Cilantro

Here is a quick stir-fry that you might serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and Corn with Aromatic Seasonings.

I first had this sauce, or one similar to it, in the late 1940s. India had just been partitioned, and a refugee family fleeing from what was to become Pakistan had just opened a small, simple restaurant in the center of Delhi called Moti Mahal. It basically served foods baked in the clay oven called a tandoor. There was one sauced dish, however, Chicken Makhani. A tandoor-roasted chicken was cut up with a cleaver and then heated up in this tomatoey, buttery, creamy sauce. I have always loved the sauce. Over the years, I have played around with it, using it with shrimp, and now with salmon. Serve with Swiss Chard with Ginger and Garlic and Rice Pilaf with Almonds and Raisins.

Here I use boneless fish fillets with skin—porgies, red snapper, mackerel, bluefish, gray mullet, redfish, trout, or anything else of modest size. If the fillets are too long, I cut them into convenient 3–4-inch lengths so I can turn them easily in a frying pan. The spicy undercoat is made simply in a food processor or chopper, though you could chop finely by hand if you prefer. If you want to keep the meal simple, serve this fish with Potato Chaat and Spinach with Garlic and Cumin or a salad.

Somewhere between the famous Mulligatawny Soup of the mixed-race Anglo-Indians and the soupy lentil-tomato-pasta dish, dal dholki, of the vegetarians of the western state of Gujarat, lies this soup. It is made with red lentils and tomatoes and may be served with a dollop of plain white rice or with some cooked pasta (pappardelle, noodles, macaroni) added to the soup just before it is heated for serving. This soup, plus a salad, makes for a perfect lunch or supper. There are three simple steps to follow here. First you boil up the lentils. As they cook, you sauté the seasonings. Then you combine the two and blend them.

I make this a lot when tomatoes are in season. It makes for a simple, nutritious lunch or first course.

Here is a soup that I had in Pakistan’s most famous northwestern city, Peshawar. Many of the grander Muslim families, in both India and Pakistan, offer some form of aab gosht, or meat broth, at the start of a meal. Sometimes it comes in cups even before one is seated and requires just sipping. This is a variation of that and requires a spoon. What I was offered on a rather cold day was a steaming bowl of well-seasoned goat broth in which floated oyster mushrooms and slices of river fish. It was so delicious that I decided to come up with a version myself. I have used beef stock, though lamb stock would do as well. If you cannot get fresh oyster mushrooms, use the canned ones, sold by all Chinese grocers, or canned straw mushrooms. Just drain them and rinse them out.

Before cooking, the meat-spice mixture requires a rest in the refrigerator to bring all the flavors together and to give the kebabs their requisite melt-in-the-mouth tenderness. If you cannot get a baking pan of just this size, something a bit smaller or a bit larger will do. (You could also use a 6-inch-square cake tin and cut the kebabs into rectangles—in which case, bake for only 30 minutes.) Serve these pâté-like kebabs with drinks, offering flatbread pieces or crackers to eat them with, or serve them as part of a meal with vegetables or salads. They need an accompanying chutney, such as the Peshawari Red Pepper Chutney, page 243, or the Bengali-Style Tomato Chutney, page 244.

Known as bhajia, bhaja, pakora, and many other names in different parts of India, fritters are an integral part of every single local cuisine in the nation. The flour that is generally used is the protein-rich chickpea flour (though sometimes rice flour is mixed in for extra crunch). That is the constant. After that, anything can be “frittered”—leaves, roots, fish, roe, vegetables, you take your pick. The batter can be thick or thin, spicy or mild, you take your pick again. Most fritters are served with chutneys. Might I suggest Fresh Green Chutney, page 245, or Peshawari Red Pepper Chutney, page 243, here, but, if you do not have time, bottled tomato ketchup or a last-minute squeeze of lime juice will suffice. In India and Pakistan, fritters are eaten as a snack, with chutneys and tea. In Bangladesh, they can be the first course at a meal, served with rice. In the West, they have acquired another life altogether: they are served as an appetizer in restaurants and with drinks at catered parties. Ideally, these fritters, rather like French fries, are best eaten as soon as they come out of the frying pan. If that is not possible, make them ahead of time and reheat them in a medium oven for 10 minutes.

