book review - Pakistan by Maryam Jillani

Leafing through a cookbook is, I think, one of life’s pleasures. From those that transport you to another place, provide a deep dive into a particular ingredient, an introduction to an alternative cooking method or just plain comfort, despite often sharing commonalities, there is nearly always something to be gleaned from a new cookbook. A few standouts have been added to my collection recently, and Pakistan by Maryam Jillani definitely falls into that category.

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The first recipe I nearly always try in any new cookbook from the subcontinent is a dahl (dal, daal, or dhal!). Despite the simplicity of the ingredients, the diversity of the end results is always a surprise. Some are thick and creamy, silky with the addition of butter or ghee and suitable for a celebration. Others are more soup-like, and still others aim to provide a more nutritionally rounded meal with the addition of vegetables such as tomatoes, spinach or pumpkin. There is rarely a dahl of any variation that I don’t enjoy and would be one of my go-to comfort foods.¹ The dahl recipe in Pakistan is a relatively simple one, but elevated by the addition of tamarind paste and served with a tadka, a selection of aromatics quickly fried in hot oil and served on top of the dahl. It’s a good addition to my ever-expanding collection of dahl recipes.

A recipe such as the one in Pakistan for dahl might lead you to question how Pakistani food is any different from that of India. I was listening to a podcast recently about the flare-up of hostilities in Kashmir. The guest mentioned that Pakistan and India were sometimes viewed by the rest of the world, incorrectly, as being somewhat homogenous. The same view, I think, is applied to food in the region. Most of us are familiar with Indian cuisine and, by extension, think that it and Pakistani food are one and the same. Part of that belief comes from a lack of familiarity and a “false assumption that Pakistani food only exists in relation to Indian cuisine”. While Indian food, or at least a westernised version of it, is widely available, the same is not true of Pakistani cuisine. Interestingly, Maryam Jillani, author of Pakistan, mentions that many of the Indian restaurants in the United States are run by Pakistanis, but market their food as Indian because this is what customers understand.

It’s hard to miss Pakistan sitting on the bookshelf. The striking blue, orange and gold star radiating from the centre of the cover is eye catching. It’s a fine example of how cookbook covers can be so much more than stating the obvious. It looks contemporary and contrasts with the illustrations throughout the book, delicate symmetrical patterns and drawings that hark back to a time in the past: the modern and the historic combined. Much like Pakistan really, a country with an ancient past trying to move forward in a modern world.

Jillani moved from Islamabad to the US to study with every intention of returning home. Life had other plans, and after meeting her future husband, she ended up staying. Like many immigrants, she found herself searching for familiar food, which she found in a small Pakistani restaurant in downtown Washington, and in teaching herself how to cook basic Pakistani dishes. When searching for recipes, the same ones appeared repeatedly: those from Punjab, the most populous region of Pakistan, or those that originated during the Mughal empire. She thought they were an incomplete representation of Pakistani cuisine, with little mention of food from marginalised ethnic and religious communities. Jillani was drawn to creating a more complete picture of Pakistani food and started a blog, Pakistan Eats, as a tribute to the food of her homeland.

If you are familiar with Indian food, you will look through Pakistan and notice the similarities. There is an overlap due to a shared history and the availability of similar ingredients. There are also noticeable influences from Afghanistan, China and Iran, countries that share a border with Pakistan. Jillani has also shared recipes from other provinces and territories, such as Khyber and Pakhtunkhwa, that are perhaps lesser known by people, like me, who are not particularly familiar with the geography of Pakistan. Many of the recipes reflect the influence of migrants from India who moved to Pakistan after Partition in 1947², in particular those who hailed from the less populous regions of India. One such recipe is Tamatar Kat, a tomato chutney which is a traditional Hyderabadi side. During Partition, a large number of Muslims moved from Hyderabad in central India, and their dishes have been incorporated into those eaten by Pakistani families.

I have recently been playing with a recipe for a Pondicherry cake, one of a number of fruit cakes that can be found in India and Sri Lanka, and apparently Pakistan as well. These cakes are a legacy of colonialism, influenced by the English, French and Portuguese, married with the flavours and ingredients commonly found in the region. These cakes are a peculiar interest of mine. So I was particularly intrigued by the Goan Christmas Fruitcake, a cake that arrived in Pakistan via Goa in India and is traditionally baked by the shrinking Goan Christian community in Pakistan. My Pondicherry cake recipe might need to take a back seat while I work my way through a Goan Christmas Cake, purely research for later in the year!

Pakistan is divided into eight chapters covering everything from snacks and street food, chutneys and relishes, vegetables, meats, seafood, the ever-important bread and rice, along with sweets and drinks. The chapters are interspersed with essays about particular regions in Pakistan, their history, the food and anecdotes that highlight the unique attributes of each place. It is a lovely way to learn more about a country that most of us know too little about and will, unfortunately, probably never visit. The accompanying photographs provide glimpses of everyday life in Pakistan as well as the stunning range of landscapes across the country.

Jillani’s approach to the recipes is practical. She doesn’t suggest roasting and grinding spices each time if she thinks that the preground version will work just as well. As she says, most home cooks in Pakistan also use preground! The recipes are adjusted for harder-to-find ingredients and include shortcuts where possible, but most of all, Jillani emphasises that Pakistani food is forgiving, so experimenting and trusting your instincts is recommended.

There are plenty of recipes on my ‘to try’ list: Besan ki Sazbi, a chickpea flour and vegetable dish that looks like a Pakistani version of pasta, the Punjabi style crumble, which will require a search for some lesser-known ingredients, Paneer Handi, a curry with dried fenugreek leaves and Jillani’s version of Nankhatai, a semolina shortbread popular across the subcontinent.

Pakistan is a beautiful book, even if you were never to cook from it, which I hope wouldn’t be the case; it is a delightful way to discover Pakistan and a worthy addition to any cookbook collection. And you can find Maryam here on Substack.

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New Cookbooks

There have been a few new additions to my cookbook shelves in the last few weeks and a few still on order!

Buns by Louise Hurst. An impulse buy because I was thinking about making cinnamon buns and because I like the cover! This is a book with a couple of base recipes for dough, including a vegan enriched dough and then a series of buns to jazz up the dough. I love the look of the blueberry sugar buns, their mounds topped with a dark purple blueberry sugar, vanilla cream and flowers, but there are plenty of recipes to be tempted by.

For the Love of Lemons by Letitia Clark. I was quite taken aback when my neighbour said that she didn’t really like lemons, I didn’t think that such people existed! I love lemons and will eat them in almost any form, so getting this book was an almost foregone conclusion. The recipes are mostly Italian inspired and include such things as lemon custard ravioli, a whole lemon ciambellone (an ideal breakfast cake), roasted lemon leaf goats cheese and for those heading into warmer weather, lemon and courgette carbonara.

Sour Cherries and Sunflowers by Anastasia Zolotarev. Anastasia is Australian based but in her book shares her family’s recipes from Eastern Europe. There are plenty of classics such as Adjika, a fermented pepper sauce, but made as her does. The fried hand pies look delicious as does the chocolate buckwheat cake with sour cherry sauce. I have one last container of sour cherries in the freezer that I might have found a use for.

1. My favourite fancy dahl is the house black dahl from Dishoom, which is rich with butter and double cream. I’m also fond of Anna Jones’ tray bake dahl, which can be beefed up with paneer or tofu and is a great weekday meal.

2. In 1947, British India was divided, largely along religious lines, into two independent dominion states - India and Pakistan. The divide was often violent and led to the displacement of many people. If you are interested, this article from historian William Dalrymple, in the New Yorker, provides some background on the Partition.