The End of Ramadan

কাঁচা ছোলা

Raw Chickpeas

Raw chickpeas as part of a healthy iftaar with various fruit.
And one unhealthy cauliflower fritter.

Raw chickpeas form an essential part of the healthy iftaar in my family, especially on my mom's side. We have heaps of this stuff alongside fruit and salad while minimising our consumption of deep fried vegetable fritters and cooked chickpeas. They're a great source of protein. In fact, in the past they weren't a Ramadan-only staple - members of the local bodybuilding club near my grandma's house used these as a diet supplement. 

Peeling them for consumption can be quite time consuming, and I remember our aunts often set us - the cousins - the job of sitting down and preparing them before many iftaars. Working communally sped things up considerably so consider applying the same strategy if you can!

Ingredients:

• 100.00g of raw chickpeas
• 1.00 teaspoon of sliced ginger
• Lemon juice from 2 wedges of lemon
• Salt, to taste

Method:

• Soak the chickpeas overnight
• Once soaked, they should grow and become easier to peel. Peel and discard the shells (this will take time and patience!)
• Mix the chickpeas, ginger, lemon juice and salt together
• Either serve immediately, or refrigerate for an hour and serve cold

Additional Information:

Potentially something to add to a fresh, zingy salad.

Almost There

সর্ষে দিয়ে সি ব্যাস
Sea Bass in Mustard

Sea bass in mustard, served with garlic spinach and rice

Ramadan is almost over! I often feel that fasting for Ramadan is more spiritual in countries without Muslim-majority populations. Office times aren't adjusted to make way for sunset and people don't stop eating around you. All this makes you stop and think about why you're doing this, and it demands self-discipline as you carry on with your normal life. It's fulfilling, but sometimes I also miss the social aspect of Ramadan I get in Bangladesh or with family. So a couple of times in the month I remedy this by inviting people over for iftaar at mine. On this particular occasion, I was planning a Bengali menu and hence the fish. Traditionally, this mustard based dish is cooked with ilish, the national fish of Bangladesh. However, its popularity has also led to overfishing of the species, so I try not to buy it - especially the variety exported abroad. 

I've been told that the ilish in this dish can be substituted for various oily marine fish, like sea bass as I've done here. A lot of Bangladeshis living abroad also use salmon, something my aunt kindly corroborated from across the pond. I bet this is because salmon is seen as a sufficiently glamorous substitute to ilish, but I'm personally not a big fan. Salmon overpowers the mustard a bit too much, and a part of me also believes it's a sin to do anything with salmon other than smoke it. Using sea bass yields a strong fishy-mustardy dish that's much closer to the original ilish iteration. The recipe below isn't perfect yet though, so a few words of caution. I've cooked this with fillets, which doesn't take kindly to vigorous stirring. I'd recommend trying this with fish still on the bone, cut Asian style. And while it isn't traditional, I think next time I'll add a pinch of cumin to the dish, just to cut through the fishiness a little more. If and when I get round to trying this again, I'll update the ingredients and method. The recipe below serves 2 generously. 

Review: Imago

A Panorama of the Eternal City

Settling in for the evening. Scroll down for more pictures of the view!

It seems I've turned my luck around when it comes to visiting fancy restaurants. The trip to Imago was very carefully planned: we were going to land in Rome around noon, check into our hotel near the museums, walk around the Pantheon for a while before driving to Imago to enjoy dinner and a panoramic view of Rome while the sun set around us (phew!). By the end of the evening, I very much felt it was a mission well accomplished, bar a few minor criticisms about the food itself. I should start out by explaining this wasn't the most usual of my meals. Between my dining companion and I we had quite a few ingredients we wouldn't eat – no pork or alcohol for me and no fish or seafood for him. Thus we ended up opting for the vegetarian tasting menu as the restaurant wouldn't serve two tasting menus on the same table, although I have had this service elsewhere. Thankfully, the other party seemed quite keen on the vegetarian menu so I was happy to relinquish. Imago also offers an a la carte menu, and if I was a smarter person I probably would have opted to give this a glance as well.

Amuse bouche of quail eggs,
zucchini fritters and cod roe cigars

We were asked about and brought water and an amuse bouche quite quickly, which was a nice change from the relaxed service I've suffered in some places. In the photo above you see battered quails' eggs, zucchini fritters and cod roe cigars. The zucchini was the standout piece – hot, crunchy and the vegetables melted in your mouth as you chewed.

Review: ABaC Restaurant

Upgrading to Two Stars

The ABaC terrace

It seems my trips to fancy restaurants are destined to be opportunistic rather than pre-planned. One of my best friends, who is normally in Boston for law school, happens to be spending the summer in the Hague. We see each other about once a year, in various countries as our circumstances dictate. Last year we met up in London, so this year it made sense to meet elsewhere in Europe. We settled on Barcelona but booking affordable flights meant me flying into the city half a day earlier than her. This is what paved the way for a very interesting and enjoyable lunch at ABaC, a two Michelin starred restaurant serving experimental Spanish, Catalan and European cuisine with international influences.