Key Points
Nasrullah, the head chef at the presidential palace in Kabul, fried the fritters and steamed the vegetable himself..
He tasted it all to make sure it was good - it was, although steamed broccoli has a limited range of gastronomic possibility - and to prove that no poison had infiltrated President Ashraf Ghani's food...
His skills coaxing sweetness out of onions and carrots sauteed in sesame oil, of building layers of flavor with raisins and a variety of spices for the favorite lamb and rice dish of another Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, are wasted these days..
When President George W. Bush dined at the palace, he complimented Nasrullah's kabuli pulao, the famed national rice and lamb dish, Karzai told his chef...
(Many Turkmen fled repression in the Soviet Union and settled in Afghanistan, as did many Uzbeks.) Sesame oil pressed in their home province of Jowzjan in northwestern Afghanistan arrives every couple of days by bus, a 15-hour journey..
