Afghani Breakfast

A common dish in Afghanistan, this is a dish where potatoes, onions and tomatoes are first sauteed in oil, to which some water is then added, and finally eggs are poached in what has become a vegetable broth. It's helpful to have a skillet with a lid, but you can use foil to cover it. When you dice the potatoes, it's best if you keep the dice fairly small, as the potatoes will cook through easily.

 

Ingredients (4 servings):

 

2 cups potatoes, diced (about 1/2 inch dice)

3 to 4 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/4 cup onion, finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup tomatoes, diced (you can also slice grape tomatoes into halves or thirds)

1/4 cup water (a few tablespoons more, if needed)

4 eggs

2 tablespoons chopped coriander

 

In a 9 or 10 inch diameter skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the potatoes and saute for 3 or 4 minutes, stirring and turning the potatoes often. Add the onion and let the potatoes and onions cook another 2 minutes, stirring and turning the ingredients as before. Lower the heat to "very low," add the tomatoes, water, salt and pepper, stir and cook for a minute or two. Cover the skillet and let the mixture cook for 3 or 4 minutes. The mixture should not be dry, so add a little more water (a couple of tablespoons), if necessary (it should not be soupy either). Stir in the chopped coriander and clear "openings" in the potato mixture and deposit an egg into each "opening." Cover and poach the eggs, checking often to make sure the yolks remain runny. Serve with well buttered toast. 

 

I made just one egg for myself ... 

WORD HISTORY:

Hence-This word is related to "here," "her," "he," "his," "him" and "hither," all words from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "ko," which had the notion, "this, here." A variant form was "ki," which was rendered in Old Germanic as "hi," with a form "hin" (perhaps only in the West Germanic languages/dialects? English is West Germanic). This gave Old English the adverb "heonan," meaning, "from here, from this place," which produced "hennes" (with a genitive ending?), meaning "away from this place, away from here," but also, "away from this time;" thus, "from now on." It also later took on the meaning "because of this, for this reason, therefore" (indicating a going forward from this point), and the spelling changed to "hence" in the middle 1300s. It was also used simply as "Hence!," meaning "Go! (away from here). Relatives in the other Germanic languages: German has "hin" ("to there;" that is, "away from"), and it is still commonly used in German^ compared to other Germanic laguages. It is used as a prefix in a number of German words, for example: "hinauf," meaning, "upward;" that is, "up away from;" "hinunter," meaning "downward, in a downward direction from," and also as a suffix, as in, "dorthin" ("there," "over there;" that is, away from the speaker). It is not uncommon to hear, "Wo gehst Du jetzt hin?" (Where are you going to now?), Dutch has "heen" (away, gone), Low German had "hen(e)," but apparently it is no longer used, although Low German is not a standarized language, rather it is a collection of dialects, so it may still be used in some form. 

 

^ By the way, while Old English had the adverb "heonan," it's cousins Old High German and Old Saxon (the Saxon that remained on the continent, in what is now northern Germany) had the very similar "hinan."