A year ago, I started the A-to-Z Kosher blog
with an Afghani meal for my extended family the Wednesday before Thanksgiving
(see “A
is for Afghanistan”). I am
somewhat surprised that I have done only 8 such meals in the 52 weeks since,
but Thanksgiving 2017 was a perfect opportunity to make another one. Most of the same guests were here as last
year – Josh, my son; Rachel, my daughter, in from Los Angeles; my niece, two
nephews, my mother-in-law, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and, of course,
Davida.
Davida
and her children had visited Iceland last summer, so it was tempting to make an
Icelandic meal, but (no offense intended) the recipes did not look particularly
exciting. I have a really exceptional
Persian eggplant/chicken dish that I make, so I was convinced that I would find
some good Iranian/Persian recipes. I was
not to be disappointed – my main problem was winnowing the choices down. I decided to make mostly recipes that Wikipedia
cited as popular in Iran, but that still left lots of choices.
The Appetizer:
There are several
Iranian thick soups, called Ash, that look very appealing. My initial choice was a barley-based soup,
but that has gluten in it, so it was not an option. In the end, I decided on Ash-e-Reshteh, a thick bean and vegetable soup with
noodles. I usually cook with canned
beans, but the recipe recommends using dried beans and cooking them from
scratch, so I decided to do so. I
started soaking the beans Tuesday morning and made the soup on Tuesday night,
so that the flavors had time to meld (and, so that I wouldn’t be so rushed on
Wednesday). Originally, I was going to
use gluten-free noodles, since Davida’s daughter, Hannah, is celiac, but we
switched to regular pasta when she dropped out a few days before the
dinner. We had some whole-wheat
spaghetti in the apartment, and I ended up using that. Since this was to be a meat meal, I left out
the kashk/yogurt, and since Rachel has an aversion to cilantro I left that out,
as well. It was quite a chore cooking
down the spinach – 1.5 pounds of spinach is a very large volume, uncooked. I needed to add it in thirds because my pot
was already quite full with the other ingredients, but once the spinach got
warmed up in the soup, it shrunk right down!
Carmelizing the
onions was a lot of fun – the sweet, smoky smell is just sensational and adding
the mint just upped the ante. I put them
in a large wok, so that the onions would be mainly in a single layer, and
stirred them around often to avoid burning.
As it was, though, I felt that the mint got overdone – next time, I
would add the mint much closer to the end (perhaps right before serving – when
I heated up the onions to crisp them up a bit after having made them the
evening before).
Tasting the soup, I
felt that it was a bit bland. I added
some more turmeric, a significant amount of salt, and several boullion
cubes. After everything cooked together,
the soup was flavorful, but mild. I also
chopped up some cilantro for those who were not averse to it, but forgot to
serve it with the soup. The guests mostly
thought the soup was fair – the majority gave it 5’s, with a few 6’s and 7’s
(average 5.7). Personally, while I thought it was good, it was not my favorite
soup, and I would have given it a 5, as well.
Maybe if it had the cilantro, I would have liked it more…
The Main Dish:
I was definitely intrigued by the
chicken recipe called Fesenjan, with a
sauce made of ground walnuts and pomegranate molasses. It is apparently a very popular dish in Iran,
and, after eating it, I can understand why – it was one of the best chicken
dishes I have ever eaten! The key to the
dish is the pomegranate molasses; while it can be bought in stores, I did not
readily find it, and decided to make my own, following this very simple recipe. I got a 4-cup bottle of pomegranate juice and
quadrupled the recipe. It took well over
an hour for the juice to boil down to the required amount – I think for the
first 30 minutes, or so, I was just being too careful to avoid burning. But, when it was done, the flavor was just
amazing – it was all I could do to stop myself from consuming it all, right
there. It might be something just to
make and keep around, since the recipe indicates that it is used in many Middle
Eastern recipes (although I had never used it before).
