During my recent trip to Dubai (which you can read about here), my brother and I decided to treat our parents to an unforgettable Iftar experience. The question was: what choice of food should we go for that they will like?

I know that my dad loves meat and rice, so I was thinking of making one of my personal favorites¹, Kabuli Pulao. After some back and forth between my brother and I, we agreed not to go through with it, as it’s not dissimilar to other dishes that they normally have in Ramadan, be it Mandi or Au-kaf-nada². We also wanted there to be some diversity on the table, and Kabuli Pulao would take ages to make and cannot really be parallelised. We wanted to cook together.

At my brothers behest, we agreed to make tapas. This would be perfect: we’d have some well-loved Spanish tapas such as pimientos de padrón, served alongside Iranian mezzes like mast-o-esfenaj. We hadn’t yet agreed on the mains, but plans were in place to cook a massive Iftar meal on Friday (this conversation occurred on Tuesday, so we had good time to prepare).

As these plans always pan out, by Thursday we hadn’t finalized the menu, we hadn’t bought any ingredients, and my brother got ill and told me that he wouldn’t be able to help.

With great help from my cousin and mum (who somehow managed to help even though this was meant as a treat for her), I managed to cook up an exceptional meal.

Shopping for Ingredients

The journey began on my phone: a massive shopping list of ingredients.

Tapas

Guacamole: Zingy

• 2 avocados
• 1 tomato
• 1 small red onion
• 3 chilli peppers (to taste, ideally red though I used green)
• Salt
• Lime
• Garlic

Mast-o-esfenaj: Creamy

• Creamy Yoghurt (any works fine, but I prefer Seven Yoghurt as it is slightly saltier and perfect for this dip)
• Spinach
• Walnuts
• (Optional) salt

Dates in Blanket: Indulgent

• Medjoul dates
• Soft goat’s cheese
• Bacon (if you eat pork, then go for regular bacon, and if not, beef should work too. In my case I avoided bacon altogether as the ones from the shops are loaded with preservatives. I went for lamb tenderloin instead, which I sliced as thin as possible)
• Toothpicks

Pimientos de padrón: Addictive

• Neutral frying oil
• Padrón pepenes (sadly I was unable to find these… so I went for the smallest peppers I could find)
• Salt

Fig and Cheese Bites: Fancy

• Hard sheep cheese (ideally one with lower sodium content. I was only able to find pecorino, which worked, though it wasn’t possible to have more than 1 piece due to the high sodium content)
• Fresh figs
• EVOO
• Honey

Zeytoon Parvardeh: Tang

• Dried basil
• Dried mint
• Fresh mint
• Pomegranate molasses
• Pitted green olives
• Pomegranates
• Walnuts
• EVOO
• Garlic

Blitva: Love

• Garlic
• Potatoes
• Swiss chard (ideally one with a reddish/pinkish hue. I only found green ones)
• Salt
• EVOO

Mains

Gambas al Ajillo: Comforting

• Prawns
• Chilli flakes
• Paprika
• Garlic
• EVOO
• Parsley

Joojeh Kabab: Animating

• Chicken thighs
• Onion
• Bell peppers
• Saffron

For the sauce:

• Mustard
• Yogurt
• Saffron
• Lime

The Cooking Process

This was a stressful couple of hours, as I needed the timing to be just right. I got back home with all the ingredients at around 4, and needed everything prepared by 6:50. On paper I had enough time, but the challenge is that the dishes we selected are difficult to prepare beforehand: they should cooked just before serving.

