Mujaddara (Rice with lentils)

Belated Ramadan Mubarak, readers! I can't believe we're already into the 3rd day already considering the period of fasting is quite long this year. I've got my interpretation of the Middle Eastern dish, mjddara/mujaddara to share with you today which would make a lovely addition to the dinner table for iftar.

Made with lentils and rice, this is apparently known as a peasant dish, as it is a cheap and filling dish with no meat. However, you really don't miss the meat and I could easily eat plates of this rice all on its own.

Being typically Bengali, I think my version of mujddara is quite similar to how we make pilau, minus all of the complicated spices. This dish only has cumin and black pepper but it surprisingly has a robust earthy and wholesome taste.

I adapted this recipe from This Muslim Girl Bakes and Arabic Zeal. From the latter, I took the idea of adding carrot which adds nice bites of sweetness to the rice. From the former, I got the idea of adding butter to the dish. The reasoning behind this was that apparently butter makes everything taste better, and my giddy aunt, the butter makes such a huge difference to an otherwise humble dish. I usually use ghee when I make traditional pilaus, however after the success of this dish, I may just switch to using butter now!

As I was writing out the recipe and instructions, I think I might have ended up making this sound more complicated than it really is. If you omit the caramelised onions, it is just an easy one pot dish. Measuring the rice and water using a coffee cup pretty much guarantees stress free perfectly cooked rice. In typical lazy Red Lychee fashion, I used canned green lentils, which cut down cooking time greatly. One day I might get around to soaking and boiling dried legumes, but today is not that day my friends!

Chicken Pilau

Many moons ago, when I was undertaking a work experience placement, someone asked me what the Bengali version of a Sunday Roast was. I jokingly replied we had Curry Sundays instead. Any family gatherings or inivtations we have usually fall on a Sunday, and usually there is some sort of pilau or biryani dish served as the star of the meal. Now I'll be honest, before making this chicken pilau, I had never really been trusted enough to make a pilau dish for company. But I feel as though I've made great strides in my cooking over the past year, and a few Sundays ago, I decided enough was enough and that I needed to conquer my fear of the pilau.

Now pilau, or pulao or pilaf, or fulaab as we Sylheti Bengalis call it, is a lot easier to make in my opinions than Biryani. You just combine the rice with the masala and add the water. The tricky part is making sure the grains of rice are nice and separate and don't become too mushy. That was the one thing I never used to quite get when I would watch my mum making pilau as she never used to measure anything and would rely on the dreaded 'antaaz' where everything was done by eye or feel. As a result, I never really knew how much water to add in proportion to the rice. However, to stay on the safe side, I followed a ration of 1 cup of rice to roughly 2 cups of water. You can scale back a little with the water as the rice cooks from the steam too.

If you are a lover of Indian food, but can't take the heat too well, this is a great recipe for you. It's sweet and aromatic and packed with lots of flavour. Alongside the chicken, you get butteriness from the ghee and sweetness from the addition of peas. The additional topping of nuts and sultanas also adds some sweetness and little crunch. I used no ground spices in this recipe, instead relying only on whole spices. The chicken masala/curry is cooks separately in about 45 minutes and what's really convenient is that you can make it the night before and make the actual pilau on the day in under an hour to serve fresh and hot.

Though chicken pilau is a favourite in our family, I can't say this version here with all of it's sweet notes is very authentically Bengali. I was trying to figure out if it is North Indian style or Mughal style or even Afghan style, but I'm not really too familair with the different asian cusines to definitively say one or the other. If there is an expert lurking on this page who can help me, then let me know! However, geography aside, it's a very tasty dish that is great for dinner parties and surprisingly straight forward to make.

As I mentioned a while back in my Afghan Kabuli post, the addition of dried fruit with rice can be contentious at times! I used golden sultanas this time around, and me and my family all really enjoyed the contrasting sweetness. I also added some toasted cashew and almonds for some texture. If you have some dried fruit and nut phobics in your families, then feel free to omit it or perhaps serve on the side as an optional topping.

Tandoori Chicken and Homemade Naan

How time does fly! It feels as though I just blogged my last recipe the other day. But it's been a rather jam packed few weeks. The last week of May especially in my mind now is just a manic blur of work, deadlines and other commitments. The 1 week break from school came as a much needed respite, and though my lack of posting boiled down to technological restraints, being "unplugged" for a few days felt quite refreshing. I sometimes get the urge to just throw away all pieces of technology and just live under a rock on a farm, but to be honest, I think I'm too much of a city girl slash technophile to ever really survive such a lifestyle. I suppose the key is finding the right balance, but that's the secret to pretty much everything in life, right?