I needed to triple the recipe, which
ended up being a lot of walnuts and a lot of chicken. I had to toast the walnuts in two batches and
brown the chicken in about half a dozen batches. Everything just barely fit in my big Creuset
pot. Except for using margarine, rather
than butter, I did not change any part of the recipe. I did exactly what the recipe said, in terms
of amount of seasonings (although added a bit more pomegranate molasses than
called for) and did not feel the need to adjust the seasonings at the end. The
chicken cooked very slowly, as the recipe indicates and, sure enough, the
chicken just fell off the bone when served.
Garnishing with pomegranate seeds was a nice touch and added a nice
crunchy texture. Next time, though, I
need to find an easier way to extract the pomegranate seeds – it took me
forever to do it by hand.
The dish got nearly unanimous top
ratings – all 7’s, except for one 5 and one 6 (average 6.7 – I believe that is
the highest average rating of any dish I’ve made, so far). Given the use of pomegranates, I think this
will end up becoming one of my staples for Rosh Hashanah meals. It is truly a keeper!
The Starch:
Many years ago,
Dani Goldberg, a postdoc that worked with me, introduced our family to Persian
rice – white rice with a crust at the bottom. We all loved it, but I never
really mastered it, so did not make it often. But, when cooking Iranian, do
what the Persians do – and I decided to try my hand at it, once again. I knew that my children would be especially
appreciative. The recipe is called tahdig, which means “bottom of the pot” in Persian, and the goal is to get a
nice golden crust of fried, crunchy rice, with soft fluffy white rice on
top. I usually don’t try recipes
beforehand, but was concerned enough about messing this one up, based on prior
experience, that I did a test run of 1 cup of rice a few days prior. Although I followed the recipe, it did not go
well (while the bottom was crunchy, it was not golden and did not stay
together), but I was determined to soldier on.
Mainly, I felt that I needed a deeper layer of rice on the bottom, and
that making a full pot of rice would enable me to do so. In fact, I decided to make 4 cups of rice in
two big pots, to double the amount of tahdig that would be produced.
Making the recipe
was quite a bit more work than simple white rice – soaking the rice,
parboiling, adding some saffron water, and then slow cooking for an hour. But, it worked! Both pots produced a golden crust and one
pot’s tahdig stayed together in a complete circle. It was amazing how quickly the tahdig was
consumed – it was completely gone less than halfway through the meal. I’m sure if I could have made only crunchy rice,
the guests would have preferred it that way.
This was mostly borne out in the ratings: The majority gave it 6’s and
7’s (average 6.2), but with one 4 and one 5.
The Vegetables:
Looking for
vegetable side-dishes, I came across kuku sabzi, an egg-based fritter with lots of fresh
herbs. The main ingredients are parsley,
cilantro, dill and chives, along with walnuts and barberries (for which I
substituted currants). Chopping up all
the herbs was a chore, especially enough to feed a dozen people. I ended up making two fritters – one with
cilantro and one without. The overall
ratings were very mixed – two peaks at 3 and 5, with scattered ratings from 1 to
6. While the average rating was 4.0, but
with such a large variation, the average doesn’t really mean much, except that
I would have given it a 4, as well. I
don’t think the variation was based on whether the guests had the version with
cilantro or without, as I had both and found them equally average.
I was anticipating
that the fritters might not have been big hits, so I made another vegetable – a
Persian Shirazi salad featuring cucumber, tomato, and onion
salad, with a lemon/mint dressing, similar to an Israeli salad. One of the guests commented that I should
have cut the pieces smaller, and I think I added too much onion (even though it
was less than the recipe called for). I
also couldn’t find any sumac, so used lemon zest, instead, as some websites suggested
this as a reasonable substitute. The
salad faired quite a bit better than the fritters - there were rating peaks at
4 and 7, with scattered ratings of 2, 5 and 6 (average 5.3). I guess it is hard to wreck a simple salad
recipe.
Dessert:
Both Rachel’s birthday and my nephew
Zach’s were a few weeks before Thanksgiving.
I’ve been making the same pareve chocolate birthday cake for each of my
children’s birthdays for over 15 years, and this year was no exception. Even though the writing and decorations are
not very pretty, the cake itself (especially the frosting) is very tasty, and
it was enjoyed by all. There was even a
piece for Rachel to take home with her to LA.
Happy birthday, Rachel and Zach!
Up next: Japan!
