on crumble in times of grief and loss

strawberry crumble 

i hold the word loss in my mouth. it feels full and heavy. when babcia died on the last day of july, i realised that loss had crossed a boundary. until then, it had described the process of losing her. afterwards, it took to grief.

the truth is i lost babcia slowly.

over the last few years, dementia affected her memory and eventually cancer and age stole her body. when i saw her in march, she was a fraction of herself -  her bones so prominent that one could study anatomy through them. it is hard enough to lose a loved one, to do so over a protracted period of time from afar was excruciating. my grief was complicated because as i lost my grandmother, mama lost her mummy and daddy, his love and companion and whilst they were together, i was several thousand miles away.

a manifesto for preserving + a recipe for raspberry chambord jam

raspberry and bayleaf 

it is not enough for jam to just be sweet. a good jam is one where the fruit tastes more of itself, making it a true expression of the word preserve for jam is really the essence of a season in a jar. this is true even in this time of plenty when one can get strawberries in winter and oranges in summer. there is nothing quite like the taste of strawberries in high summer, when their plump little bodies and scarlet flesh is sweet with sunshine. or bright skinned oranges on a damp winter day that gently perfume the air around the fruit bowl. fruit outside its season is a fraction of its flavour, much like a watered down memory, scant on detail.

gaajar halva; a cardamom laced carrot pudding

gaajar halva with a squiggle of milk pak cream

winter is the season of indulgence. it calls for the richness of butter and cream; of dark meats and root vegetables.

in england, my adopted home, winter is the time to eat roast meats with potatoes to sponge the juices. soft cheeses high on fat are eaten with sharp chutneys made from apples, quince and beetroots. desserts feature steamed puddings, deep dark ones heavy with vine fruits or soft sweet ones with delicate constitutions. both love a little cream or custard to mellow the heat and sweet. in pakistan, my erstwhile home, december is wedding season, so alongside the kormas, paalak and fragrant pilaus are trays of my favourite dessert. gaajar halva (carrot halva) is made from laal gaajar (literally red carrots). these are particular to the sub-continent. they are distinct from the orange ones that i use in england. they are crisp and sweet and an almost transparent red in hue.

the original plum torte and more

marion burros' original plum torte

autumn has begun to show face. she is plums the colour of dark bruises and apples like rosy cheeks. she has come to replace peaches with sun gold flesh, nectarines, glossy strawberries and blackberries. there was so much sweetness and warmth in the soft fruits this year, nurtured by a strong summer sun and plenty of heat. i have polished punnets of raspberries and strawberries with little embellishment. the peaches were at their best eaten leaning over the sink. their sticky juices running down my arms and chin. the kentish cherries this year were as if they had been candied, such was the texture of their flesh.

bergamot marmalade

bergamot marmalade

marmalade is the beloved preserve of my favourite childhood storybook character. i am of course talking about paddington bear. it is also my father’s favourite. as a child i preferred sweet jam. the pale emerald mitchell’s rose’s lime marmalade was marginally bitter. i loved its citrus fragrance but did not care for it on toast. two years ago mama sent me a jar of her kinnow marmalade. kinnow is an easy peel citrus cultivated in the sub-continent’s punjab. i loved eating dollops of it with strained yoghurt and a scatter of flaked toasted almonds. it was what piqued my interest in marmalade making. since then, i have made the classic seville orange marmalade as well as experimenting with different citrus with herb and tea infusions. this year’s flavours include seville bay leaf, screwdriver marmalade (blood orange and vodka) and treacle marmalade. i loved making all of them but the real treat was a pale amber bergamot marmalade. 

spiced pumpkin pecan butter

spiced pumpkin pecan butter

i recently became part of the editorial team of foodand_; an on-line food journal that provides a community for talented individuals, creatives and cooks to collaborate and share their skills and stories with a wider audience. with thanksgiving round the corner, it seemed appropriate for the editorial team to work together on a series of recipes and features. we agreed that what we wanted was for to take traditional ingredients like pumpkin, cranberries and sweet potatoes and transform them into not-so-traditional recipes. this spiced pumpkin pecan butter was created in that spirit. 

i am unfamiliar with the tradition of thanksgiving, as i have not celebrated it. however, its theme of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest is one that resonates across cultures. in pakistan (which is where i grew up), the festival of basant shares roots with thanksgiving, as it too celebrates seasons and their bounty. basant marks the beginning of spring. in the flatlands of the agricultural punjab, the horizon is marked with fields of mustard flowers. friends and family come together to fly kites in the narrow streets of the old walled city in lahore. there is music, merriment and of course food. the traditional menu celebrates the crop of the season. sarsoon ka saag is a vegetarian dish made with mustard and spinach leaves cooked in a delicately spiced clarified butter and thickened with wholemeal flour. it is eaten with makai ki roti; a thick unleavened flat-bread of crumbly constitution made of maize flour and brushed with plenty of ghee.

