The Iranian festival of Yalda takes place on the winter solstice and is an evening spent sharing poetry and snacking on red fruits such as pomegranates, which symbolize the crimson hues of the sun rising after the longest night. Fesenjan, a sumptuous sweet-and-sour stew made with ground walnuts and pomegranate molasses, is often cooked for this celebration. It is cooked low and slow, and you can tell that it is ready when the nuts release their oils and you see a clear slick of oil sitting on top of the sauce. The timing is dependent on the variety of walnuts you use, so if you’ve reached the end of the suggested cooking time and the oils haven’t released yet, give it another 30 minutes to an hour until they do. Golpar is an earthy, citrusy spice you can source online or in Iranian stores, though you can also make the dish without.
Quick and easy traybakes are the way forward. I love the ease of throwing a load of ingredients into a roasting tin and just popping it in the oven, especially when the results are really good and make you think you want to do this again. Happy days.
Chelo means “plain steamed rice” in Farsi, whereas polos are rice dishes with other ingredients folded in, like pilafs—I included a few variations of these.
If there’s one piece of equipment you’ll see in every Persian household, it’s a nonstick pot. Although I almost never use nonstick cookware, for this recipe, it’s essential. It makes life easy when you want to serve the rice on a platter, or flip and invert it for easy release. Trust me and pay the money to invest in that peace of mind.
For as long as I can remember, it has been a tradition to organise a family barbecue each summer. We marinate the meat together the night before and the final result is beautifully tender, succulent, charred and feverishly smoky. This dish uses a Mughal cooking technique called dhuandaar to impart the flavour of smoke into cooked chicken. While not essential for this dish, it is a really simple and effective way of bringing the barbecue flavour to your dishes any time of the year. All you need is a small piece of coal… intrigued?
Persian Spicy Fish and Herb Stew | Ghalieh Mahi
Samin Nosrat shared this recipe with us as part of our Persian food episode Four Persian Cooks.
Chelo ba Tahdig | Steamed Persian Rice with Tahdig
The perfect light lunch or appetizer, kuku sabzi differs from a typical frittata in two important ways. To begin with, the ratio of greens to eggs is heavily skewed in favor of greens—in fact, I use just enough eggs to bind the greens together. And kuku isn’t kuku without a deeply browned crust to provide a textural and flavor contrast to its bright, custardy center. Eat kuku warm, at room temperature, or cold, with feta cheese, yogurt, or pickles to offer the balance of acidity. Washing, chopping, and cooking down all the greens for a kuku can be overwhelming if you’re not used to staring down a mountain of produce, so feel free to prep the greens a day in advance.
Carrot + Walnut Halva | halva-ye havij-e urmia
Saffroned Almond Cake | loz-e badam-e yazdi