Tonight we enjoyed a dinner from Pakistan while listening to some traditional music. Our meal was Biryani with Malai Ladoo and Sawaiyan for dessert. Tonight was both a hit and a miss.
The biryani was very tasty, with each bite seeming to taste just a little different from the last. The flavour was good, though not as spicy as it would usually be found, made instead to cater to my wimpy mouth who doesn’t like hot food.
The biryani is made by marinating the chicken in an abundance of spices and yogurt with fresh ginger and garlic. While this sits the rice is cooked in a pot of water with whole spices of star anise, bay leaves, cardamom, and cloves.
Once the rice and chicken have been partially cooked the dish is put together, and then cooked once more. The bottom consists of the chicken and sauce, then half of the fried onions we’d made, and some cilantro, topped of with the rice and drizzled with saffron that had been soaking in water. The remaining onions and cilantro was set on the table to add as desired. This main course was enjoyed by all and there will be no leftovers.
Biryani
The first dessert we tried was the malai ladoo. This was made by creating the ricotta type product similar to our Belgian meal. This was flavoured with ground cardamom and saffron and then adding sugar. This was then rolled into balls and garnished with chopped almonds. These tasted better than I thought as I was making them, but aren’t anything to be excited about. Some didn’t mind it, but others didn’t finish theirs. Oh, and we definitely left out the optional rose water after our last tasting of it!
Interestingly, we made ladoo once before, a coconut ladoo that had chocolate in the centre, and they were quite tasty and sweet. I had thought these would be similar with the same name of ladoo, but they were quite different.
https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/malai-ladoo-recipe-paneer-ladoo/
The second dessert was Sawaiyan, which again was not a hit. I didn’t notice that the recipe listed differed from the video playing on the page and wonder if it would have been better with those amounts.
This dessert consisted of ghee cooked with ground cardamom to which we added vermicelli and then water and sugar. This was pleasantly sweet and I’m sure would have a good flavour if not for the strong ghee taste. At least that’s what I figure it was as we’ve never used it before. This was also garnished with almonds as well as pistachios.
https://food.tribune.com.pk/en/recipe/sewaiyan
Did you know that sugarcane juice is the national drink of Pakistan? They are home to K-2, the second largest mountain in the world and are the fourth largest coal and seventh largest copper reserves in the world.
Pakistan is the first Islamic country to attain nuclear power and was the first Muslim nation to elect a female prime Minister. Incredibly, in the last 5 years Pakistan’s literacy rate has grown 250%, the largest increase of any country to date. Finally, they have the seventh largest collection of scientists and engineers.