Chowhound dinner at Helmand (long)
As we ate in the spacious dining room (a room, I might add, that is elegant in a simple unassuming way), I think the hit of the evening was the kaddo - it's received a couple of raves on this board - and well deserved ones, imho. (Now everyone knows what my favorite was. *grin*) It's pumpkin.
These pumpkins definitely spent a lot of time in the oven, because they (literally!) melt away into a saturated sweetness as soon as they hit the palate. The touch of yogurt sauce on the pumpkins was quite welcome; I liked that faint tang and creaminess amid the sugar rich pumpkin. This combination of pumpkin and yogurt came in an appetizer on its own, with ground beef - a rare occasion when the meat serves a savory supporting role and the veggie takes center stage. Pumpkin also appeared as part of a quartet on a veggie special and as a side with another lamb dish. (More about them soon.)
But before the appetizers, we had some pita-like flatbread that we dipped in 3 sauces - a yogurt based dip (with mint?), a spicy red dip (chilli and red peppers?) and my favorite - thin pesto-green dip (Gordon thought it might be cilantro).
Other appetizers we had were of the dumpling variety. I've probably gotten them all mixed up because I wasn't paying attention when the waiter served them up and offered identification. I'm sure others will jump in if I've made any mistakes here.
There were sharp squares of dough folded up into little flat 4-sided pyramids filled with ground beef and topped with some vegetables. Yogurt made an appearance here with a beefy (tomatoey?) sauce - the combination reminds me a little of sour cream on borsch - hearty, tangy and quite good in a simple homey kind of way. (It's mantwo, I'm guessing, based on the receipt that Ruth kindly passed to me.)
If I was right, that means the other one was probably bowlawni, longish dumplings (the menu calls them pastry shells) filled with chopped leeks and scallions. I liked this a lot, because the texture of leeks and scallions stood out. I somehow missed the spicy potato filling (I'm looking at the menu here), probably because I cut myself a piece of this in the wrong way. (backup anyone?) Yogurt again, but lightly.
Then aushak (through the process of elimination and menu checking, unless I mixed it up with the bowlawni) - with a filling similar to the bowlawni, but also with bits of minced beef.
I remembered the entrees better when I was reminded that the last guy that arrives gets to write up the dinner. I remembered that lamb was prominent - we had lamb in three dishes and in each dish the meat was moist and tender. I had a bit of trouble distinguishing the lamb itself from dish to dish - it was the sauces and accompanying items that made them different to me.
The other thing that was also prominent was the long grained rice, fragrant in three guises, with light articulate grains, almost bryani-like in mouthfeel but without the weight of their oily indian counterparts.
My favorite rice was the orangy/light red pallow - rice spiced like a light bryani (cardomum, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin seeds and black pepper according to the menu). In the qabelee, this rice was used to bury pieces of lamb shank, the first lamb dish I tasted. Here, I liked the sweet bites from the glazed shreds of carrots and raisins when their flavors blended in with the spices from the rice and the more earthy meat.
Pallow also came with the veggie special - the fabulous pumpkin, eggplant, spinach and a deliciously soft but unslimy okra sauteed with tomatoes that Celery happily approved.
Then there was challow, another incarnation of rice that was lighter with spices (just cumin seed, said the menu). This came with two dishes: one of them was the sabzi challow, lamb no. 2, smothered by very finely minced spinach - very well prepared (I thought saag! - but no creaminess here).
Another challow dish was the koufta challow, a hearty beef meatball dish sauced in tomato, which suited the gentler challow well (the sauce might have been more contentious with the heavier spices in the pallow rice). I liked the koufta challow a lot, especially the tomatoey sauce that packed a tiny bit of heat and the soft, supple green beans, both good matches for the meatballs.
The last rice was emerald in color, covered with many tiny flecks of spinach mixed in. It's just spinach rice - no special name for this one. We had it with the 3rd lamb dish - a pretty good lamb steamed and sauteed with lots of yellow-split peas, onion and red bell peppers. And another guest pumpkin appearance.
I wasn't torn between the different desserts this time, because there were only 4. "Let's get one of each!" and we did. :)
My favorite was the bucklawa - fragile layers upon layers of crispy filo. This version was exceptional - it was not too sweet as they tend to be and well spiced - cardamom was very obvious, but not heavy handed.
The rice pudding was quite good for this simple dessert - held well together but not gluey.
The ice cream had us somewhat disappointed. The flavor was great, we could taste the milky kulfi-like sweetness, but it was icy, as though it was thawed and refrozen.
There was another cream pudding topped with berries, I thought it was OK.
On the whole, I liked Helmand, mostly because of the kaddo, but also because the food was good for the price (generously portioned entrees in the low teens). Corkage was $10 a bottle (thanks to everyone for the lovely wines!). I'm totally glad I came to dinner - thanks again for the great company and especially to Ruth for organising.
By Limster
on Sep 20, 2001 04:18 AM
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Nice report, Limster. I watched the news on KRON last night and got a very brief glimpse of our group when they did the piece on the group from Craig's List that was dining right next to ours-complete with sound bites from da Mayor. The pumpkin was very well done (and sweeter than any of the desserts) but my favorite was the kofta (meatballs w/a very savory tomato based sauce). I also enjoyed the baklava - the restraint with the honey allowed the spices to come through. A nice evening, all in all. Good to get together in these difficult times. Looking forward to the picnic.
