Start Your Summer At Pars Market In Columbia; Go For Grilling, Grab Pistachio Nougat For Fun

Kabob skewers from Pars Market

Start your summer at Pars Market in Columbia for a quick way to jazz up your grilling -- plus a fun Persian sweet.

Pars is a small market on Snowden River Parkway in the same shopping center as Royal Pizza and the new Chutney Indian restaurant.  Pars has two cool items that should become standards in your grilling repertoire.

First, flat kabob skewers.  For a few bucks, you can pick up metal skewers that have long flat sides instead of just an "ice pick" body.  The shape makes it really easy to form kabobs and other decisions alternatives to a hamburger patty.

Pistachio nougat at Pars

Since I bought my skewers in 2010, I have really enjoy playing with different kabobs.  You can use all kinds of meat.  Pars does not have an in-house butcher, but you can get fresh-ground lamb at halal markets like Nazar Market just north of Pars.  That was one of the finds from a grilling week through a Steven Raichen cookbook several years ago.

Second, haloumi cheese.  This is a newer discovery for us.  It's a firm, mild cheese that holds its shape when cooked in a skillet or on the grill.  I cut half-inch slices, which I cook until they're piping hot and just starting to soften.  I pour a little pomegranate molasses, maybe a scattering of minced mint.

Haloumi is a terrific find.  It is also $7 at Pars, and they generally have it in the fridge.  Nazar has had real problems keeping haloumi in stock, and Roots Market charges $10 for the exact same product.  Pars is reliable and well-priced.  The cheese lasts forever in the fridge, so it's a pretty cool convenience food to take out on a weeknight.

While you're making plans to grill, enjoy a quick pickup by buying some of the pistachio nougat candy from the display just inside the door.  They sell it by the piece.  Plan on eating a handful in the car, so don't skimp.  This nougat was one of the first finds that inspired me to blog -- back in a Persian market that moved, expanded and closed since HowChow began.

Pars sells some of the best pistachio nougat that I have ever had.  Very soft.  Great flavor.  Nice crunch with the nuts.  These are a delicious quick treat, but they're special enough to serve to guests.

Grilled Halloumi At Pars And Nazars: Start Your Summer With The Cheese That You Can Grill

Grilled halloumi with pomegranate molassas

Ladies and gentlemen, start your grills.  Summer is here, and the first thing that you should throw over the coals is . . . cheese.

Not a cheese burger.  Not cheese melting on top of something else.  You need to cut half-inch slices of cheese, drop them on the grill, and let them brown for a few moments on each side.

To pull this off, you need to buy yourself the right cheese.  That's halloumi cheese, a brined white cheese so firm that it keeps its shape even over fire.

A spectacular, simple dish:  Halloumi cheese sliced about a half-inch thick.  Grilled for 2-3 minutes per side until the faces have browned slightly.  Then topped with a few lines of pomegranate molasses.  The sweet, rich molasses contrasts with the salty, warm cheese.  With just a block of cheese and a bottle of molasses, you can create an exotic appetizer or start an easy dinner.

Check out both the cheese and the molasses at the Persian Pars Market or the Turkish Nazar Market -- both near Snowden River Parkway in Columbia.

Of course, that's just a start.  We ate halloumi at Zaytinya in Washington, and it was amazing.  Probably pan-seared, which also makes a crisp, warm layer of cheese.  Then augmented with sliced dates, citrus and mint.  Search "halloumi recipe," and you'll find all kinds of ideas -- halloumi in salads, on burgers, or even serving as the "bread" in a grilled sandwich with a white bean paste inside.

If you're grilling, check out the butchers at Pars and Nazar for ground lamb.  Check out the entire Grilling Week series from 2010 that paired local ethnic groceries with Steven Raichlen's Planet Barbecue.  And you could call the markets before you visit.  Pars sells the cheese so quickly that they were out this weekend.  They get more all the time.

Dried Limes & Lemons As Seen In The NYT

Dried limes were last week's "power ingredient" in The New York Times, and HowChow's official NYT correspondent sent me an email saying that we should give them a try.

Hard to find dried limes in the hinterland near Gramercy Park.  But Howard County is a food mecca.  I had them two hours later from Pars Market and Nazar Market in Columbia.  They're $3 a bag.  I mailed a sample to The City.

Nazar had bags marked "dried lemons."  Pars had "dried limes" and "dried lemons."  They looked the same to me, and no one could explain the difference.  Still no chance to try them, but John Willoughby has recipes for chicken stew, lentil salad and broiled shrimp.

Grilling Week At The Halal Butcher: Lamb Kabobs Are Delicious, Even If I Can't ID The Cut Of Meat

In the short history of HowChow, the single greatest introduction to local food has been the halal butcher -- first Caezar International, then Columbia Halal Meat, and now Nazar Market.

