Afghanistan

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Afghan Chatni

چتنی

Coriander, green chilli, garlic and walnut pounded with vinegar into a fiery green sauce.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Afghan Naan

نان افغانی

Long oval flatbread scored into ridges, seeded with nigella, and slapped onto the wall of a clay tandoor.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Afghan Torshi

ترشی

Aubergine, carrot, cauliflower and chilli pickled in vinegar with garlic and turmeric.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Aush

آش

Hand-cut noodles cooked in a broth with beans, chickpeas and herbs, finished with yoghurt, dried mint and a meat sauce.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Aushak

آشک

Dumplings filled with chopped gandana leek, boiled and served under garlic yoghurt and a minced-meat and split-pea sauce with dried mint.

🇱🇧Lebanon

Baklava

بقلاوة

Layers of paper-thin phyllo brushed with butter and filled with chopped walnuts or pistachios, baked crisp then drenched in lemon- or rose-scented sugar syrup. One square, cut diamond-small, is the shared Ottoman dessert of the whole eastern Mediterranean.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Bichak

بیچاک

Small turnovers of thin dough filled with spiced potato, pumpkin or minced meat, baked or fried.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Bolani

بولانی

Thin flatbread folded over a filling of potato, gandana leek, pumpkin or lentil and fried on a griddle until blistered.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Borani Banjan

بورانی بادنجان

Aubergine slices fried, layered with tomato and simmered, then served under garlic yoghurt and dried mint.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Borani Kadoo

بورانی کدو

Pumpkin cooked with sugar, tomato and garlic into a soft, sweet mass and served under garlic yoghurt.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Chai Sabz

چای سبز

Green tea brewed with cardamom and served in small handleless bowls, sweetened with a sugared almond held in the cheek.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Chaka

چکه

Yoghurt strained through cloth into a thick, tart cream, seasoned with garlic and mint and served over almost everything.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Challow

چلو

Long-grain rice parboiled, drained and steamed with oil until the grains stay entirely separate and a crust forms at the bottom.

🇵🇰Peshawar, Pakistan

Chapli Kabab

چپلی کباب

Flat minced-beef patty bound with cornmeal, pomegranate seed, tomato and coarse coriander seed, shallow-fried in beef tallow until the edges lace.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Chopan Kabob

کباب چوپان

Lamb chops and cubes with a piece of tail fat between them, salted and grilled over charcoal, served on naan with sumac.

🇵🇰Balochistan, Pakistan

Dampukht

دم پخت

Meat sealed in a heavy pot with its own fat and no added water, cooked over low coals until it steams itself tender.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Doogh

دوغ

Yogurt thinned with water, salted and flavoured with dried mint, often carbonated, drunk with kabab and rice.

🇮🇳India

Falooda

फालूदा

A layered dessert drink with rose syrup, milk, basil seeds, vermicelli, and ice cream. It is rich and fragrant.

🇦🇿Azerbaijan

Firni

Rice-flour pudding cooked in milk with saffron and rose water, set in a shallow dish and dusted with cinnamon in a pattern.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Golpi

گلپی

Cauliflower cooked down with tomato, turmeric and coriander into a soft, gently spiced side dish.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Gosh-e Fil

گوش فیل

Thin dough pinched into an elephant-ear shape, deep-fried and dusted with icing sugar, ground pistachio and cardamom.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Haft Mewa

هفت میوه

Seven dried fruits and nuts — raisins, apricots, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, senjed and hazelnuts — soaked together for days.

🇦🇫Herat, Afghanistan

Herat Saffron

زعفران هرات

Saffron grown around Herat, hand-picked at dawn in autumn and repeatedly rated among the world's best.

🇦🇫Kabul, Afghanistan

Jelabi

جلبی

Batter piped in coils into hot oil and soaked in saffron syrup, sold by weight from shopfront pans.

🇦🇫Kabul, Afghanistan

Kabuli Pulao

قابلی پلو

Long-grain rice steamed over lamb and its stock, then buried under caramelised carrot slivers, raisins and slivered pistachio or almond.

🇮🇳Jammu and Kashmir, India

Kahwa

قہوہ

Green tea infused with cardamom, cinnamon and saffron and served with crushed almond, drunk through the northern winter.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Kaleh Pacha

کله پاچه

Sheep's head and trotters boiled overnight and served in their broth with bread at breakfast.

🇦🇫Kandahar, Afghanistan

Kandahar Pomegranate

انار قندهار

Large, dark, intensely sweet pomegranates from the Arghandab valley near Kandahar, harvested in autumn.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Khetayee

خطایی

Short, crumbly biscuits of flour and oil scented with cardamom, so fragile they fall apart in the hand.

🇦🇫Kabul, Afghanistan

Kichri Quroot

کچری قروت

Mung beans and rice cooked sticky with onion, served with a meat sauce and a pool of reconstituted qoroot.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Kofta Challow

کوفته چلو

Beef meatballs simmered in a tomato and split-pea sauce with coriander and served over white rice.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Kolcha-e Nowrozi

کلچه نوروزی

Round cardamom biscuits stamped with a pattern and baked specifically for the new-year visits at Nowruz.

🇦🇫Herat, Afghanistan

Kulcha Shor

کلچه شور

Salty flat biscuits baked in a clay oven, eaten with tea rather than as a sweet.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Lahndi

لاندی

Whole sheep salted and hung to dry in the cold Pashtun winter, then cut down through the season for stews and rice.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Lawand

لوند

Chicken or lamb cooked in a turmeric-yellow sauce enriched with yoghurt at the end.

🇦🇫Afghanistan

Maash Pulao

ماش پلو

Mung beans and rice cooked together with dried apricot, raisin and bulgur into a sweet-savoury vegetarian pilaf.