The Ayubi family comes from Afghanistan. Every week they have a big family dinner to celebrate the end of a two-day fast.

Every Tuesday the Ayubi family goes shopping. They are after ingredients for the weekly family dinner that brings together mother Farida, her five daughters, their children and partners. The Ayubis have been in Australia for 19 years. Unlike more recent Afghan arrivals, they came as sponsored migrants.

The Tuesday dinner comes at the end of Farida and her husband Zelmai's weekly fast, which lasts for two days.

The Ayubis are from Laghman in Afghanistan. They like to cook traditional dishes like qabili (chicken and rice), kofta (meatballs), and banjan borani (spiced eggplant).

For these dishes they need good quality basmati rice which is generally soaked for 24 hours before steaming. They use a number of spices like cardomom, cumin, cloves and dry coriander as well as fresh pistachio nuts (soaked in hot water to make it easier to remove the papery skin); and small, sweet sultanas that are reddish in colour. These are fried in canola oil and added to the rice along with the broth from chicken pieces simmered with onions and a little water.

There are a number of Afghan families now living in Adelaide and in recent times small bakeries and grocery stores have opened  -  like the Lawash bakery in Thebarton where huge flat rounds of bread are baked in the traditional tandoor or drum oven. Delicious!