My first encounter with a generic barbeque sauce ended with me wondering why anyone would add sweetness to meat. Slowly barbeque sauce was familiar flavor but it never grew enough on me to buy it off-the-shelf. A few months ago, a friend of mine was constantly professing his love for anything with the barbeque sauce. After listening to him, I decided to give a fight chance to a barbeque sauce. I decided to buy one generic barbeque sauce and ended up buying three more within a short period of a month.

Barbeque sauces varies according personal preference, manufactures formulation or regional nuances. However, typically barbecue sauces consist of three of the following base ingredients, in the order of the most commonly used to more exotic ones.

• Tomato is most common base for barbecue sauce and lends its unique flavor and sweetness to barbeque sauces.
• Vinegar results in sour and thin barbeque sauce usually contained red pepper flakes or black pepper powder.
• Mustard based barbeque sauces have obviously spicy mustard taste and thick in consistency. Mustard sauce is usually paired with pork barbeques.

Barbeque sauce is defined by your interpretation of harmonious balance between its four types of flavors; sweet, savory, sour, and heat/spicy. Here are some of the ingredients that can provide unique barbeque flavors.

• Sweetness; sugar, brown sugar, molasses, fruit syrup, honey, soda (some people do add Coke or Pepsi)
• Sourness; vinegar, lime, lemon
• Savory; tomatoes, herbs, worcestershire sauce, beef or chicken stock, soy sauce, bourbon, cloves
• Heat/Spicy; black pepper, mustard, chipotle, chili powder, cayenne pepper, horseradish, jalapeño, habanero, serrano, paprika

This diversity in barbeque sauce has resulted in each region of the United States developing their own regional favorites. Here are some of them listed alphabetically;

• Alabama barbeque sauce is mayonnaise-based “white sauce”.
• East Carolina barbeque sauce is vinegar based sauce spiced with ground black pepper and hot chili pepper flakes.
• Hawaiian barbeque sauce is sweet soy sauce based with fruit juice (typically pineapple) spiced with ginger. It may also have other sweet ingredients such as honey and molasses.
• Kansas City barbeque sauce is thick tomato-based sauce with molasses and vinegar.
• South Carolina barbeque sauce is typically yellow barbecue sauces made primarily from yellow mustard, vinegar, sugar and spices.
• Tennessee barbecue sauce usually has equal portion of tomatoes and vinegar, and often worcestershire sauce.
• Texas barbecue sauces are either thick tomato-based or thin peppery sauce with influence of Tex-Mex seasonings.

You probably have access to hundreds of barbeque sauces to choose from in your local stores. There are thousands of good barbeque sauce recipes. Hence, I am not going to give any recipes here. My suggestion is google your favorite type of barbeque sauce and gets idea of recipe by looking at few. Alternatively, you can always buy a standard barbeque sauce and change its flavor to suit your palette by adding one (or more) of the following;

• Bourbon
• Brown sugar
• Chipotle chili or any dried chilies
• Cinnamon
• Cumin or curry powder
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Honey
• Ketchup
• Lime or lemon juice and/or zest
• Mayonnaise
• Maple syrup
• Mustard
• Mint chopped (or any other aromatic herbs)
• Orange juice and/or zest (or other fruit juice)
• Pineapple or mango puree (or other fruit puree)
• Soya sauce
• Sriracha sauce
• Vinegar
• Wine

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Posted in: American Food | Tags: Alabama barbeque sauce, Barbecue Sauce, base ingredients barbeque sauce, customize barbecue sauce, East Carolina barbeque sauce, Hawaiian barbeque sauce, Kansas City barbeque sauce, South Carolina barbeque sauce, Tennessee barbecue sauce, Texas barbecue sauce

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

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Posted in: Appetizers - Desserts - Drinks - Pakistani food - Vegetarian | Tags: Aloo samosas, Breaking fast Ramadan, Chaana chaat, Chicken Jalfrezie, iftar parties, Iftari Appetizers, Iftari biryani, Iftari dish, Iftari food, Iftari snacks, Kajoor, Keema samosas, Lamb Korma, maghrib salat iftar, Pakistani chicken biryani, Pineapple cupcakes, Ramadan Iftar food, Roofza, Roofza with milk, Rooh Afza, Zucchini Pakora

Tomatoes are one of my favorite fruits/vegetables*. In recent years, heirloom tomatoes have become popular in farmers market. Heirloom tomatoes are open pollinated variety (cultivar). Open pollination means that the tomatoes are pollinated using natural pollination by insects, birds, or wind, and were harvested in a traditional manner — the way we used to grow food before its modern mass production using commercial agriculture.

Nearly every tomato vendor in farmers market offer sampling of some of their heirloom variety, often with a dash of salt.
Beside their flavors, one other thing that I love about the farmers market tomatoes are lack of annoying fruit stickers. Sometime those stickers can get really sticky to fruits and vegetable and hard to remove. Off on a tangent, the best way to remove the fruit or vegetable stickers are when they are dry. You can also use some sort of oil to remove those stubborn sticker residue. Most food grade glue used in sticker are non polar and dissolved by non polar solvent such as oil.

