Cookbook Review: Zeenaaru

Category: Cook Books

A line that can be translated as ‘delectable food is the strongest sorcery when it comes to capturing a heart,’ is what you see when you first open Naila Ibrahim Kaleygefaanu’s cookbook Zeenaaru.

The book is specially dedicated to her two daughters and generally dedicated to all the female students she was teaching at the time of publishing, as well as all the female students she had taught before that. Some of us at Lonumedhu were actually studying at Aminiya School when Naila Ibrahim Kaleygefaanu, or ‘Naila Miss’ as we would call her, was working there.

We couldn’t locate a date of publishing anywhere on the book. But the back cover illustration is signed with the name P.C. Peiris and below it is the date 18 April 1987.

Zeenaru does cover a comprehensive range of traditional Maldivian recipes, but there are plenty of international recipes in there as well.

The recipes are divided into several sections. The first one is on drinks, and recipes here include quite a number of juices you can make from locally available fruits such as papayas, watermelons and mangoes. We were particularly interested in the tamarind ‘fani’ and sour mango ‘fani’ as we’ve never had that before. The section also includes a lot of traditional ‘kan’dhi’ recipes, along with a Sooji recipe we are determined to try out really soon.

The soup section of the book is quite extensive as well and includes recipes for vegetable, tomato, cheese, chicken and potato soups among a lot more. We are a bit curious about the ‘Japaanu Suruvaa,’ which translates to Japanese soup; it’s got eggs, lobster, chicken, fish and veggies in it.

The short eats section is rather bulky and so much sweet and savoury teatime items are covered here. Although you’ll find recipes for the usual Maldivian ‘hedhikaa’ here, there’s such as lot more; there are plenty of cake recipes as well as recipes for cheese scones, pavlova, pizza and curry puffs.

The next section covers curries, pickles and desserts. Among the curries is a recipe for a beef kebab curry that we will be certainly checking out, and the pickle recipes include a tomato ‘asaara’ and a pineapple ‘asaara’ we’ve never had before. We are thrilled to find a Turkish delight recipe titled ‘Thurukee ufaa,’ in the dessert section; there’s a lime soufflé recipe as well.

Idiyappam, appan, chapatti and parata recipes are covered in the section that focuses on recipes with flour, while the rice section includes a range of rice dishes including biryani and kedgeree rice.

The last section of the book is on various international dishes, and presents a selection of recipes from Burmese, Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Japanese, Indian, Thai and Singaporean fare.

Throughout the book there are helpful little cooking and prepping tips. Also, we did notice that even when a recipe is for an international dish, the ingredients required are almost always quite easily accessible.

We think Zeenaaru is one of the most comprehensive of local cookbooks, and are impressed by the sheer range of recipes. It’s definitely a great read for cooking enthusiasts; we really are so inspired to do some serious cooking!

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