{"id":410,"date":"2010-08-16T15:21:32","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T19:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/?p=410"},"modified":"2013-06-16T21:33:03","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T01:33:03","slug":"shopping-trip-to-iqbals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/?p=410","title":{"rendered":"Shopping trip to Iqbal&#8217;s!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the best things about living in Toronto is the range of ethnic food you can get. This past weekend, my husband I are were off to the east end to visit family. I decided to drop by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iqbalkebab.com\/main.html\">Iqbal Foods <\/a> in East York. This family-run South Asian grocery store and successful restaurant is an awesome place for bargain ethnic foods! The crowds are legendary, and this being <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ramadan\">Ramadan<\/a>, the Muslim month of fasting meant that on the weekend the store was full of Muslim ladies {both the burqa (veil) and salwar kameez (long tunic and pants) clad ones} and bearded Arab Muslim gents who outnumbered the turbaned Sikh uncles and capri-wearing Hindu aunties. Pretty much the whole subcontinent was there shopping for food!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-414\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/IMG_0186.jpg\" width=\"440\" height=\"330\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So what did I get? Well, just a bunch of pantry staples as I didn&#8217;t want the food to spoil as it sat in the car. From left to right, my stash includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A box of plump, juicy Anbar dates from Saudi Arabia<\/li>\n<li>Packets of glistening slivered almonds, pistachios and coconut from India for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kheer\">kheer<\/a> (rice pudding) that I&#8217;m planning to make in coming days<\/li>\n<li>Dusty maroon Iranian <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Berberis_vulgaris\">barberries <\/a>(zereskh) that have this lovely lilting tart flavour for use in a carrot pilaf<\/li>\n<li>A big box of Turkish oregano to be rubbed on top of feta cheese and baked!<\/li>\n<li>A package of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shish_taouk\">Shish Tawouk spices<\/a> &#8211; can&#8217;t wait to marinate chicken cubes and bbq them&#8230; *yum*<\/li>\n<li>Some Indian Parachute coconut oil for my hair (don&#8217;t you love the blue bottle!) [err, this should be stashed in the bathroom not the kitchen]<\/li>\n<li>A box of Tang to remind me of childhood Ramadan fasts &#8211; always opened our fasts with dates and tang<\/li>\n<li>A bottle of Lebanese orange blossom water that I&#8217;m hoping to use in&#8230; custard? rice pudding? chicken tagine?!<\/li>\n<li>From Tunisia, pickled turnips I&#8217;ll be adding to my <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mezze\">mezze <\/a>platter, preserved lemons\u00a0and fiery <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harissa\">harissa <\/a>sauce made of chillis and garlic to be added to this week&#8217;s Moroccan chicken <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tagine\">tagine<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Turkish and Spanish olives<\/li>\n<li>Although I always make\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Baba_ghanoush\"> Baba Ghanoush <\/a>(eggplant dip) and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hummus\">Hummus <\/a>(chick pea dip) at home from scratch, I picked up a can of each from Lebanon o see 1) how the canned versions taste &#8211; it&#8217;s been so long since I tasted them; and 2) it&#8217;s a short cut if I&#8217;m in a hurry &#8211; also from Lebanon some sweet fig jam to serve with baked brie<\/li>\n<li>Some Pakistani <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sheermal\">Sheermal <\/a>(sweet doughy bread, almost Challah-like in texture) to be served with the aforementioned tagine<\/li>\n<li>Boxes of ready-to-prepare South Indian delicacies like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Idli\">Idli<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sambar_%28dish%29\">Sambhar<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rasam\">Rasam<\/a>.. my area of cooking expertise is North Indian but someday I&#8217;d love to learn traditional Southern Indian food preparations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So I got a whole bunch of ingredients for my pantry from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Spain, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iran, Saudi Arabia&#8230;from my favourite regions of the world [North African to China] &#8230;!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the best things about living in Toronto is the range of ethnic food you can get. This past weekend, my husband I are were off to the east end to visit family. I decided to drop by Iqbal Foods in East York. This family-run South Asian grocery store and successful restaurant is an &#8230; <span class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/?p=410\">[Read more&#8230;]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,61,56,57,60,58],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-admin","4":"post-410","6":"format-standard","7":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-blog","9":"post_tag-bread","10":"post_tag-dates","11":"post_tag-ethnic","12":"post_tag-grocery","13":"post_tag-lemons","14":"post_tag-olives"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gourmetjunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}