Maazah Chutney
You know how you go to every workaday Indian restaurant in the world and they hand out a little dish of green chutney which is tangy, and not so much herbal as just Kermit the Frog green? And another little plate of brown chutney which is vaguely tamarind-connected and sweet and brown? And then one day you realize these sad chutneys come out of jars, and they're the yellow-squeeze-mustard of Indian restaurants, and you feel sad and wish life was better?
This is not not just an American phenomenon. It's also an Afghan one, and in Afghanistan, food lovers got hold of Indian green jar chutney and thought: We can do this better, fresher, and more interestingly. So Afghani green cilantro chutney was born, with fresh cilantro, toasted walnuts, fresh ginger, and jalapenos. If you're a veteran Twin Cities eater, you know the stuff as the addictive condiment that accompanies the Crescent Moon's cult-obsession Football Pizza. But you know who makes the best Afghani green chutney in the world? Sheilla and Yasameen Sajady's mom, say Sheilla and Yasameen. I'm inclined to agree with them.
"My mom is the chef of the family, an amazing, amazing cook," Sheilla Sajady told me. "But she grew up in Afghanistan and she's the type of person who doesn't measure when she cooks, she just cooks. Three years ago my sister and I realized, we have to get this out, we have to get this down on paper, we have to get this out into the world!" So Maazah Chutney was born. Nowadays the three Sajady women get together once a week to make their green chutney, bottle it, and sell it at the Northeast Farmer's Market, the Linden Hills Market, the Wedge Co-Op, and the Seward Co-Op.
Score a bottle, and you find something inside that's a lot like a fresh herb sauce—like good chimmichurri or pesto—bursting with fresh herb flavors, not cooked ones. It's tangy, but more than that, it's alive and vibrating with green energy. And my friends, it goes on everything. Scrambled eggs, lentil soup, feta-and-tomato-sandwiches, packet-Indian, smoked turkey sandwiches, rotisserie chicken leftovers, you can even make a nice salmon salad with it—just add a touch of mayo. The phrase 'greatest thing since sliced bread' is a cliché and used too much, but if I was ever going to say that, I think I'd say it about Maazah. It's the greatest thing to happen to leftovers and pantry dinners since the microwave. Find it.