Beyond the religious imprint for Muslims, the butchers open new opportunities to anyone who wants goat or lamb.  Ironically, the hardest part for me has been figuring out how to talk meat.  There are some language issues when the butcher was born in Turkey or Pakistan, but the real problem is that I was born in a world where meat comes wrapped in plastic.  I barely know how to order steaks, so I'm at a loss about what to do with a lamb shoulder.  Actually, I'm not sure that I had a lamb shoulder.

Let Steven Raichlen start you off.  All week, I'm posting about Raichlen's Planet Barbecue because the new cookbook's recipes offer gateways into Howard County's ethnic shopping.  Lamb kabobs should be your gateway into the halal butchers.  With one problem that I'll explain below, Raichlen gives you a hamburger alternative -- a ground meat patty flavored with parsley, onion, coriander and cumin.  The skills are nothing harder than forming a burger.  The flavors are new, but still accessible.  And you get to grill with long flat skewers that you can call "my swords."

Turkish Cotton Candy At Pars Market

Cotton candy became famous around here when my wife -- single child, accustomed to a measured pace and a shared experience -- lost out on a gourmet dessert to me and my ravenous family.  One minute the waiter put down the silver bowl of cherry cotton candy.  The next, it was gone.

Since then, I have bought her cotton candy whenever it appears.  The most-recent was pismantye -- which Pars Market in Columbia calls "Turkish cotton candy" even though it isn't officially.

Pismantye is flour and butter mixed into pulled sugar.  Pars sells boxes with about a dozen pieces for less than $2.  It's fluffy threads of candy that melt in your mouth.  Threads, more than cotton balls.  And it tastes nutty and slightly sweet rather than the sugary, fruity flavor of the candy that you'd get at a carnival.  It's definitely worth checking out -- especially if you pick up the rose water and pistachio nougat that Pars stocks on the same shelf.

Kabob Skewers at Pars Market

Kabobs are within your reach -- and won't fall apart when you try to take them off the grill -- if you grab a few thick metal skewers at the new Pars Market in Columbia.

Thin skewers work fine for vegetables, but you can't thread a ground meat kabob on a pencil-sized piece of metal.  They fall apart when you try to lift them.  That's why Pars sells inch-wide skewers for a few dollars each -- either as a package or individual skewers.

For an easy night, you can also buy the Sadaf ground kabob seasoning at Pars, mix it with some ground beef or lamb, and make the long thin kabobs that you see in the photograph.  Those -- made with ground chuck from the Laurel Meat Market -- cooked as simply as hamburgers and came off the grill beautifully.  


I'm looking for some recipes to make kabobs from scratch, maybe with some lamb from the butcher at Columbia Halal Meat Market or Caezar International Market in Elkridge.  Just a short Google search turned up seasonings from Indian to Lebanese.

(Update: Check out Brandon Miller-Milhouse's comment below linking to a recipe for Indian lamb kabobs.)

(Update II: Also, I assume that "David" and "Joseph" below are fake comments.  Not that there is any substance to the comments, but I think it is only fair to point out that I appear to have someone posting vague compliments about Pars and insults about a competitor.  I was one insult away from erasing all the comments, but those seem to have stopped.  If I'm wrong, then "David" or "Joseph" are welcome to email me directly.  Update III;  The fake comments continue, so I erased them all.)

Pars Market in Columbia

Middle Eastern grocery stores are popping up in Columbia like crocuses in March.  (Lord, I hope those crocus pop soon!)

Pars Market opened last week on Snowden River Parkway in the same shopping center as Azul 17 and Nichi Bei Kai.  This is a small store where the owner is still filling the shelves, but it -- like the Nazar Produce Market that opened last weekend -- is already a resource for breads, spices, canned goods, and little treats like Turkish yogurt drinks and Iranian fruit rollups.

For now, Pars has basic supplies to cook Middle Eastern food -- rice, lentils, bulgar wheat, spices, yogurt, etc. -- and an array of packaged items like pickles, grape leaves and even rose water.  You can buy lavash and other breads, and there is a small refrigerated/frozen section.  Check out the fruit rollups in the display by the counter.  They're Iranian and quite delicious.

Pars' owner seems really nice and enthusiastic.  I picked up a bag of dried rose buds and brought them to the counter to ask what I would do with them.  He said that he didn't know.  So he called his sister on a cell phone, and we figured out together that they're used in teas and cooking for the rose aroma.  He talked up the hookahs and peach tobacco, which I have to admit smelled delicious.

If you're looking for ethnic grocery stores, you can see my 2009 post about them -- although I need to update now that Pars, Nazar and Columbia Halal Meat have opened.

Pars Market

9400 Snowden River Parkway

Columbia, MD  21045

443-259-0002

NEAR:  This is in the shopping center on Snowden River with Azul 17 and Royal Pizza.  This is south of Rte 175 and Oakland Park Boulevard.  Pars is right next to Royal Pizza.