Asabia El Aroos Afghanistan Recipes

Steps:

• Prepare the syrup (sugar, water, lime juice) in advance and chill it in the fridge. I can't stress enough how important this is, since my syrup wasn't cold enough and, consequently, not thick enough.
• To make the filling, simply combine sugar and nuts in a food processor.
• First preheat the oven to 375°F (180°C). Cut the filo into 18″ * 12″ (about 30 * 22cm). Lay the rectangles on the table one by one, with the shorter side facing you. Place a table spoon of the filling on the side facing you and roll it up from the short side, forming a fat cigar shape. Place on the baking sheet with the cut edge down. Repeat with the remaining dough.
• Beat the egg and brush the tops of the pastries. Bake for 15-20 min, or until golden brown.
• Place everything on a tray and pour the syrup over. Alternatively, if that sounds too sweet for you, you can just dip the "fingers" in syrup.

Steps:

• Place chicken pieces, onions and hot water in a large pot.
• Cover and simmer for about 1 hour.
• Add salt to taste.
• Remove chicken, reserving stock & discard cooked onions.
• Preheat oven to 325°F.
• Heat 2 tbs of the butter over medium high heat and fry chicken pieces containing bones, salting as needed.
• Boil a large amount of water with sea salt and cook the rice in it for exactly 8 minutes. Set aside in a pot until ready to assemble.
• Make stock sauce:
• Brown onions in butter and remove from heat.
• Add cardamom cumin, freshly ground black pepper & saffron liquid and mash with onion to form a paste.
• Add about 1/2 pt of the chicken stock; simmer for 5 minutes and taste for seasoning.
• Combine cooked rice, stock sauce as needed (I don't find it became a sauce so I added the onion paste with some broth as needed to finish cooking the rice) and chicken; place in a buttered casserole. Cover.
• Fry carrot matchsticks in 1/2 tbs butter and add dark raisins to them at the very end.
• Sprinkle partially cooked carrot matchsticks and raisins on top of chicken and rice and cover tightly with aluminum foil or cover.
• Place in oven for 35 minutes.
• Chopped toasted pistachios or slivered almonds may be added over the dish just before serving if so wished.
• There most probably will be left over stock that is very good even as a soup on it's own and probably served that way in an Afghani household.
• Enjoy!