Eid al-Fitr recipes to share at the dinner table

Eid al-Fitr is about eating as much as Ramadan is about fasting.

Eid (pronounced EED) marks the end of Ramadan, a month-long observance for Muslims to appreciate what God has given them, and to worship their faith collectively.

Most observers will celebrate the holiday this weekend (on Saturday or Sunday), and that got me thinking about my first Eid food memory.

I was 8 when I first contributed a dish for Eid. I was obsessed with “Too Hot Tamales,” a show on Food Network. I drew inspiration from a frittata recipe of chefs Mary Sue Miliken and Susan Feniger. But even back then, I knew how to draw on my Bengali roots as well, adding threads of fiery green Thai chili peppers and unrelenting chunks of white onion suspended in the well-cooked egg. (My parents like their eggs cooked to a deep, crispy brown. None of that fluffy stuff.)

I was proud of that culinary accomplishment. Consequently, for Eid I have always found room to dice the garlic for nan, fry pakoras to a perfect golden color and stir rice pudding to keep it from congealing in the kitchen. I explain to folks less familiar with the holiday that the day is not as solemn as Ramadan. It’s lovely, meant to be shared with people who are dear to you. It’s full of fancy clothes, presents, and, yes, food.

Now that I live in Washington and most of my family still lives in Queens, N.Y., I can’t always make it home for the holiday. It’s especially tricky when Eid falls midweek and I can’t properly plan ahead to travel. In an attempt to make sure I get to celebrate the day and share the flavors I grew up, I’ll make a meal for whomever I’m with — family or friends. It’s the perfect excuse to wake up the palate and try something new.

I found recipes in The Post’s Recipe Finder database that evoke familiar flavors and tastes I grew up eating on Eid. Some are more traditional, others not so much. But any of them can work for a day that’s as cultural as it is religious.

Dates are an integral part of Ramadan and Eid. My mom taught us to break our fast with a date first because the prophet Mohammed used to break his that way as well. So when I spied this preparation that combines dates with sweet vermicelli, I was sold. It reminds me of exactly what I used to love to eat hot or cold, for breakfast and dessert. The recipe is also a perfect secret weapon to have at your disposal; you can add golden raisins for extra tang or sweetness, or slivered almonds for a contrasting crunch.

Another classic is chai, or cha, as I grew up calling it. While you can find chai at Starbucks and in prepackaged syrups at grocery stores, making your own will yield a chai with much deeper flavor. This recipe calls for the usual suspects: cardamom and ginger. I like to bump up the flavor with cinnamon and clove to bring out the flavors of the upcoming fall season.

One of my mom’s (and much of the world’s) go-to dishes is chicken, which she dresses with a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, garlic, glove, cumin, bay leaf, chili powder, yogurt, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. She sears the seasoned, skin-on chicken legs and thighs over medium-high heat on the stove.

When she’s busy (read: feeling lazy), she’ll use a premixed blend of seasoning purchased at the Patel Brothers supermarket or any ethnic market in their Queens neighborhood. After browning the chicken for 30 minutes, she pops it in a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes.

The result: comfort food we all know, yet it’s unique and bright. The tangy yogurt balances the chicken’s spicy heat and keeps the meat moist. She serves it with pulau, our version of a fried rice cooked in ghee or nan.

Source:
Haque is a Web producer for the Style section.

New documentary shows Egypt revolution through the eyes of a journalist

A scene from the documentary film Words of Witness. Courtesy Mai Iskander

Nafeesa Syeed

A few years ago, when filming a documentary about Cairo rubbish collectors, Mai Iskander recalled how one of her subjects made a joke inside his home about the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

"They made a big deal about me erasing that part and they were very paranoid," Iskander said of the family.

But when she turned her camera on to Tahrir Square early last year, as she followed the young journalist Heba Afify covering the aftermath of Mubarak's removal, "people openly talked about Hosni Mubarak", Iskander said in an interview. Through Afify's singular yet bird's-eye perspective, the filmmaker vividly captures the dizzying days immediately after Egypt's revolution in her new film Words of Witness, which had its North American premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June and is now travelling to other venues. While the country's post-revolution narrative is far from complete, Iskander views her documentary as chronicling the "first chapter" in an ongoing story.

Several scenes in the film feature the 22-year-old Afify in the thick of crowds as she reports on developments ranging from families searching for loved ones who went missing during the revolution to religious tensions brewing in a nearby town. A one-woman field crew on a small budget, Iskander, 38, was alongside Afify, in the whirlwind.

"It did feel scary at some points," the soft-spoken Iskander says. "You never knew how things would go."

It's that danger on the street that becomes a flashpoint as the movie cuts to the intimate setting of Afify's home. Afify may be too intrepid for her own good. Her watchful mother reminds her that she's from "a good family".

Yet, Afify is as much a part of the story as the events that she seeks to cover. "My parents need to understand that the rules that were broken during the revolution are going to stay broken," she asserts.

Even as her journalistic ambition seems to clash with the propriety expected of a young Egyptian woman, it's also clear that her mother's plea to stay indoors at night is rooted in legitimate concerns about the violence beyond. As one man put it at a Los Angeles screening, her mother, whose humour and drama fills the screen, almost steals the show. Similarly, off-camera, Iskander, whose father is Egyptian and mother is Czech, dealt with an aunt who worried about her whereabouts during the filming.

With compelling female protagonists, Iskander has achieved one of her goals. After making Garbage Dreams in 2009, Iskander said foreign viewers were always curious about women in the Middle East, but they also held a lot of preconceived notions. In addition, she wanted to alter outsiders' conceptions of Egyptians, humanising them beyond panoramic portrayals of their mass protests. Hence, the splicing of the day's events with Afify's individual struggles and big-picture questions on the country's democratic awakening and the place of military control.

"The Arab world, in general, is so sensationalised … this is my way of making it more relatable," the New York-based director said. To reach as broad an audience as possible, she kept in mind that in the US market, it's harder to sell a movie that's not in English. In the film, Afify, who works for Egypt Independent, the English edition of the newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, speaks primarily in English.

Iskander says there's much to learn from today's Egypt and that young people especially are more open to dialogue and eager to take action. She's partnered with Rock the Vote, a non-profit organisation that promotes young people's participation in the electoral process, for plans of a US tour to screen Words of Witness at colleges to get the conversation going.

At the Los Angeles showing in June, Iskander had added footage to highlight the presidential face-off between Ahmed Shafik and Mohamed Morsi, which was then just days away. In coming weeks, as her film heads to other festivals in New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere, she plans one final update to reflect Morsi's win, rounding off the film's arc: one president brought down, another taking his place.

Just as Iskander was struck by people talking freely about Mubarak, the revolutionary graffiti that blanketed Cairo's buildings likewise blew her away. It's the kind of expression she'd like to see extend into the film industry as well. "I don't think enough filmmaking, this kind of low-budget, documentary filmmaking, is encouraged in Egypt," she says. "There's so many great filmmakers in Egypt, but they don't know how to market to a western audience. I think that's going to change."

It will also depend on whether the market can make space for others to have a shot. "I'm hoping this movie contextualises things for Americans to be more interested in Egypt," Iskander says. "But I also don't think there should be [only] one film about the revolution."

Words of Witness will screen on Sunday at the Rhode Island International Film Festival in Rhode Island; August 17 to 23 at DocuWeeks in New York; August 24 to 30 at DocuWeeks in Los Angeles; and September 18 and 19 at the Copenhagen International Film Festival for Youth & Children. For more details, visit www.wordsofwitness.com.