Afghan-style kale and spinach curry (sabzi)

When I lived in Toronto years ago, my place was right near an Afghan restaurant where the stars of the menu were kebabs, mantu dumplings with yogurt sauce, bolani stuffed flatbread, and kabuli pulao, a biryani-like rice and meat dish. I alternated between the mains but I usually ended up also getting a spinach side dish. I liked it but once I moved away from the area, I didn’t think about it again until I decided to make Afghan food last weekend. Then the spinach… er… I hesitate to call it a curry because the sauce is quite light, but I suppose that’s what it is – popped back into my mind.

Partly it was because I figured it would be easier than trying to figure out gluten-free versions of mantu or bolani. Partly it was because I thought it would be a nice healthy complement to the kabuli pulao I also planned to make. But suddenly I missed it. It was light and mildly spiced and went with any dish at the restaurant. But I hadn’t had it in years and I didn’t remember enough about it to try to recreate it from memory.

Sheer pira – Afghan-style almond cardamom fudge (vegan)

Occasionally my wild kitchen experimentation results in something so good, it sets a new standard. Such was the case with my attempt at making sheer pira. In the future, I won’t be able to help but compare other fudge. It won’t taste almondy enough. Not cardamomy enough. Not… not my version of sheer pira.

I should back up a little and explain. For our Afghanistan-themed weekend, I looked for Afghan dessert recipes and thought sheer pira/sheer payra sounded nicest as well as naturally gluten-free. But most sheer pira recipes, like this one from SBS, involve powdered milk. Not only do I not have any powdered milk in the house, I’m lactose intolerant. So that was out. I did find an alternative from Recipes of Asia that involved regular milk instead. I thought I might be able to replace that with almond milk.

But that little bit of tinkering with the recipe wasn’t going to be enough. I decided to replace the pistachios, which are high in FODMAPs, with almonds, which are moderate in FODMAPs. And because the recipe seemed to involve too little in the way of solids, I decided to double the amount of nuts so it would be more in line with the SBS version. I decided not to use rosewater, which most recipes call for, because my husband doesn’t like it and I didn’t have any on hand. Finally, I decided to make my version dairy-free. So the experiment was on.

The Kite Runner-Around-The-House

Last weekend was Afghanistan weekend. Why Afghanistan? Because I had some cubed lamb in the freezer I wanted to use up, and because Afghanistan started with an A, for our first weekend choosing a country without an obvious reason.

To teach my four-year-old about Afghanistan, I started by pointing it out on the globe, then I showed her the trailer from The Kite Runner movie (I haven’t actually seen the movie but I loved the book) to give her an idea what the country looked like. We talked about how the boys in the movie loved flying – and fighting with – kites, as well as talking briefly about what war is and how it can destroy friendships and make countries poor. Then, to lighten things up a bit, we made a kite.