With the attention on iftar, we sometimes forget the importance of sahur, writes Kerry-Ann Augustin
AS a Catholic, I am required to do a full fast at least twice a year — on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Given my weakness for food, a full-fast on those blessed days can make the thought of climbing a mountain seem like a breeze. So when Ramadan approaches, I am usually in awe of my Muslim brothers and sisters who perform full fasts for a whole month.
My buddies, all of whom come from different racial and religious backgrounds, head over to homes of my Muslim friends to break fast with them and sometimes we join them at restaurants offering tantalising iftar delicacies. And with all the iftar promotions serving up elaborate feasts, it’s easy to forget that sahur is the more important meal during Ramadan. “Eating a wholesome meal at sahur gives your body the nourishment it needs to cope with the sudden change in eating habits,” says Dubai-based nutritionistRashi Chowdhary.
Chef Siti Arini Darsom of Grill 582 at Best Western Sentral, who likes to keep things simple for sahur, says: “Foods with carbohydrate, protein and vitamin C would be a good balance to provide sufficient energy and prevent from dehydration during fasting,”
For Chef Nik Michael Imran and his family, sahur usually consists of leftovers from the bazaar. But when he can’t buy food, he heads to his sanctuary: the kitchen.
“I never get creative for sahur,” he admits. “I usually cook what I crave for like breakfast food, such as eggs benedict!”
The young chef also confesses that pancakes with blueberry and ricotta cheese are one of his sahur favourites.
Here are a few healthy, hearty sahur meals that you could whip up for yourself, or for your Muslim neighbours.
1) Roast Chicken with sauteed mushrooms and white rice
(Recipe from Chef Siti Arini Darsom)
“I prefer my sahur meal to be simple,” says Chef Siti Arini Darsom . Of course, for a multiple award-winning chef like her, simple means roast chicken with sauteed mushrooms served with white rice. “Our stomach can be a bit sensitive during fasting that’s why we should not eat something out of our routine,” she adds.
Ingredients:
• 300g chicken thigh
• 5g ground cumin
• 5g ground coriander
• 5g fennel seed
• 5g paprika
• 30g button mushroom/shitake mushroom (diced)
• 5g garlic (chopped)
• 5g shallots (chopped)
• 30ml cooking oil
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste
• 100g white rice
• 50g green lettuce
Instructions:
1. Marinate the chicken thigh with salt and spices. Sear the chicken till golden brown.
2. In the same pan, add a bit of water and roast it in the oven on low temperature. If you don’t have an oven at home, you can cook it on the stove over a small fire but make sure you cover the pan. Turn the chicken after 10 minutes and keep doing it until it is cooked. After the chicken is cooked, sear it again in a hot pan to get a crispy skin.
3. Sautee the mushrooms with chopped garlic and shallot. You can add a little chopped herbs, e.g. parsley.
4. When it’s ready, serve with white rice and lettuce.
2) Date Smoothie
(Recipe from foodnetwork.com)
NO Ramadhan is complete without dates — an important fruit to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who broke fast with this sweet fruit which is high in fibre. “This date shake is great either at sahur or iftar time and is beneficial in so many ways. Full of fibre and dairy, it’s filling and healthy,” writes Yvonne Maffei, the owner of foodblog MyHalalKitchen.com “You can also use whole milk instead of yogurt to thin it out a bit.”
Ingredients:
• ¼ cup pitted dates, coarsely chopped
• 1 quart skimmed milk
• 2 pints French vanilla ice-cream
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg
Instructions:
• Place ¼ cup coarsely chopped pitted dates, a handful, in a blender.
• Add one cup cold skimmed milk and two big scoops of French vanilla ice cream.
• Grate ¼ teaspoon of fresh nutmeg into blender.
• Blend date shake until smooth.
3) Pumpkin Soup(Recipe from theecomuslim.com)
Pumpkins are usually associated with Halloween but for Muslims, the tangerine-coloured vegetable bears a different meaning. Karimah Dawoud, the author of Heavenly Bites, The Best Of Muslim Home Cooking explains: “This lovely autumn/fall vegetable is one of the favourite foods of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He, loved pumpkin so much that he would eat it first, this is the correct way to help digestion: Eat the veggies before the meat.”
Ingredients:
• 2 to 5 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 medium onions, peeled and quartered (1 extra for caramelising)
• 3 stalks celery, roughly chopped
• 1-2 cups of chopped, de-seeded pumpkin (keep the seeds)
• 1 parsnip chopped (optional)
• 3 to 5 cloves of garlic, chop and leave for one minute to process
• 3 fresh parsley stalks
• 1 teaspoon crushed black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 to 3 dried bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon crushed cumin seeds
Instructions:
1. Put all the ingredients except the pumpkin into a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to boil. Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for 20-30 minutes.
2. Let the vegetables cool for five minutes. Take out the bay leaves and then blend with a hand-held blender or pour into a jug blender and blend until smooth.
3. Pour the soup back into the saucepan and add the pumpkin chunks. Cook on medium heat and covered for another 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, shallow-fry a sliced onion in vegetable oil for five minutes till it starts to brown. Add cumin seeds and stir-fry till golden brown. Set aside on a plate.
5. Add two tablespoon of pumpkin seeds to the pan, and fry till they begin to pop and turn light brown. Be careful not to burn them.
6. Ladle the soup into a bowl, add the onion-cumin masala, sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and add a splash of olive oil. Serve with lemon wedges.