Pakistani Cuisine
Pakistani cuisine is a rich and vibrant palette that brings together traditions from pre-partition India, Central Asian influences, and deeply historic local traditions from the five provinces.
While it is often indistinguishable from Northern Indian food, with nuanced and flavorful spices, staples such as basmati rice or rotee (bread), and canonical dishes like nihari, karahi, and biryani, it is also inflected with the particular history of this region and its traditions. For example, sewaiyan is a sweet vermicelli and milk dessert that can be found in every Muslim home at the start of the Eid festival.
Contemporary Pakistani cuisines builds on all of this cultural knowledge while exploring lighter and more nuanced variations, explorations that are informed by diverse culinary traditions from around the world, and careful attention towards health and well-being.
Meet the Chef
Ruby Jawaid is a special education teacher, a volunteer for New York Cares, and a loving mom who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents immigrated to Karachi, Pakistan, from Aligarh, India, during the partition of 1947, bringing with them treasured memories and precious recipes. When her mom and dad passed away in 2018, she created a handmade recipe book to preserve her mom’s recipes. And when she successfully completed her heart pacemaker surgery in 2019, she decided to begin this project to share the culinary magic with fellow New Yorkers.
Ruby’s Kitchen is supported by her son, Waqas Jawaid, who is a partner at Brooklyn-based Isometric Studio, and her daughter, Rabeya Jawaid, who is an investment banker in Manhattan.