The teacher side of me has the end of the academic year firmly in her sights, but sadly my brain is so fried at this point, that it's more like I'm dragging myself to the finishing line rather than a final sprint. Hashtag The Glamorous Life of a Teacher. However, I am currently super excited for the arrival of Ramadhan, my favourite time of the year. As for many people, it's a time of moral and spiritual renewal for me and to be able to take a step back and realise, amongst all the stress and the mayhem, what the bigger picture really is. It's also around this time of year that many start searching for and planning what meals to prepare to eat after breaking their fasts. So I thought I'd post some slightly more traditional yet surprisingly easy recipes.

The first recipe is a quick tandoori chicken recipe, using drumsticks from Aafiyah's frozen range, minus the tandoor or packaged tandoori spice masala. Like my sumac chicken, it's another great example of just leaving things to marinade for a while and then shove it into the oven. Exactly the kind of recipes you want for Ramadhan, when you do not want to be stuck in the kitchen all day. And as it's baked, it's a lot lighter than other heavier Indian dishes. 

Homemade naan makes a great accompaniment to the chicken. I have been wanting to try out so called instant naan recipes for a while now, however I always got put off thinking that it was too time consuming. But surprisingly it was a lot quicker and easier than I expected. There is no yeast used in the recipe, with all the rising power coming from the yoghurt, and baking powder/soda combo. 

 The dough is very elastic and malleable meaning that it's easy to roll out. As I was making them, I was far too impressed by how much the little circles of dough puffed up on the pan like pillows. It was quite the metamorphosis. The recipe I followed suggested smearing the naan with ghee to add a buttery taste, however, all of my family members agreed that it tasted better without. I also decided to add some black seeds to add a little contrasting spice to the naan. Whilst I was rolling out the naan, I sprinkled a handful of black seeds on top of each circle. I don't own a tawa at home so I just used a regular frying pan and the results turned out just fine. To try your hand at some instant naan, check out Kanakana's detailed instructions here. To find out how I made my tandoori style chicken, read on!

Sumac Roast Chicken

Hello, dear readers! I feel I've been in a bit of a daydream lately. The weather has been all over the place, for starters. This whole week, the skies have been so bright and the sun blazing, that it was as though summer had come early. And then suddenly, Thursday was grey and it rained about a whole month's worth of rain! I do like the rain, and I firmly believe it's a blessing from my Lord, but I like to be in the comfort of my own home, wrapped in numerous layers and not trudging around with wet socks....

Recently, I was contacted on behalf of Aafiyah, an up and coming halal poultry brand, who offered me the opportunity to try out their new range. According to their website, their brand is aiming to provide quality products to traditional Muslims with a busy, modern lifestyle. When I heard that, I thought, yep, that's me (this exhausted teacher slept for 10 hours in total last night, guys). They have a range of frozen poultry products, some of which are ready prepared, and all you need to do is throw them into the oven. So I bring you today one of the recipes I put together using Aafiyah's products.

I discovered Sumac last year in the world foods section of my local supermarket and I have totally fallen in love with the stuff. I think to date, it is probably my favourite Middle Eastern flavouring. It has a sour taste, similar to citrus fruits, however, it also has these floral undertones that you would never be able to get lemon alone. The other amazing thing that I love about it, is its vibrant colour. Any food item which mixes with it turns into this beautiful deep rosy hue, and due to its texture, it creates a crispy crunch on poultry and meat when it is roasted or grilled.

Other than the time needed to marinade the chicken, this is pretty much a throw things together in a bowl then shove it in the oven kind of recipe, so very low maintenance. Totally my favourite type of recipe. It is recommended to marinade chicken from 1 hour to overnight. If I'm honest, you can get away with marinading this recipe for just under an hour as the Sumac comes through well.

Sumac Roast Chicken 

Serves: 4-6

Prep time: 1 hour

Cooking time: 35-40 minutes

500g Aafiyah original Drumsticks

1 tablespoon Sumac

1 tablespoon olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

1 tsp paprika

½ tsp cumin

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

1) Pre-heat oven to 180ºC.

2) In a bowl, combine the olive oil, lemon juice and spices. Add chicken and stir to combine in mix. Leave to marinade for at least 1 hour.

3) Place marinated chicken on an oven tray and roast in over for 35-40 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Check that its cooked through by piercing the chicken at its thickest part next to the bone. The juice should run clear.

4) Finish the chicken off either on a cast iron griddle on the stove or under a grill for 5-10 minutes, until the skin of the chicken is crispy and slightly charred. Turn the chicken over halfway through the cooking time to char other side.

5) Serve with potato wedges and grilled corn.


*Disclosure: This post contains sponsored links*

Brodu and Pastizzi

Huzzah, I finally managed to get a post in for MENA cooking club! I officially joined about 2 months ago, but due to facepalm fails circumstances (getting the date wrong for the Lebanon challenge and adding too much salt for the sfinz in the Libyan challenge), I am only getting around to my first challenge now for Malta.