All you need is fresh tomatoes in season to make a healthy and flavorful salad. I chose six cultivars of heirloom tomatoes from my local farmers market. They were; Black Prince, Chereokee Purple, Green Zebra, Kellogs Breakfast, Rose, and Sweet Tangerine.

My heirloom tomatoes came from two local farms, Potomac Vegetable Farms and Wheatland Vegetable Farms. Even very similar looking tomatoes could have drastically different flavors. The pineapple color kellogs breakfast had sour taste but similar looking sweet tangerine was full of sweetness.

I paid attention to get an array of flavors and color. In tomato salad, I tried to balance different flavors, such as sourness of green zebra and black prince were balanced by dark red chereokee purple and rose.

My recipe of simple tomato salad consisted of chopping the tomatoes and lightly salting them.

I didn’t add any other ingredients because I wanted a light tomato salad that would allow me to enjoy the natural flavors of tomatoes. You can change this basic tomato salad by adding a few more additional ingredients. Some of the examples are;

• lime and onions (cilantro) = fresh salsa
• extra-virgin olive oil and garlic (balsamic vinegar) = bruschetta
• chat masala and boiled/diced potatoes (yogurt) = chat (Indian appetizer)
• crumbled feta cheese and fresh oregano (olive oil) = Mediterranean salad
• basil and roasted peanuts (few drops of fish sauce) = Thai-style tomato salad

Enjoy the fresh heirloom tomatoes when they are in season!

* Culinarily speaking, tomato is a vegetable and botanically, it’s a fruit because it contains ovaries of plant with its seed.

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Posted in: American Food - Salad - Vegetarian | Tags: Black Prince Tomatoes, Chereokee Purple Tomatoes, Green Zebra Tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, Kellogs Breakfast Tomatoes, Potomac Vegetable Farms, Rose Tomatoes, Sweet Tangerine Tomatoes, Wheatland Vegetable Farms

I always found the pungent flavors of Ethiopian Injera and its spongy texture enigmatic. Breaking a piece of Injera, pinching and rolling it over bite size piece of slowly simmered vegetable or meat from Ethiopian stew, Wot, is a memorable culinary experience for me. Tiny bubbles on the surface of Injera and its spongy texture perfectly soak up the flavors of Wot.

I only had Injera at restaurants or ones bought from Ethiopian groceries. A few months ago, I asked my Ethiopian friend, A’da, to teach me how to make Injera from scratch. I was surprised by her answer that most young Ethiopians don’t make (or even know how to) make it. Many Ethiopians in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) and Washington DC, which is the home to the largest ex-pat Ethiopian community, buy ready-made Injera from the market. Indeed getting Injera from the market is exactly similar to how most of us get our bread. Culture of making Injera, which is staple bread for Ethiopians, has suffered the same fate as the culture of baking bread for everyday use at the homes – limited to a few culinary crusaders. So when she went back to Ethiopia, I asked her to learn how to make Injera. She came back with information that needed tedious preparation, traditional bread starter and the purchase of additional equipments such as clay pan. It was discouraging  because I wanted to make Injera that was relatively easier to make.

Conceptually, Injera can be considered very similar to a sourdough crêpe. Instead of flour, Injera uses flour from grain of teff, which is the staple food in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Teff has somewhat tangy, earthier, nut-like complex flavor. It is high in dietary fiber and protein, but contains no gluten making it suitable wheat substitute for people with gluten intolerance.

Even if it’s not authentic, using modern techniques at our disposal such as instant yeast, we should be able to make something worth serving at Ethiopian (American) table.

Here’s how I made Injera from scratch. Get following items.

2 cups teff flour
½  cup of all purpose flour
2½  cups of water
1 packet of active dry yeast
½ teaspoon of salt
pinch of cumin powder (substitute for pinch or roasted ground fenugreek)

Mix teff with all purpose flour. Add yeast. Add water and mix to make a thin batter. If you forget to add yeast, you can always add it later, like the way I did.

Cover the batter for 4 to 6 hours. The more time will result in stronger yeasty flavor and shorter time would result in milder flavor. After adding salt and spice, whisk the batter lightly.

Heat the pan to high-medium heat. Wait for pan get to evenly heated. This is the most critical step in making Injera. Pour Injera batter on the hot pan, tilt the pan to spread the batter to make crêpe shape. Cover the pan for about 20 to 30 seconds after pouring batter. The Injera should be cooked by then. When Injera is cooked, it naturally detaches from the pan with a little effort. At first it seems somewhat crisp but once you let it rest, Injera would gain that spongy texture. This is the hardest part of making Injera. You need to get the temperature just right and practice.

Even though my Injera was far from perfect, I am proud that I made it based on my intuition without help from anyone who had experienced or firsthand knowhow in making Injeras. It was the nicest Injera (not tastiest) I ever ate, simply because I made it.