naan khatai, pakistani biscuits with a melting texture

naan khatai

i always remember our house being well stocked with biscuits. there were the regular and perfectly shaped ones from cardboard boxes that included peek freans peanut pik with slightly soft peanuts; cumin laced click and the plain jane marie. lu brand biscuits were crisper and more interesting – the scalloped shape of prince chocolate sandwiches was a kin to laser cut paper doilies. a snack pack of these often graced my school lunchbox. candi, a brown sugar biscuit had little bits of caramelised sugar. gala usually made an appearance when we had guests as they had a dainty design and a richer brioche like flavour. salt flecked tuc was the lone savoury classic. sometimes, there would be a blue tin of royal dansk’s danish butter cookies with an aroma of freshly baked pound cake.

gajjar ka murabba; a pakistani sweet carrot preserve

gajjar ka murabba; pakistani sweet carrot preserve

the long, languid days of the pakistani summer always remind me of vacations in lahore. when our schools would close, mama, m and i would take the coach to lahore to spend time with our extended family. lahore (also known as the cultural capital of pakistan) draws its heritage from the mughal and the raj era. its broad boulevards are bisected by the muddy brown waters of the lahore canal. in summer throngs of boys and young men swim in those muddy waters, their shalwars blooming into mud stained balloons. in winter, it is often shrouded by thick fog, the kind that severely obscures vision. the tresses of weeping willows that brushed the canal have long since disappeared, to make way for larger roads for an ever expanding populace. the city has changed so much since the days of my girlhood.

on seasons and their flavours + a recipe for elderflower fritters

elderflower fritters

seasons have flavours. winter is citrus. i associate it with the bitter fragrance of seville oranges. these are the kind of oranges that require a generous amount of sugar to make them edible and are best preserved as marmalade. autumn is for apples, pears and quince. they love warming spices like cinnamon, cloves and star anise. spring is for rhubarb whose tartness loves sweet and crumble. summer is a combination of strawberries and elderflower.

a note to baba on father's day + crème caramel

crème caramel for baba

my paternal grandfather died before i was born, so my memories of him are derived from family recollections. my favourite is of him taking my baba for hand churned ice-cream when he was little. over the years baba and i have come to share rituals similar to those that he shared with his father.

these have included banana splits at yummy 36 in pindi. the ice-cream parlour was a sleek space with booths and large scale pictures of sundaes and milkshakes illuminated in light-boxes. in summer, the air conditioning would make the marble table-tops colder than the ice-cream itself. when i think back, i realise that this was my first brush with americana. baba and i would share a banana split served in a stainless steel boat-shaped dish. the lengthwise split banana sandwiched a trio of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice-cream; their bright colours boldly proclaiming their artificial colouring. it was decorated with a crown of whipped cream, sprinkled with nut debris and a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

on how to eat watermelon the way baba does

watermelon with maldon salt

there used to be a fruit wallah at the corner of college and kohsar road in f-7 in islamabad. he displayed his produce in pyramids on his rehri. in the summertime roughly hewn crates holding cherries, apricots and mangoes would be added alongside. baba would stop to buy fruit from the khan after picking us up from school. the heat would encourage the produce to release its scents, leaving the air heavy with sweet. this would attract a colony of wasps and bees, their business lining sound with a constant buzz. i was afraid to roll down the window for fear of being stung. 

over time, i came to recognize the fruits by their fragrance. apricots were delicate like blossom honey. peaches like light caramel. mangoes were a collective of two and sometimes sickly sweet. hard skinned fruits like cantaloupe and lychees gave nothing of themselves. a trait they shared with watermelon contained by its green exterior. i always thought it reticent and secretive.

reworking a childhood favourite for food&_

labne, honey and zaatar

i have written about my childhood favourite dahi cheeni, literally translated, yoghurt sprinkled with sugar and its reworked version of labne, honey and zaatar on food and. the story begins at my parents house when 'i sat down to a breakfast of yoghurt drizzled with honey with a sprinkle of roba’s mother’s palestinian zaatar. i ate it with toasted roghni naan, a clay oven baked flat bread made from dough enriched with milk, sprinkled with sesame seeds and brushed with ghee.' 

read the full piece and the recipe here.

salted chocolate olive oil granola + fauji cornflakes

salted chocolate olive oil granola

breakfast cereals never fascinated me as much as they did my brother m. i had a brief affection for frosties but looking back that had more to do with the novelty, rather than the taste of them. baba first bought them from a bonded warehouse where diplomats used to purchase the familiar tastes of home. they were a treat rather than a breakfast staple. perhaps m liked cereal more because he was from the generation that did not have to eat fauji cornflakes; the military brand of cereal that was lacklustre and limp at the first introduction of milk. my dadi would eat them with hot milk. m’s particular favourite were coco pops, a talking cereal that crackled like popping candy in milk. the puffed rice grains would relieve themselves of their sugary chocolate coating colouring and flavouring the milk to a nursery like chocolate milk.

breakfast rituals + salted hazelnut butter

toasted hazelnuts

on sunday i will have breakfast at my parents’ home in islamabad. this first breakfast is ritualistic; there shall be numerous cups of hot cardamom laced tea to erase the sleepiness of a disrupted night and quarters of roghni naan toasted till crisp in the toaster. two hopeful and expectant cats will anxiously await their share of breakfast. mama will give them titbits of bread and adam’s cheese. before we sit down to eat i will bring forth bandaged and bubble wrapped jars of homemade preserves and condiments that i will have carried for my parents.

