What to eat AFGHANISTAN 🇦🇫 Kabuli pulao

Kabuli Pulao

Kabuli pulao, also known as Afghani pulao, is a quintessential Silk Road dish that can be found in variations across northern Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. It is named for the Afghan capital, Kabul, but may originate in northern Afghanistan. Other naming conventions of the dish include Qabeli instead of Kabuli and pulaw instead of pulao. Elsewhere, it is also known as pilav, pulao, palaw, and plov.

Kabuli pulao is a festive dish served on special occasions. In Cumin, Camels and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey, Gary Paul Nabhan compares the dish to paella in that it is “often prepared in huge quantities for festivities such as weddings and holidays.” Despite modern political divisions, Nabhan notes, the dish known as Kabuli pulao is “embraced by both the Bukhara Jews and the Ismaili Muslims of Badakhshan and was no doubt held in high esteem by the Zoroastrians.”

There are variations of this classic pilaf to be found all along the old Silk Road. The dish’s reach extends from Azerbaijan, where I remember it as an obligatory part of any major celebration from holidays to weddings during my time there photographing on National Geographic and Fulbright grants. In Kazakhstan near the border with Uzbekistan, my 86-year-old Latvian aunt remembers eating it in exile in childhood during the war. The Uzbek version differs slightly in that the rice is not first soaked and then parboiled but rather boiled until all liquid is absorbed and then steamed until it is fluffy.

In the gulf region as well as Istanbul, a contemporary variation known as Bukhari pulao has taken hold, likely due to the influence of the Mujahideen and Arab war tourists and foreign fighters in the 1980s and migration routes after the Soviet invasion in 1979. The Gulf variation of Bukhari pulao or Bukhari rice is loaded up with spices from the subcontinent such as cumin seeds, cinnamon, turmeric and saffron, none of which are found in authentic versions of the Afghan recipe. These additional spices though do appear in many Pakistani and Indian recipes for the dish.

Recipes more faithful to the Afghan version of the dish can be found in the Afghan border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, where many Afghan refugees were forced into exile, in some cases for generations. Bukhari pulao is reportedly widely available at inexpensive restaurants across the Gulf region, according to social anthropologist Magnus Marsden at the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. Marsden writes that the owners of these eateries are “largely Uzbek and Turkmen speakers who immigrated to Saudi in the 1980s from Afghanistan, travelling by way of Pakistani frontier cities like Peshawar, Lahora and Karachi”.

The dish itself likely dates back to Bactrian times and the ancient Persian civilization that was centered on modern northern Afghanistan that included parts of southwest Tajikistan and southeastern Uzbekistan. Members of the Zoroastrian faith considered Bactria to be one of 16 perfect Persian lands created by the Supreme Deity Ahura Mazda. Darius the Great mentioned Bactria in the Behistan Inscription as one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire.

It was the center of resistance against Macedonian invaders after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in fourth century BC, though it did eventually fall to Alexander the Great. He reportedly brought the recipes back from Samarkand to ancient Macedonia. After Alexander, the territory was annexed by his general Selecus I.

While these ancient civilizations may have faded and transformed over time, the dish known as Kabuli pulao remains with us. There is even a YouTube soap opera with the name set in Karachi that has drawn audiences from rival India. Recently though, Indian fans found access to the series blocked on their screens.

Recipe

Ingredients:

1 kilo of rice
1 kilo of lamb with bones, cut for pulao (tell your halal butcher it is for this purpose)
6 small onions (3 big will do too!)
3 cloves of garlic
Salt to taste
Olive oil or sunflower seed oil
1.5-2 liters of water
400 grams of shredded carrots
250 grams of golden raisins
200 grams of almonds, unsalted
4 pieces of black cardamon
Sesame oil
White sugar

Directions:

Step 1: Soak the rice overnight in water. The longer, the better.

Step 2: Slice your onions, chop your garlic.

Step 3: Get your oil going on a low heat in a large stock pot. Make sure there is enough oil to fry the onions at a low heat to carmelize them. Add salt at the start of this process. Stir occasionally to prevent the onions from sticking to the pan.

Step 4: Add your lamb, garlic and a teaspoon or two of salt to taste. Stir until the meat is lightly sauteed and brown on the outside and mixed together with the carmelized onions, about five to ten minutes. Add a teaspoon of salt to taste.

Step 5: Add between 1.5 to 2 liters of water to the oil and lamb, adding another teaspoon of salt. Cover and bring to a boil. Once it begins to boil, turn down to a low heat. This will become the stock for the rice. 

Step 6: Prepare the carrots if they are not already shredded into small long pieces, as well as the raisins and chop the almonds if you cannot find shredded ones. A serrated knife (like a bread knife) works well for this purpose.

Step 7: Have the carrots, raisings and almonds ready so frying them will go fast. First up, in a frying pan, coat the pan so there is enough olive oil and a splash of sesame oil to carmelize the carrots. Add a few pinches of sugar. Place on a medium heat and stir occasionally. This should take five to ten minutes until the carrots are slightly translucent and a little sweet. Then set aside.

Step 8: Return the pan to the fire. Add one tablespoon of sesame oil to the pan and add the black cardamon and golden raisins. Add a pinch of sugar. Stir so they don’t burn. They will go faster than the carrots. Then set aside.

Step 9: Return the pan to the fire. Add two tablespoons of sesame oil to the pan and add the almonds. Add a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt. Turn the heat up slightly. Stir occasionally until toasted. Then set aside.

Step 10: Strain the rice, running cold water over it until it runs clear.

Step 11: Bring between 1-1.5 liters of the lamb stock to a boil in a separate pot, leaving the remaining lamb to stew in its juices before transferring the lamb with its juices to a separate plate.

Step 12: Add the rice to the boiling lamb stock that is boiling in a separate pot and cover with a cloth towel wrapped tightly over the lid. Cook until rice is nearly done, between 5-10 minutes on low heat.

Step 13: Drain the remaining liquid from the rice. 

Step 14: Add half the lamb to a pot, coat in in its juices. Add the rice on top. Then add the rest of the lamb and juices on top of the rice. Stir together until the rice and lamb are well mixed.

Step 15: Add the carrots, golden raisins and toasted almonds on top of the rice. Cover with a cloth towel wrapped tightly over the lid and place on low heat for ten minutes.

Step 16: Turn off the heat and let the Kabuli pulao rest for ten minutes. Serve on a platter for your guests.

Tips, tricks and notes: 

Afghan cooks point to sesame oil as a secret ingredient.

In Bern, I found these harder to find ingredients at the following shops:

Halal butcher for the lamb: Furkan Metzgerei at Schlossstrasse 99A.

For black cardamon: Akkara Asian Supermarket, an Indian grocery at Lorrainestrasse 15.

Learn where to eat Afghan food in Switzerland.

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