Doro (chicken) Wot (stew) is, perhaps, the best accompaniment for Injera. Technically, mine is Ye’doro Wot because I added hardboiled eggs to the stew.  For my version of Doro Wot, I threw in cut pieces of boneless chicken, peeled hardboiled eggs, sliced bell peppers, caramelized onions, sliced zucchini, diced tomatoes and tomato paste into a slow cooker. I added organic tomato paste* to enhance the rich tomato flavors. Before adding onions, I sautéed them in pan to get a caramelized flavor. I spiced the stew with Berbere from Ethiopia, garlic, lime zest, lime juice, jalapeño peppers, and salt.  You can change the amount of ingredients or switch some key ingredients to suit your preference.

The most important ingredient in this recipe is Ethiopian Berbere, which is Ethiopian chili powder blend that you can find in any ethnic shops or online. Berbere is a spice blend in which the flavor of chili pepper is enhanced by other spices, such as coriander, cloves, cardamom, fenugreek, cumin, ginger and/or other spices according to spice maker’s preference. My Berbere was homemade and came directly from Ethiopia (thanks to A’da). Here’s a conceptual recipe for Berbere. Roast, ground and mix all the ingredients below.

8 parts cumin seeds
8 parts coriander seeds
2 to 4 parts chili flakes
1 part fenugreek seeds
1 part black pepper
1 part allspice berries
1 part ajowan
½ part cloves
1 part kosher salt

After Berbere, the second most important ingredients are tomato and onions for its sauce. There isn’t any basic recipe since I threw in everything together and cooked for 4-6 hour.  Some of the ingredients, such as zucchini, jalapeño peppers and boneless chicken breasts are not the typical ingredients for the Wot. Here are the list of ingredients that I used for my Doro Wot.

1¼  lb boneless chicken breast
4 peeled hardboiled eggs
1 bell peppers sliced
1 sliced caramelized onions
1 sliced zucchini
1 diced tomatoes 4 tablespoons of tomato paste
1½ teaspoon Berbere (adjust)
½ lime juice
¼ zest of lime
couple of jalapeño peppers
few cloves of garlic
and salt

I highly encourage you to taste the Doro Wot when it’s initially cooked and adjust the other ingredients, especially seasonings. Just remember that there is no one standardized Ethiopian version or recipe of Doro Wot – so feel free to make your own version of Doro Wot.

* When you buy tomato paste, please be sure to buy “organic” that just had tomatoes as ingredient. Many other tomato paste come loaded with tons of other additives such as corn syrup that you may not want to consume.

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Posted in: Ethiopian food - Meat - No Chemical Diet | Tags: berbere, Berbere recipe, Doro Wot recipe, Ethiopian meal, How to make Berbere, How to make Doro Wot, How to make Injera, Teff flour, Ye'doro Wot, Ye'Doro Wot recipe

My grandmother is Kashmiri.  Her family lived in Lahore before partition and would visit Srinagar to escape the summer heat of Lahore.  Later her trips to Srinagar were replaced by trips to New York, when her five children had made the United States their home.  Nano, as I call her, was an excellent cook.  She doesn’t cook much anymore due to her age and health, but I am so happy that her recipes are still alive in the family.

I called my aunt a few weeks ago (mom wasn’t available) and she gave me a recipe passed onto her from Nano.  The story behind this recipe is that when Nano visited New York (from Pakistan), she didn’t quite understand how to bake things in the oven, so she invented this chicken recipe for the family.  I made it for my American girlfriends the other day for the first time.  In case you want to experiment with South Asian American cooking, here is the simplest thing I’ve made yet:

Marinate Chicken: (2 pieces per person recommended) doesn’t need to marinate for long, can be seasoned and cooked immediately:

• Sprinkle garlic powder on both sides
• Sprinkle fresh ground black pepper on both sides
• Sprinkle salt on both sides
• Lightly sprinkle red chili powder on both sides (I actually add a teaspoon to the sauce instead of sprinkling it on the chicken)

Sauce:

Cook over medium heat in saucepan:

• 2 tomatoes chopped (you can adjust this to your taste – it depends also on how much chicken you are making)
• 1 cup of cilantro chopped (you can adjust this to your taste – I like more
• 2 green chilies chopped

Potatoes:

Steam potatoes in microwave.  Each potato needs 4 minutes (2 mins on each side).  Cut potatoes into halves or fourths.

Cooking Directions:

• Fry (without oil) marinated chicken in frying pan until the water released by chicken has dried, and it has slightly changed color on all sides.
• Place the chicken in baking pan, place potatoes in a baking pan, pour sauce over chicken, and place under broiler for 20 minutes.
• Serve immediately.

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Posted in: American Food - Meat - Pakistani food | Tags: grandmom's chicken, Kashmiri chicken, Pakistani American chicken, South Asian American chicken, Srinagar chicken