The Honey Thief (32 page)

Heat some oil in the saucepan. I am going to suggest sesame oil, but this is not vital. If you have canola in your cupboard, use canola. Use olive oil if you choose, but the flavour of the
qorma
will gain in the cooking if you can find some sesame. Please don’t permit the oil to burn! Keep the flame low. Add the onion pieces to the oil and stir them until they turn gold.

The remaining spices (cumin, cinnamon, coriander, paprika and turmeric) are now added to the onions. Turmeric first, only what will fill a small spoon. As you add the turmeric, stir it in quickly. Then the other spices in any order, including the garlic, which you should have crushed by now. Let the onions and spices heat for maybe two minutes, not too much heat – if you burn the onions you will have to start again. Who has that much time?

Add the tomatoes to the saucepan for, let’s say, four minutes – one minute for each tomato. Not too much heat. Keep stirring. If the tomatoes are not mushy after four minutes, cook for longer.

Time to put the lamb in the saucepan. Let the lamb pieces mix in with the spices and onions and tomatoes for three or four minutes. Now add tepid water, two-and-a-half cups, stirring as you go. Now yoghurt, proper yoghurt, no flavouring, nothing fancy, just yoghurt, one cup and another one-third of a cup, stirring, stirring. Good. Put the lid on the saucepan, keep the heat low. This is going to take two hours. Read a book. Every fifteen minutes, put the book down and stir the saucepan. In this last hour, you are stirring the
qorma
, and you are reading your book. You started at two-thirty in the afternoon. Now it’s five in the afternoon. Turn off the
qorma
. If you are of my faith, wash and pray. If you are not, do whatever you must. But at five forty-five, prepare the Basmati in the fashion I have described. At six-thirty, serve the
qorma
.

Sabzi Gosht

(Lamb with Spinach)

This is a dish always served at weddings. But what am I saying? Almost every traditional Afghan dish is served at weddings. The wedding ceremony and celebrations last for three days and in that time we eat a lot of food. It has to be this way. The success of the marriage, the blessings of Heaven, the lasting goodwill of friends, the reputation of the bride and groom and of the bride and groom’s family and relations, all depend on a big, extravagant wedding ceremony. The quality and quantity of the food provided will be discussed for years after the ceremony. Someone will say, ‘Ah, the wedding of the carpenter Rousal Ali and the girl from Sar-e Pol – what was her name? Now that was magnificent, ah, the
kofta nakhod
, sublime! Ah, the
aash
. Never in my life have I tasted the like!’ And if there were disappointments, ‘The
qorma
– were they trying to poison me? Dear God!’

Ok, lamb with spinach. This is what you will need:

The
lamb
, of course. Take trouble to find good lamb. With this dish, your jaws and teeth get a holiday. The lamb has to melt in your mouth and just the pressure of your palate will bring out all the flavour that the meat has absorbed from the spices and herbs. So, good lamb, no excuses, cut from the leg, one-and-a-half kilos.

Brown onions
, half a kilo.

Garlic
, four cloves.

One cup of
beef stock
. Best if you make it yourself and have it ready.

A pinch each of
turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon
and
nutmeg.

Some
ground black pepper
, maybe a teaspoon.

Salt
.

Sesame oil
or
olive oil
.

One good bunch of
fresh spinach
.

Fresh yoghurt
. This must be proper yoghurt, not that foolish yoghurt that is sometimes sold with bananas in it and strawberries and sugar.

Grated lemon peel
. Not so much, maybe what will fill a teaspoon.

Five
big
tomatoes
, very red.

Roasted pine nuts
. Enough to fill an eggcup.

Divide the lamb into pieces, each about the size of a small potato. You must quickly sear the lamb in a big cast-iron casserole dish, with a small amount of sesame oil or olive oil. By ‘a small amount’ I do not mean next-to-nothing. We want some of the flavour of the oil to pass into the dish. Next add the brown onions, chopped into small pieces. Sauté the onions with the lamb for two, maybe three, minutes; you judge. Then put the crushed cloves of garlic into the pan and sauté the garlic for a shorter time, say a minute.

Now add all the spices, one spice at a time, and sauté for another two minutes. But concentrate: if the onions blacken, if the garlic burns you will have to make a difficult decision: throw everything away or eat a ruined dish. In Afghanistan we can’t afford to throw food away so we make sure we don’t burn the onions and the garlic. Now add the tomatoes, chopped into chunks, and the beef stock. Okay, now the casserole dish goes into the oven. We don’t want the lamb to cook too quickly, so keep the temperature down to maybe two hundred degrees centigrade. Cook the lamb for one-and-a-half hours, or even longer, but not too much longer or you will kill the natural taste of the lamb and be left with nothing but the taste of the spices and the garlic.

After cooking in the oven, the lamb will be falling to pieces. Let the casserole cool for a few minutes before you add the spinach. You will have washed the spinach and drained it by this time and you will have torn it up with your fingers. The heat of the casserole will cook the spinach as you add it. Blend the spinach in, add the lemon rind and the yoghurt and keep stirring. Now some salt, not so much. Sprinkle the roasted pine nuts on the casserole, then put the lid back on and let the dish cool for fifteen minutes before you serve it with Basmati prepared in the Afghan manner.