Palau is a flavorful, aromatic rice dish from Afghanistan. It is a broth based rice filled with spices commonly used in many dishes in Afghan cuisine.
Perfecting your palau spice mix is a difficult task, and one that requires an understanding of the balance of spices to be able to create a consistent taste.
Afghan cooking is often passed down through generations as an oral tradition, being taught how to measure with one's eye and sense of smell the correct proportions to achieve the essence of a dish. I grew up similarly, by my mother's side watching and learning from her techniques. It ironically then became difficult for me to set aside this internal intuition and instead come up with specific measurements to achieve these results.
Below I have shared what is a deep labor of love in seeking to translate this measuring by one's eye and sense of smell. I hope you are able to cherish what I consider to be a bottle that smells like home and feels like my grandparent's hugs, a bottle of love that in its aroma carries so many laden emotions and a glimpse into the loving, effusively affectionate, sometimes loud and always generous Afghan culture.
You can find the recipe for how to create the palau rice here: https://www.imanistan.com/blog-recipes
Palau Spice Mix Recipe
Ingredients
o 1 tbsp whole cloves
o 1 tbsp black cardamom seed
o 2 tbsp cinnamon powder
o 2 tbsp whole cumin or powder cumin
Instructions
Measure your spices and combine into a large bowl. Mix thoroughly and place into a jar with a tight seal to preserve the freshness of the spices.
Alternatively, you may use whole spices and grind them to achieve a fresher result.
Combine your spices in a coffee grinder and grind them together.
This will create more spice mix than is necessary for cooking palau one time, but it is useful for future palau use. It is not possible to grind less or else you will ruin your grinder
Set aside your palau spice mix into a jar by itself with a tight plastic cover so that it does not lose its scent, label it for future use
Noshejaan!