when i was little weekday breakfasts were a fraught affair. there were boiled eggs to contend with along with my dadi’s insistence on drinking a glass of buffalo milk. she would claim that it was strained but i knew that was untrue. little pieces of cream and skin that would make me gag would prove otherwise.

tartine's salted chocolate-rye cookies

salted chocolate-rye cookies with a cardamom laced tea

meet the cookie that tastes as good as its raw dough. the truth is i usually bake so that i can indulge in the dough or batter. it almost always tastes better than the baked version. this is not the case with tartine’s salted chocolate-rye cookies. these slightly irregular discs spread a little in the oven; their surface cracks intimating an interior that is dark and fudge like. the pinch of salt on its mound is savoury at first bite and then sweetness floods the mouth.

in my growing years, it was the biscuit and not cookie that reigned supreme. i met my first chocolate-chip cookie in chicago in the summer of 1999 and was instantly smitten. cookies command an easy affection because they are a little bit everything that is good about baked treats. they are soft and crisp, fudge like without being cloyingly sweet and they can be studded with chocolate chips and nuts. whilst i still love a biscuit of sturdy constitution, one that holds itself even when dunked, there is nothing i love more than a warm cookie with a milky coffee.

brownies for sk and the best of friendship

alice medrich's best cocoa brownies

sk, do you remember your bedroom in the f-7 house, the one with the lilac walls? you always emphasised that it was lilac and not purple. we spent long summer afternoons there when the sun blazed relentlessly. my dadi used to say one should stay indoors in the summer because the lu (hot air) could give one heatstroke. i remember that the concrete on the front porch would get so hot that when water was thrown on it, the heat would rise from the ground and the water would evaporate almost instantly. your air-conditioned bedroom was a sanctuary of cool.

making truffles and remembering childhood confectionery

chambord truffles

i love making truffles. the process starts with the slow, sensual surrender of chocolate to hot cream (or sometimes wine) after which comes the addition of flavours – a hint of spice, the familiar comfort of vanilla or something savoury like salt to amplify sweetness. a box of handmade truffles has become a december custom usually dispatched with some family member or friend en route to pakistan. baba says they should be consumed in moderation and would prefer to stretch their existence; mama is an inveterate chocoholic and finds it hard to resist them. my brother m will exercise restraint for a while and then consume several in one sitting. and a (my sister-in-law) covets the boxes and jars they are packaged in. this year i tried my hand at paul young’s truffles that include muscovado sugar. i love muscovado for its treacle tone and bitter sweetness. 

the yusuf family has a strong affection for confections and morsel sized sweet things. i can map my childhood in relation to these with some recollection of my parents and sibling's favourites. when i was little mama would sometimes tuck a packet of choco-chums into our school lunches as a treat. i loved these oval shaped biscuits whose hollows had a smidgen of chocolate. my brother loved candyland jellies. these came in an assortment of cola bottles, bears, abc’s and rounds coated in crystallised sugar. mama would buy a pack that was intended to be shared between us. but according to her m would work through them greedily so that by the time i was retrieved from school there would be little or none left for me.

on baking fails and cookie swaps

smitten kitchen's brownie roll-out cookies

do you have days when your efforts in the kitchen go awry? when recipes that should work fail? well, that is what i experienced in the fortnight of baking for the great food blogger cookie swap. i was keen on sub-continental khatai, a wonderful snow white biscuit that dissolves in the mouth like fine sand under the feet on a beach. i have memories of eating these with late afternoon tea at my phoopi’s house in lahore. the batch that i made was a variation on the traditional khatai as they had a fair bit of gram flour. they tasted lovely and were much appreciated by colleagues at work, friends and family but the recipe proved to be tricky. the second try involved ghraybeh, a shortbread like lebanese biscuit that echoed the feel of khatai, gently scented with orange blossom. once again the recipe i used failed me because the consistency of the dough did not match the description.

on autumn with recipes for sweet and savoury labne

a carpet of leaves in the bloomsbury

autumn is the cusp of summer and winter. it is the brief interlude between long light filled days and the short sullen days of winter with abbreviated sunlight.
it is also the season of abundance.

the pleasure of jam + diana henry's apricot and vanilla jam

the beginnings of apricot and vanilla jam

o has taken to teasing me about my jam making. he says given a chance, i will make jam out of everything. i am a small batch preserver and ironically he is the one who eats it in copious amounts, stirred through yoghurt or spread on buttered toast. 

it was not always like this.

mama has been making jam since i was a little girl. every time someone travels back and forth between islamabad and london, i receive a jar or two of jam carefully swathed with duct tape and wrapped in plastic to prevent accidents in transit. over the last two years (and depending on seasons) i have received bottles of strawberry jam laced with gulkand (rose petal preserve) or boiled with red wine, mulberry with orange zest and in winter, my favourite; a thick cut kinoo marmalade with an easy consistency. when i would run out bonne maman would reappear on the kitchen counter.