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I also got home and flipped on the TV just in time to catch that bit. I thought the report was very muddled -- they didn't really make clear what was going on: the mayor showed up, something about hate, something about fundraising, something about free food .... Nothing about us chowhounds who actually *paid* for our dinner (g).
It was a lovely evening ... as usual both the company and the food were thoroughly enjoyable (I'm with Limster, I could eat that pumpkin every day).
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This article mentions the chowhound "call to eat" (and craigs list at Helmand)
Link: http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium...
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A. MeeMee, thanks for that link.
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Here's a working link
http://smdailyjournal.com/article_pre...=
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Are you going to post about your favorite cake or should we keep chowtable discussions secret? (g)
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Ruth - thanks for organizing
Limster - glad you were able to take a break from working and join us and thanks for doing the post on dinner
Everyone - thanks for coming (and for the wine) and making an enjoyable evening out - Lee and I had fun - we were so full we were tempted to walk all the way to Berkeley (but decided that to the BART station would be better).
The restaurant was quite crowded - esp. with that big Craig's List group. It was good to see Helmand really busy on a Wednesday night.
Lee and I definately voted for the pumpkin as our favorite as well. Altho I did really enjoy the okra (great flavor and no slimy texture) as well. Think I'll head out to Black Oak Books today to see if I can find an Afghani cookbook - gotta find out how to make the pumpkin!
till next time.....
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Found it!
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...
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Thank you! I'm headed to Monterey Market after work to get some pumpkin! I did find an Afghan cookbook at Jessica's Biscuit that I ordered - maybe it'll have the okra recipe too?
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Be sure to share the recipes!
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Here's a website that contains lots of nice Afghani recipes:
Link: http://www.astray.com/recipes/?search...
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Very cool, Nancy, thanks! The ones I clicked on seemed to be not only Afghan but Sephardic as well, helpful for this time of year.
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You're amazing! What search engine do you use to come up with all the treasures you share with us?!?!?
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Google is my search engine of choice, can almost always find what I want. But in this case, I remembered that I'd seen this recipe in the last 4 years so I just used the SFgate search engine. Keep in mind that the best search engine will fail if you've defined your search terms poorly.
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thanks !! . . . i had this at the Helmand in Boston, MA and planned to make it for Thanksgiving . . . By the way, if you are ever in Boston, the Helmand here (actually in Cambridge) is very good, reasonably priced, has great atmosphere, and most of all, has a full vegetarian menu !!
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You're welcome. I hosted a blow-out dinner featuring Cote Rotie wines and 9 Afghan courses two weeks ago. The kaddo bourani was the favorite of several of my guests.
One hint - be sure that you have a very sharp vegetable peeler. I had purchased two sugar pie pumpkins weighing a total of 6 pounds. After the first attempts to prep the first one - it took me nearly 40 mins. to cut into sections, deseed and peel - I abandoned the idea of making the full recipe and decided to only offer each person a small taste of this dish.
For the yogurt sauce, I used whole milk Pavel's yogurt which added an extra richness.
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Last night was my first Chowhound dinner and a great experience, I'm happy to report. Thanks to everyone, especially Ruth for organizing it. The group assembled was a wonderful example of diversity bound by common interests. I loved how the conversation ranged and, of course, included lots of chowhound tips. My food notes: like Limster my fave (besides the pumpkin) was the sweet, cardomom-infused rice with shredded carrots, raisins, and lamb; I think it was the aushak that was the "ravioli" stuffed with leeks/scallions and a beef, yogurt, mint sauce (which our end of the table eagerly mopped up with bread til the plate was clean); and I really liked the dessert that was a very light custard, again cardomom-infused, topped with fresh fruit--a bite with mango was really lovely. Here's to more wonderful meals... and, in support of Middle Eastern restaurants and tasty lamb dishes, I encourage you to try the mansaf at Fattoush on Church St.
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Limster, thanks for a great write-up. I think we'll have to have some stand guard duty at future chowevents to make sure that you're always the last one in the door. (g)
This system of having the last arrival do the reporting is working very well indeed. Our San Francisco chow dinners have been very well-reported, something that the other regions seem to fall down on. It's really terrific that we take the time to share the experience with the rest of our community and record our collective opinions.
In the various discussions about Afghani cuisine on the other boards, most focus on kebabs with the promise to try more of the composed dishes. We, on the other hand, didn't have any kebabs which I should have caught as I was compiling our collective order. The bottle of red I brought was selected to be the perfect match for Helmand's lamb kebab. I apologize for being distracted. (g)
I too loved the pumpkin and was glad that it reappeared on a couple of our entree plates. I also liked having three different kind of delicious rice preparations to try at once and really explore the differences.
For the record, the wines we brought to share were
2000 Garretson "Fralich" Paso Robles Viognier
2000 Handley Anderson Valley Pinot Gris (from Cheryl & Lee)
1999 Domaine de Vieux Pruniers Sancerre (from Ruth)
1995 Rosenblum Cellars "Kenefick" Napa Valley Petite Sirah
Many, many thanks to Ruth Lafler for suggesting the dinner here and organizing. This was a very memorable night.
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I was secretly expecting "the Queen of Zin" to bring a ZIn to go with grilled lamb. *grin*
P.S. Thanks again for the petit syrah, my labmates are grateful too.
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That's the Princess of Zin, if you please. (g)
I had one in the car, but decided that two bottles was more than enough for our group. Glad you enjoyed the Petite Sirah, which I think had few drops of Zinfandel in it.
One more thing to mention about our dinner at Helmand, the cost per person was only $30, which included wine corkage and a generous tip. Such a deal!
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