I will admit, I was a little confused at first when I saw that the country was Malta, as it is a European country, but some quick research soon revealed that like many others countries, including the South Asian countries, Malta has had some historical influence from the Middle East in its culture.

As a lover of soup, I decided to try out the classic Maltese vegetable Brodu. I added wholegrain fussili pasta, and being a typical desi, added a teaspoon of crushed chilli to add a little bit of heat. It definitely had a kick to it! I'm not sure if Maltese cuisine has a lot of spice, but you can of course omit for a milder soup. 

Aside the heat from the chilli, the soup itself was delicious with a depth of flavour that was surprising consider how simple the broth was. 

From the light and simple soup, I also tried making the slightly more decadent pastizzi. I guess it's like a Mediterranean version of pasties, and let's be honest, who doesn't like puff pastry and cheese together?! As the ricotta cheese I bought was a little runny, I decided to add some chopped spinach. However, due to the addition of the egg, the actual filling quickly solidifies in the oven. Even though puff pastry is quite rich, the light nature of the filling meant that it doesn't taste too heavy.

Also, I must admit, as I was shaping the pastizzi, I thought they looked a little unattractive. But the wonderful thing about puff pastry is that it is ever so forgiving, and after a transformation in the oven, it always comes out looking golden and inviting.

Out of laziness, I decided to make these pastizzi quite large in size, I'm not sure what the traditional size is. You could enjoy 1 or 2 with some salad for a light lunch. We enjoyed it as an appetizer with some chilli sauce in our home. Yes we are totally typical desis!

Bhaingan Bhorta (Aubergine Chutney)

I can often have a glut of things in the fridge or food cupboard. At the moment, it's spinach, which I accidentally bought an extra bag of (ideas for a recipe, anyone?). As the title implies, on this particular occasion, I had a few extra baby aubergines lurking around in the fridge. In the end, I decided to use them to make a quick and simple bhorta (or Satni as we call it in the area of Bangladeshi my family are from), which would loosely translate to chutney in English. In simple terms, it is just a process of mashed aubergines/eggplant along with some onion, chilli and coriander. I decided to leave the aubergines slightly chunky for a bit of texture rather than completely puree them. A subtle smokey taste is added to the dish by pan roasting the aubergine and onion.

Though a simple and economical dish, bhortas are a great alternative to curries as they are light and fresh tasting. As you can eat them cold, they are great for warmer days when you might not fancy eating something hot. There is just a hint of spice from the fresh green chillis and the few drops of mustard oil, however it is subtle and complements the overall fresh notes of the bhorta.


Traditionally, Bengalis will eat various types of vegetable bhortas with plain rice, however, as this aubergine bhorta is quite similar to aubergine dips, I think it could also taste pretty good with wedges of pita bread as a dip.

Individual Homity Pies

Hello all, I'm coming at you today with my version of a traditional British Homity Pie. I will confess, I'd never heard of this dish up until a few weeks ago when I stumbled across it online. Apparently, it dates back to World War Two where this meat-free dish served as a rationing meal. It is an open vegetable pie and usually consists of a pastry case filled with an onion, potato and leek filling. 

I came across a version of mini filo homity pies on Great British Chefs and immediately loved the look of them. Using filo is great shortcut instead of making your own pastry, and a little lighter on the old waist too. Though I used some of the traditional filling ingredients of onion, potato and cheese, I decided to add some kale and peas instead of leek for some colour and sweetness. I also topped the pies with some red chilli and spring onion which is great for adding some spice and a little bit of texture.

You also get a little bit of a crunch from the petal like edges of the filo pastry which turns lovely and crisp in the oven. The combination of ingredients used in the pies mean that they're actually quite filling, however, because of their miniature stature, it doesn't really feel like it's heavily calorie-laden.

These individual pies would make a great party food or appetizer and is sure to impress dinner guests. But while your friends or family admire these cute little bites, you can revel in how easy they are to make. As a bit of a traditional desi girl, I'm not too much of a fan of using the oven and prefer just to cook on the stove. I whipped up the pie filling in one pot on the stove, using a bit of a cheat's roux sauce to bring it together, and then just stuck the pies with the filo pastry in the oven to let the pastry cook and cheese melt. 

Like a lot of South Asian families, we often make samosas using filo pastry and usually have some in the house. We usually keep our in the freezer, and let it thaw before using it. As such, I didn't really have too many problems with the pastry drying out during prep. However, if using filo pastry from the fridge, the usual advice is to keep it covered with a damp tea towel to stop it drying out. 

 I got 12 pies out of my ingredients, however, if you use a little less filling or a smaller baking tin, you may be able to get more.