By Casey Neill
A husband and wife team are serving traditional Afghan street food at Dandenong Market.
Jawad and Tahira Ali Zada opened TaZa about a year ago.
The stall name means fresh, and TaZa cooks bread daily for same-day sale.
Jawad said he used natural ingredients for the traditional Afghan flat bread, which is cooked stuck to the inside of a tandoor oven.
“We do have people from different parts of the world coming,” he said.
“We try to make their traditional bread as well.
“We have customers from Afghanistan to North China.
“We make their cultural bread as well.”
He sells to restaurants as well as Dandenong Market customers.
Jawad’s favourite dish on the menu is bolani.
“They’re healthier and lighter,” he said.
“They’re easy to pick up and go.”
The thin Afghan pastry features chives and coriander. It’s cooked on a hot plate and served with chutney.
“It has lots of vegetables inside,” he said.
“It’s Afghan traditional.
“If you go to Kabul, it’s the first thing people sell on the street.”
Fillings include potato, spinach, cheese and onion.
Jawad has heard from customers that variations on the dish also appear in other cultures.
“In our first week we had a customer from Croatia,” he said.
“She said it was very similar to how her mum cooked it back in Europe.”
TaZa also serves two types of rice – chicken biryani and the traditional qabuli palow rice.
Tahira cooks the qabuli in the traditional way.
“She cooks the meat first and cooks the rice with the soup from the lamb,” Jawad said.
“It’s a special part of lamb that you have to use with a richer flavour.”
There are chicken, lamb, kofte and tikka kebabs on the menu, too.
TaZa will take part in the market’s National Burger Day celebrations, coming up on Sunday 27 May.
“We’re going to do some marinated beef and lamb mince with charcoal bread,” Jawad said.
“Charcoal bread is very new.”
