Parwana: Authentic Afghan Cookbook with Traditional Recipes & Heartwarming Stories | Perfect for Home Cooking & Cultural Exploration

Absolutely amazing cookbook...probably my favorite of my many cookbooks. Always enjoy trying new cuisine from places around the world but this book is especially superb. Zillions of photographs, photos of every recipe or close thereof, gorgeous color-scheme (all that teal/aqua/turquoise just makes everything look fresh and luscious) and the recipes are DELICIOUS. I also look forward to reading some of the cultural history and life story of the author. I grew up on a sheep farm so I always adore good lamb recipes which this cookbook has aplenty, while also having copious chicken, beef, fish and vegetarian dishes as well. The majority of recipes can be made with ingredients from a normal small-town grocery although I did order coriander seeds, a mortar and pestle, cardamom pods, chana dal (split yellow chickpea lentils), canoli tubes, rice, rose water and yellow split peas from Amazon.com because they weren’t available locally and I really wanted to try certain recipes. There are plenty of recipes that don’t require unusual ingredients and supplies. Lots of recipes utilize an onion, fresh tomatoes, sunflower oil and coriander. There are also a number of curry dishes that use cumin and turmeric if you like curries. I’m not sure I could even pick one recipe as a favorite because so many of them were some of the best foods I’ve ever had. The cream rolls (sort of like cream horns, using non-stick canoli tubes to wrap the pastry dough and then filling with a slightly sweetened whipping cream once baked) were soooo delicious: flaky and crispy while still soft and were made by my 9-year-old so if a kid can make them, I’m sure you can too! The filled flatbreads, bolinis, were extraordinarily delicious: there are recipes for four different fillings and I’ve tried the chicken and the potato (there is also a winter squash filling that looks amazing). Wonderful cucumber-yogurt sauces and the best chutney I’ve ever eaten: red pepper with red chili (chutney morcheh sorkh). The Afghan eggs I’ve already made numerous times because it’s the perfect combo of sautéed onion and chili pepper, eggs and fresh tomato. The kolcheh nowrozi (the patterned shortbread cookies I’ve pictured) were easy to make and gorgeous as well as a fun activity for my kids to draw designs in. I will mention that my rose water must be a different strength than the author’s so after I added the 2 1/2 tablespoons of rosewater, the dough and resulting cookies were absolutely inedible so they became just a gorgeous centerpiece so I’ll be making them again without the rosewater or with only 1/2 tsp or so. I also used less sunflower oil than some recipes called for. The mantu dumplings were my first time making dumplings from scratch and I found rolling the dough out quite difficult but soooo much fun to fold. If I made those again, I’d add more than the recommended amount of filling (which is made of cabbage, carrot and onion). The ground lamb kofta sauce is delicious...sort of like a gourmet chili. The beef kebab is one of my favorites too. And so many more recipes I plan to try!: cardamom pod milk tea, lamb kebabs, salad, rice dishes, etc. Beautiful and delicious! The perfect cookbook combo!