Persian New Year, Nowruz dinner

For many years we have shared Nowruz parties with our neighbors who lived in Iran for several years. Louise and I always cooked a few dishes for the big parties they would throw. Now they are living in New York -- they have been traveling (Alto Adige), and they will be throwing a party a month late, to which we are invited.

But I really had a hankering 1) to "honor" the correct date and 2) to make some of my very favorite Persian foods. SO we more or less invited ourselves down to Maryland to visit the in-laws, and they liked the idea. They also lived in Iran back in the 1970's when it was a much friendlier place and they have happy memories of the food and traditions there.

Because of something about the sun and moon, the real date this year is Friday March 20, but the traditional date is March 21, the first day of Spring. By the way -- this is why the USA - Iran nuclear talks have a deadline coming up soon. Nobody gets anything done in Iran in the Nowruz season.

My plan is to cater this whole thing, and carry food down in the trunk. Two of my favorite dishes are Aash-e Reshte, a rich vegetable soup with noodles (reshte = noodles). Long noodles = long life, and noodles = beginnings, similar to some Chinese traditions. And Khoresh=e Karafs, "Celery Khoresh" which is really a lamb stew. So I plan to cook big pots of both of those and take them down. The Khoresh is served over Persian rice which is cooked with butter and saffron and gives a golden crunchy crust. Rice, then lamb, then yogurt (kashk).

The whole concept -- first course = Sabzi Khordan. Lavosh bread, thin as paper, with a mild feta cheese, sliced red radishes, and various green things including mint, chives, other fragrant herbs and maybe some baby spinach. You wrap cheese and greens and a bit of radish in the lavish bread and eat. Very traditional starter.

Second -- breads and dips. I bought some Naan from our Costco. I don't know if most Costcos sell Naan but our population has become very Asian and we have one or two of the few Indian congressmen in the US. Louise's airy hummus will be there and depending on the timing maybe I will have made kashk-e bademjan, an eggplant and yogurt dip.

Then kookoo. Louise will make a green bean kookoo, which is more or less a thick omelet with saffron and spices, very savory and nourishing. And somewhere in here Jujeh Kebab, Louise's brother Larry will be doing something to chicken wings.

Then a bowl of Aash-e Reshte. This is very filling so bowls will be small.

Then the lamb and yogurt over rice. Khoreshe Karafs.

Finally desserts -- a neighbor of our b.i.l. will make Shole Zard which is a rice pudding with cardamom and saffron etc. And today I bought some clover-shaped chickpea cookies -- which Louise made last year. Very tasty, very mild.

Anyway, it's way too much to eat but that's what holidays are about, and Nowruz is in fact one of my favorite holidays.

You are supposed to display a "haft seen sofreh" which means seven things that start with the letter S (seen) in Persian. Apple, garlic, mirror, and other stuff, and one important part is the sabzi or pot of greens. Last year I grew a beautiful sabzi using wheat grains. This year I tried to use the same wheat and learned that it was only about 25% viable which = unacceptable sabzi. But when shopping today I found a pot of flowering shamrocks. Score! It doesn't matter what the pot of green stuff is and I think shamrocks conveniently kill 2 birds with one stone. Larry's wife is half Irish.

Nobody involved in this is Persian but if you know anything about Persians -- they will travel 1000 miles to be with family on Nowruz. It's basically Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years all rolled into one. So they wouldn't have wanted to come…

Frank,

I, too, lived in Iran in the 1970s (73-75). The bread in Tehran, Barbari, is outstanding--much more flavorful than Nan, but you can't get it here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbari_bread)

Your menu looks great. Don't forget the offering of goldfish as a gift for the New Year.

FYI: the way I remember it, jujeh kebabs consisted of whole baby chickens, kebabed and served over a mound of steaming rice with an onion and an egg. The egg was steamed inside the rice from a crevice at the top of the mound.

Thomas, thanks for the interesting reply!

Our ex-neighbor Paul makes a killer Nan-e Barberi, and I am sure there will be heaps of it for our April 25 "Nowruz."
You probably know that "Barberi" basically = barbarians or foreigners and some people think it was the bread of Greece during the time of Alexander the Great. It's about the size of Pita bread and I think they had some at the middle eastern grocery I went to today, but I had already bought the Naan. That's where I found the Lavosh. I also found powdered angelica there, and kashk, and dried rose-buds, and real Reshte noodles for the soup. Angelica is worth its own paragraph but I will leave that alone.