Zeytoon Parvardeh: The Flavours Must Mingle

Naturally, we started with what needed the most prep time: the zeytoon parvardeh. If you’ve never had these, I’d say you’ve missed out, but a better way to see it is that you are very fortunate: you get to try a wonderful dish for the first time. It’s an appetizer consisting primarily of olives, walnuts and pomegranate. It is not a dip, or a side-dish, and calling it marinated olives is doing them a massive disservice. You start by adding olives, crushed walnuts (no smaller than 1/8th of a whole walnut), and minced garlic³ to a bowl, and coating them with pomegranate molasses and olive oil, mixing very well until everything is coated. You then add fresh mint, and your dry herbs (here we used mint and basil). We then added pomegranate seeds, and I learnt a trick from my mum: put the pomegranate seeds in a zipped freezer bag and then lightly crush with a spoon or a rolling pin. Adding them in this state speeds up the process of developing the flavor (in ideal settings, you’d leave zeytoon parvardeh in the fridge overnight before serving). I suggested adding some non-crushed pomegranate seeds as well for the nice burst-sensation when chewed. We then stored this in the fridge and regularly mixed for the rest of the 3 hours before Iftar to speed up the process of developing the flavour. If you choose to make this and look for recipes online, you’ll see that everyone does it differently. Trust your gut, and trust your taste buds. Adjust all the ingredients to your taste and it’ll turn out perfect. Don’t forget to add salt if you need it ;).

Joojeh Kabab, Mast-o-esfenaj, Dates in Blankets and Guacamole All at Once

My mum took control of what she knew best: the kebabs and mast-o-esfenaj. Starting with the chicken, she cubed them into kabab-sized, coated them in oil and mixed them with sliced peppers and onions to marinate. The marination time is also key here, but as we were tight on it, we hoped that the unforgiving heat would quicken the process. After that, she immediately transitioned to the mast-o-esfenaj, which as I learnt is very easy to make: simply cook a few handfuls of washed spinach in a pot until they release their juices. Once softened, allow them to cool (can be accelerated by placing in an ice bath) before roughly chopping them and mixing them into yoghurt. You then add chopped walnuts and salt to your taste.

As my mum worked on this, I was worriedly slicing my tenderloin as thin as possible to experiment with the dates in blanket. My cousin entered the kitchen right in time to make the guac. I asked her to pit the avocados and start mashing, before adding very finely chopped tomatoes and onions. I puréed a few cloves of garlic for the guac, and noticed that my work station is a complete mess: half pitted dates, goat cheese that was lying outside far longer than I had wished for, rod-like sliced tenderloin (as opposed to the intended bacon-like strip structure) which were starting to release juices due to the heat of the kitchen.

With perseverance though, things quickly turned better as my cousin was at the seasoning stage of the guac (lime juice and sea salt), no longer needing my instruction. I focused on my experiment, deciding to just use the rod-like slices for expediency. I filled one date with goat’s cheese (ended up being around half a teaspoon) and wrapped it with the tenderloin slice (using a toothpick to keep it in place), before popping it into the oven for 15 mins at 150 degrees celsius!

I turned to the guac to give it a taste test: well seasoned I thought but missing… aah! It lacked a sting. So I got three chilli peppers, sliced them as thinly as possible into rings and mixed them in. A perfect guac: a light and refreshing kick!

Things were slowing down, and my buzzer went off: my experiment was ready. It turned out lovely. A rich taste from the cheese and caramelized date, nicely balanced with the flavor of lamb, which didn’t suffer from a lack of seasoning due to help from the sodium content of the cheese.

After my mum finished deveining the shrimp for the Gambas al Ajillo, I asked her to go relax. My cousin and I remained in the kitchen preparing the remaining bits: I continued making the dates in blanket until I’d exhausted the \goat’s cheese, and my cousin… my poor cousin… was there peeling all the potatoes for the blitva, and around 40 garlic cloves for the blitva and Gambas al Ajillo.

Figgy Goodness and Salt… Lots of Salt

The next step was to caramelize the figs for the fig-cheese bites. I chopped the figs into 1/8 pieces, and started to cook them with EVOO on very low heat, until they had lost enough strength so that they were no longer chewy, but before they had turned into mush. They tasted wonderful. Sweet, though not sickly. I was delighted by the fact that I didn’t need to add any sugar.

