A recipe for an Afghan salad born of a chance online meeting

Thanks to the internet and social media, the world has become one vast meeting ground, a chance encounter available at every swipe. The latest fortuitous encounter came last week when a Delhi-based defence analyst I am acquainted with on Twitter—whose name I do not know—read my last column and tagged me with a criminal and immigration lawyer called Mirriam Zary Seddiq, an Afghan who is a US citizen. Since she isn’t a fan of spicy food, I realised Seddiq’s chicken kebob salad might be just the thing when she arrived ravenous and edgy after 90 minutes of tennis. Mirriam Zary Seddiq Seddiq recognises food as being “political and very emotional”, as the comments left on her social media often indicate. Mirriam Zary’s Afghan chicken kebob salad Serves 4 Ingredients 500g boneless chicken, 2-inch pieces 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp coriander seeds For the marinade 1 cup yogurt 1 tbsp lemon juice 2 tsp ginger-garlic paste 1 tsp paprika powder Half tsp turmeric powder Half tsp fresh ground pepper A pinch of cinnamon powder Salt to taste For the salad 1 large cucumber, deseeded and chopped into small bits 2 large tomatoes, deseeded and chopped into small bits 2 tbsp fresh mint leaves For the salad dressing Half cup yogurt 4 garlic cloves, roasted and smashed 1 tbsp lemon juice Half tsp sumac Method Roast cumin and coriander seeds until they start to pop.