We bought goldfish for the first few Nowruz meals with our neighbors, but it got too depressing when they died 3 weeks later, if not earlier! I have been an aquarium keeper in the past, very successfully, but these Nowruz goldfish just seem to be cursed.

I hadn't heard any of that about jujeh kebab, I think you had wealthy friends in Tehran!! Our neighbor didn't even put them on a skewer, he just grilled chicken parts until tasty and tender, and people noshed on them all afternoon.

FWIW real Persian New Year meals in Iran always include "maahi" or fish, but my friends weren't crazy about that dish so they never bothered with it, so I am not acquainted with it. I see things through the filter of what our friends liked to do.

For the last couple of Nowruz's by our neighbors in New Jersey I made these amazing hard candies -- with honey, sugar, saffron, almonds on the inside, and chopped pistachios sprinkled on top. Soohan. My neighbors were impressed, they said you had to go to a special place in Iran to buy them (Qum?). I might make some this week but I have to see how much time everything else will take.

Frank:

Persians love hard candies...I love pistachio and used to go to great lengths to find the best Iran had to offer, which wasn't hard to find at all. There was a place at the base of the Elburz Mountains that sold large quantities of the nuts just before you started on a climb--we climbed almost halfway once (maybe it was only 25%, it gets larger as I grow older).

Re, jujeh kebabs: I first ate them at an all-night Armenian Christian wedding feast in Tehran--in those days, Christian, Baha'i, Zoroastrain, Jew, and Muslim shared the city. The little chickens were marinated for who knows how long; when ready, they melted. My wife couldn't eat them, though, because they were only babies.

We had a backyard pool in our first apartment in the north of the city. That's when I learned that goldfish grow as big as the space that houses them!

Re, the bread: yes, I knew about the barbarian connection. Few breads struck me as much as that one, especially fresh out of the hot stone ovens. The bread places were all over the city, with people waiting for fresh loaves almost every minute of the day. We used to use them to make pizza--they came with a fantastic crust, thick enough to mimic the NY style Sicilian pizza dough.

Maybe I know your Jersey friends.

I sent you a PM about my former neighbors, I doubt you would have come across them.

The baby chickens sound delicious! My neighbors brought back "real" Persian pistachios many times. They were not so crunchy -- a bit soft and with a slight vinegar tang. My favorite though was when occasionally we'd get some caviar from the Caspian. OMG, never tasted anything like that!

Anyway I've accumulated everything I need so I'm gonna hit the kitchen now.

My favorite though was when occasionally we'd get some caviar from the Caspian. OMG, never tasted anything like that!

Yes, indeed. Visited the Caspian Sea twice and ate caviar each time. Fresh, not salty, and almost as good as sex.

So the dinner was a big success. It's possible that the most popular course was the first course, sabzi khordan. I had real Lavash bread and I had cut the big sheets into quarters and stacked those onto a plate for passing. I had a big platter with bunches of dill weed, basil, mint, watercress, chives, tarragon, and some scallions about 4 inches of the white, with roots cut off. Another plate with sliced red radishes and small cucumbers and "domino" shaped chunks of "French" Feta cheese. This was quite a discovery -- mild, creamy, delicious, not salty, and according to my in laws exactly like Persian cheese. So you take whatever green stuff you like and a chunk of the cheese and maybe some radish or cucumber and roll the lavash around and eat it. Everyone loved the novelty of it and the deliciousness of it. But people filled up a bit, which was the down side. We had pink Champagne.

The kukus in the second course were also a hit -- we made one green bean kuku and one cauliflower kuku, very different from each other. Kuku is a baked egg dish. We also had dips and other breads toasted, the Naan, quartered and some pita bread quartered. The people who had lived in Iran lamented the fact that you can't get Nan-e Barberi, but they thought the Naan was reasonably close.

The third course was the Aash e reshte, noodle soup. This is very different from what most Americans think of as "soup" -- if is quite thick. Most people gobbled it down and said it was delicious (it was) but a couple of people sent their bowls back to the kitchen untouched.

For the 4th course I had made Javaher Polow, (Jeweled Rice), and Khoreshe Karafs -- lamb stew with celery chunks in it. Jeweled rice is very special, it has golden raisins, zereshk or barberries which are tiny sourish red berries, candied orange zest and candied carrot "match sticks". Because people were full we just gave everyone a small serving of the rice, and a few chunks of lamb and celery leaning on the side, with a light spoonful of the broth. It's too bad because the broth is both rich and meaty and intriguingly tangy from the lime juice. And the lime juice works on the lamb to make it exquisitely tender. But at any rate, that course was well appreciated.

