Afghanistan - Menu and Overview

This menu was much easier to pick.  I love dumplings.  They have dumplings.  I love flat bread.  They have flat bread.  It's very cold here
in Chicago right now and Afgans make a mean lamb stew.  I did want a couple of pre-dinner snacks since we were having people over.  So a dip for the bread and some roasted chickpeas for snacking.  Done!

Noni Afghani (Flat bread)
Nakhot e Shor (Roasted Chickpeas)
Sabse Borani (Spinach Yogurt Dip)
Aushak (Scallion Dumpling)

Lamb Korma (Lamb Stew)

To be honest, I could have done with the stew or the dumplings.  Either were totally sufficient to be the main part of the meal by themselves, but I'm not sure which I would have cut because they were both awesome!  My friend and I discussed this at the end of the meal and we agreed that it would have been very tough to pick something to cut out.

I bought the The Honey Thief on my kindle and read it while I was simmering the stew.  I enjoyed
learning more about Afghanistan thought that these stories were beautiful.  It's nice to hear about the culture and people of the land that I hear so much sadness about.  The people must be strong to have survived all that they have.  And they've done a darn good job of perfecting their food!

We had people over and I didn't think to take a picture of everything together.

Noni Afghani (Flat bread)
Who doesn't love flat bread?

Nakhot e Shor (Roasted Chickpeas)
These were super tasty and crunchy.

Sabse Borani (Spinach Yogurt Dip)
Another win.  I will definitely make this again in the future.  It was pretty easy and very healthy.  Greek yogurt has a high level of calcium and protein and the spinach is healthy too.  I love things that taste good and are also good for you.

Aushak (Scallion Dumpling)
This took a ton of work.  In addition to making the dumpling I also had to make a meat sauce to go on top and a yougurt garlic sauce for on top of that.  They were very good and worth the effort.

Lamb Korma (Lamb Stew)
The flavors were amazing.  I let Z try some of the lamb and a bit of the sauce.  He loved the sauce.  It was a little spicy so I only let him try a very little bit.  He was very unhappy when I stopped giving him more.

Overall, I liked the Afghan food better than the Abkhazia food from last week.  It's really hard to say what my favorite part was because it was all so amazing.

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