Poikien Talo´s cooking blog

Hello and welcome to Poikien Talo´s cooking blog presented by e-Talo. Here you can find interesting recipes and the stories that come with them.  The first entry is from an evening spent cooking together; with a group of young men from Afghanistan leading us.

Over the course of 3.5 hours we prepared a dish called Qabuli Palwo. It is a standard dish prepared both in Afghanistan and Iran. While the amounts of each ingredient seemed fairly vague I will leave it up to the person cooking to determine how large and in what portions they want to prepare the meal. This is essentially a rice based dish but there are a few tricks along the way to help create this healthy, and savoury meal.

Ingredients:

-Rice

-Salt

-Chicken

-Oil (any oil will do)

-Carrots

-Raisins

-Caraway

Side Dish:

Potatoes

Oil

Salad

-Cucumber

-Tomatoes

-White Onion

Recipe

-Begin by soaking the rice in large bowls of salted water.

-Separately, bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Meanwhile

-Grate carrots and then combine with raisins while frying in oil. Do not use to much oil in this process as the carrots are quite moist and we want them to cook evenly. Cook until the carrots change colour and the raisins start to expand.

-Fry the chicken in oil. There should be enough oil in the pan to cover ¾´s  of the chicken meat. Turn the chicken in this oil constantly.

- Set both prepared dishes aside.

Once the water has boiled

-Drain the rice from the salted water and then add it to the boiled water. At the same time add in chicken and carrot/raisin dishes. Season with caraway in the amount you see fit.

-Stir until all of the ingredients are evenly distributed.

-Wrap the lids of the pots in a cloth and then firmly place the lids on top so the cloth is helping trap the steam and flavours into the pot.

Cook for an extended periods of time (1hr minimum) without removing the lid. The longer this meal is set to cook the more rich and deeper the flavours will be.

Side Dish:

Bring a large pot of oil to a heated state

Peel potatoes

Chop into small match stick sized pieces

Fry until crispy

Salad:

As this is a heavy meal it is nice to have something fresh on the side.

-Slice white onion, tomatoes and cucumber in narrow slices

Place on a plate and serve with the main course.

The Ending

Everything should be served together and enjoyed, as we did, at a large table full of laughter and excitement.