butter on top of the steamed rice like the way it’s served in Moby Dick. Moby Dick also provides a classic condiments, ground sumac (Somagh), on their tables. You can sprinkle this reddish looking powder on rice to give somewhat of aromatic tart flavor. If you are adventurous enough, Moby Dick also serves the traditional yogurt drink, Doogh, which are often carbonated and flavored with salt and mint. Moby Dick has two varieties; the homemade and the commercial. The homemade is more flavorful while commercial is more carbonated. It reminds me of salty lassi drink people in northern India drink to cool off during hot summer days. Definitely try, if you are a foodie!

Kabob Palace
First, a word of caution. I had been to Kabob Palace couple of times few years ago. It is walkable from crystal city metro. So, this time when we went, we accidently went to another sit down type restaurant in same block called Kabob Palace Restaurant. We got table and immediately realized it is not the Kabob Palace that I remembered. The obvious thing to do was shamelessly get up and go to the real Kabob Palace. There are two other Kabob joints right next to the famous Kabob Palace. The other one is Shisha Palace Café, which is more of shisha joint (Hookah). I have eaten there once and the food is okay. Indeed, my recommendation is go to the Kabob Palace, which is setup like a fast food deli; you order, pay, get a number and wait.

The kabobs here have more of Indian subcontinental influence (read; Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India) because spice marination of kabob has more curry flavors. However, it also serves kubideh, which is more of Persian style kabob. They also serves chapli kebab or chappal kabob, a spicy beef patty made in Peshawari style, a northwestern part of Pakistan. Lamb kabobs are served with bones as well as without bones. All the kabobs are served with rice, salad and Indian subcontinental style curried vegetables such as spinach potato (palak aloo), chickpeas etc. Beside kabob, Kabob Palace also serves other dishes such as Karahi chicken. One of the best part of Kabob Palace is that you get a free black masala chai (see previous post on chai) while you wait for your kabobs. Both time I went to Kabob Palace, it was snowing and their hot tea made me feel at home.

Ravi Kabob, Kabob Bazaar and others
Ravi Kabob is another Indian subcontinental kabob joint. You will get regular curry flavored chicken and lamb kabob and also find Lahori style karahi, kofta, Punjabi curry with pakora, aloo mutter. They also serve Haleem, which is sort of like chili type dish (without beans) with pulled meat. Ravi Kabob also serves dessert such as ras malai. However, Ravi Kabob is not metro accessible.

Kabob Bazar is a kabob between courthouse and clarendon metro. It serves Middle Eastern type kabob, i.e., light on curry spices. It also has other Middle Eastern fare such as falafel, hummus, as well as decent selection of vegetarian and fish kabobs.

There are many other wonderful kabob joints around DC area that I have yet to explore. My suggestion is go and try them out. You may find a hidden jewel hiding in your neighborhood.

In search of Doner Kabob
I found virtually all of the restaurants in DC serve industrially manufactured doner kabob, shawarma or gyro with ground meat. Some of DC based blog tipped me to this place called DC Café (P Street- near DuPont circle) that serves homemade gyro kabob. I called and DC Café confirmed that they make homemade chicken gyros meat. When I went there, I didn’t see any inverted vertical rotating grill but somewhat of dinky and dirty establishment. Hoping it must be one of those hole-in-wall jewels; I confirmed the homemade gyro and paid for my dinner. After a while, I realized they just cook a piece meat that is sitting outside on flattop surface like a chicken cheese steak (without cheese). The cook added onions and served with very sour (stale?) yogurt sauce on a stale pita. It was one of the most disheartening meals that I ever had with questionable hygiene. In fact, even I didn’t eat lunch that day, I couldn’t bring me finish my fake kabob and I eat everything. My search for authentic doner kebab, shawarma or gyro is still on.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.

The thing I love about quesadillas is the versatility… nothing really has to be measured out — vegetables and meat can be added or omitted. This is a great meal for less than $2 a person, which is perfect for our budget. My husband and I opted for whole wheat tortillas and fresh vegetables.

Ingredient Suggestions (Serves 2)
four 8″ tortillas
3-4 oz. mexican or taco blend shredded cheese
3-4 oz. chicken or beef (omit for vegetarian quesadilla)
jalapeno peppers (with or without seeds)
onion, lettuce, black olives, tomatoes, green or red pepper
salsa, sour cream

Grill thin slices of chicken or beef, if using. I sprinkled the chicken with a bit of leftover taco seasoning to spice it up a little (a great seasoning recipe can be found here). Chop all vegetables into ¼” pieces.

Start with one tortilla per person. Lay out meats and vegetables evenly within a half inch of the edges. Sprinkle cheese over top, and place second tortilla on top. Heat a panini press (or a nonstick pan or griddle) on medium heat, and heat quesadilla until cheese has melted and bottom tortilla has slightly browned. Carefully flip the quesadilla over to heat the other side, if necessary.

Use pizza cutter to cut into 6-8 slices.

Serve with salsa and sour cream.