I often offer these as an appetizer. I serve them just the way they are, but you could also serve them on toasted slices of Italian bread or just buttered toast.

I love cheese toast the way it is done in India—with some chopped fresh green chilies and cilantro thrown in. We like to serve it with tea, as we seem to love the combination of spicy snacks and very hot tea! You can use any white bread (or brown, if you prefer), any cheese you like (I happen to like sharp cheddar), and the chilies could be fresh green ones (about 1/4 teaspoon, well chopped) but the pickled Greek ones are fine too, and, as I always have them on hand in my refrigerator and I like the tartness they provide, I use them instead. Some Anglo-Indian recipes have the yolks of hard-boiled eggs mixed with mustard spread inside the sandwich as well. I make my sandwich in a frying pan, but a panini press, if you have one of those, would work too.

In Morocco it is poor food eaten hot with bread. A grander version with saffron is served as a first course. You may use canned chickpeas. The same can also be done with white cannelini beans, dried or canned.

This is one of my favorites. You will need a large shallow pan that can go to the table. In Morocco the cooking is finished in a wide earthenware tagine which goes on top of the fire. Serve it with plenty of warm bread.

Pan-cooking with the famous marinade is the simplest and quickest way of preparing a Moroccan-style fish dish.

This makes an exciting cold first course or buffet dish. The fish is fried, then marinated in a beautifully flavored dressing. Make it at least an hour before you are ready to serve. You can use Mediterranean fish, such as bream, or any firm-fleshed fish, such as cod or haddock.

Trid is described as the poor man’s bstilla. It is also said that the Prophet would have liked it best. He is known to have been fond of onions, and here a huge mass is reduced to a creamy sauce. I prefer it too.

Tomatoes are banadoura in Arabic and tamatem in Egypt.

This is one of Egypt’s national dishes, welcome at all times, for breakfast, lunch, or supper. The Christian Copts, who are said to be pure descendants of the ancient Egyptians, claim this dish as their own, along with melokheya soup (page 146). Their claim might be justified, since these dishes are extremely old. During Coptic religious festivals, and particularly during Lent, when they are not allowed to eat meat for many weeks, every Coptic family produces mountains of ta’amia for their own daily consumption and to be distributed to non-Coptic friends and neighbors. Ta’amia (called “falafel” in Alexandria) are patties or rissoles made from large dried fava beans (ful nabed), which look white because they are sold skinless. Splendidly spiced and flavored, and deep-fried in oil, they are delicious. I have never known anyone not to like them. The best I have eaten were in Alexandria, with my aunt and uncle. Every year they rented a flat there, the balcony of which was directly above a café which specialized in ta’amia. My relatives were both rather large, which was not surprising, since we always seemed to come upon them eating; and I could never visualize them eloping, gazellelike, in their youth, which was the romantic legend that was told to us. On each visit, we would sit with them for hours on their balcony overlooking the sea. Time and again, a basket would be lowered on a rope to the café below and pulled up again with a haul of fresh ta’amia, sometimes nestling in the pouch of warm, newly baked Arab bread. We would devour them avidly with pieces of bread dipped in tahina salad, and then wait anxiously for the basket to be filled up again. You must buy the large broad beans which are sold already skinned as “split broad beans” in Middle Eastern stores (again, they look white without their brown skins).

In Morocco, men are masters of the fire, in charge of the brochettes, the small kebabs threaded on little wood or metal skewers, which are traditional street food. The ground meat kebabs are deliciously aromatic—full of fresh herbs and spices. The meat is usually pressed around skewers and cooked over dying embers, but it is easier simply to pat the meat into sausage or burger shapes and cook them under the broiler or on a griddle. There should be a good amount of fat (it melts away under the fierce heat), enough to keep the meat moist and soft. Otherwise, work 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil into the paste. Bite-size keftas can be served as appetizers at a party, but en famille burger-size ones, accompanied by a salad, represent a main dish.