As I waited for the figs to cool, I cut the pecorino into squared inches. I arranged them nicely on our tapas dish and topped each with a piece of caramelized fig, finally drizzling them with honey. I tried a piece and was fairly happy with how it turned out, reminding me of a wonderful meal I had by the waterfront in Split: Croatian sheep cheese smeared with fig jam. However, the pecorino was too salty as I suspected. The choice of cheese needs to be made well in advance next time.

Give me Heartburn

After the figs were done, there was some dead time. It was now 5:45 (just over an hour left). The rest of the dishes would only need 20-30 mins (provided that the potatoes for the blitva were boiled). I asked my mum to start boiling the potatoes at 6, while I went for a short swim.

I was back at 6:15, ready for business only to find that my mum had forgotten to boil the potatoes! In a panic I chopped the potatoes in smaller pieces to get them to boil quicker, and in this panicked state I started frying the peppers. This should have been left for last.

Thankfully though, my mum only forgot about the potatoes because she was busy preparing the grill for the kebabs, and her signature kebab sauce: a blend of yogurt, lime juice, saffron and mustard.

A few moments before my potatoes were ready, I loaded up a large pan with around half the garlic, frying them on a low heat in olive oil. It was time to add the potatoes! In they went and aah! The pan was too small, and there was nothing that could be done. I put my faith in fate and added more olive oil to the pan, while I chopped the chard.

Moments later, I added the rest of the garlic to another pan for the gambas. Once fragrant, I sprinkled in paprika and as soon as I got to the chilli flakes, my hand slipped and a monstrous amount of chilli flakes invaded my pan. Though there was a chance to remove some with a spoon, I suddenly remembered that I needed to cook the dates in blankets too, and the potatoes now needed the chard. I added the prawns in, hoping that the chilli flakes would just remain in the oil.

I went back to the blitva… I sadly noticed that the potatoes could do with a bit more cooking… two minutes of boiling would have been perfect. Time was tight though, and they were edible, so I mixed in the chard and went back to the shrimp.

And yes… I haven’t forgotten about the padrón. They were just taking a bit longer to blister. A mistake on my end for not measuring the temperature of the oil before adding them (although… I didn’t have access to a thermometer either). The peppers were out, too early, which made them go a bit soft when served.

It was almost Iftar now, 6:40, so I chopped my parsley and added it to the prawns, and turned the heat off. I went back to the blitva for a taste, expecting to fall in love with life like I did the first time I tasted it… but alas: the chard from the market was not flavorful enough, and I hadn’t bought enough for the amount of potatoes I had. Time was out though and I needed to plate the dish now. I gave it a final dash of salt, and prepared it for serving. The gambas and padrón were ready too. 6:48… timed it perfectly… time to eat now.

Damn.. Forgot About Bread!

Dips without bread?? I immediately cut up some tortilla into pizza shaped slices and put them in an already hot oven from the dates in blanket. Only a few minutes to get a nacho-like texture, and while I waited for this, I warmed some Persian lavash bread (which thankfully has no juice… 10 seconds are enough).

6:52… it was now time to eat.

Impressed Parents

The food was excellent, but what made me happy the most was that my parents were truly impressed, particularly my dad. This is not to say that he typically complains… in fact one of the things I love most about him is how easygoing he is. However, he usually only praises traditional food done well. He made a massive mistake though, because one of his comments from that night will be used against him, in my defense, forever: “I now understand why you always make your own food”.

1. Actually it’s the best food on the planet, no arguments here. ↩︎
2. An Evazi slow cooked lamb and rice dish literally translating to “put between [the rice]” (the names of some of our dishes are notoriously uncreative). ↩︎
3. Had to fight my mother on this one. She wanted puréed garlic, I stuck to minced. Don’t get me wrong, I love that intense, almost spicy, garlic flavor you get from all the allicin released from puréeing garlic… but for this dish you want the garlic pieces to pop in your mouth along with all the other ingredients. ↩︎