For dessert -- my in laws' neighbor had made Shole Zard, a saffron rice pudding which was nice but we were down to tiny servings by that time. And I had actually found the exact chickpea flour cookies I had thought of asking Louise to make, in the store with Persian food supplies so we also passed those around. Very intriguing with a cup of decaf coffee.

At any rate it was satisfying that everything worked as well as it did. The dips may have been a weak spot, Louise made her excellent hummus with chick peas that I had peeled -- but hummus isn't exactly Persian, and neither is Muhammarah, the red pepper puree sweetened with Rob-e Anar, or pomegranate Molasses. I made Kashke bademjan, eggplant and yogurt dip, but was not happy with the result.

Other than that the authenticity of the meal was pretty exact, I don't think a visiting Persian would have had anything to complain about. And my sister in law even set up a haft seen, which was really pretty and charming, on a sideboard in the dining room.

Memorable occasion!

Sounds like a great meal, Frank! Glad it all went together well, and thanks for posting on the preliminaries.

Sounds terrific, Frank. Wish I could have tasted some of it.

French influence in Iran was evident in the 1970s, and not only the food; most in Tehran used the French for "thank you," although they pronounced it "merse", cutting off the "i" at the end.

Thomas, one of my favorite Swiss expressions is "merci vielmals"!!

One consolation about the small servings of the later courses is the fact that people happily took away containers of the left-overs, so at least SOME people got to enjoy that Jeweled Rice, and tonight I filled up on Aash, which I love.

At any rate if I were to recommend Persian dishes for people not all that familiar with them -- the first course is totally easy, you just have to spend money on the green herbs and find something similar to lavash and Persian panir, like the French Feta cheese. Kukus are pretty easy and the spices tend not to be that exotic. And the lamb stew, khoresh-e karafs, is 100% worth the effort. The tangy lime and lamb flavor of the broth is pretty indescribably good. Googling any of these names will turn up recipes, but I used various editions of the Batmanglij Food of Life cookbooks.

I don't suppose I'd recommend trying the Aash or the jeweled rice.

Frank:

I loved the simple, everyday charred lamb and rice chello-kebab in Tehran; ubiquitous as our hamburger, but less adorned.

Chelo-kebab is delicious it's true -- but my friends who still go there say that that is about ALL you can get in most restaurants. You either have to find a particularly high end place, or better yet get invited to someone's home, to get the interesting khoreshes and polos, the more intricate stuff.

Anyway, an epilogue -- based on the eggplant dip nobody liked. Louise bought some low fat ground beef and suggested that chili might be nice. I work this evening so I knew 1) I wanted to whip something up this morning, 2) I did not want to go out and shop for ingredients, and 3) I absolutely didn't want to make chili. I make good chili and we both enjoy it but I make it too often. So I was combing around the internet and my cookbooks trying to find something not too high in calories that I could make with what I had on hand -- and I came across Moussaka!! I cut up a big onion and fried it, stirred in the rest of my lumpy eggplant dip, cooked it together and put it aside. Then fried up the beef with some garlic. Then stirred the eggplant onion mix back into the pan, and added tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, and a big pinch of Greek oregano. The eggplant was already fairly soft (not soft enough to be a dip) and seasoned so I had a true short cut and made Moussaka in record time, plus I used up a troublesome left-over. I'm not going to bother to bake it with a topping, we'll just serve it with some rice.

Chelo-kebab is delicious it's true -- but my friends who still go there say that that is about ALL you can get in most restaurants. You either have to find a particularly high end place, or better yet get invited to someone's home, to get the interesting khoreshes and polos, the more intricate stuff.

Yeah, like I said: ubiquitous. The other ubiquitous food I liked were roasted beets and roasted corn that street vendors offered up.

Anyway, an epilogue -- based on the eggplant dip nobody liked. Louise bought some low fat ground beef and suggested that chili might be nice. I work this evening so I knew 1) I wanted to whip something up this morning, 2) I did not want to go out and shop for ingredients, and 3) I absolutely didn't want to make chili. I make good chili and we both enjoy it but I make it too often. So I was combing around the internet and my cookbooks trying to find something not too high in calories that I could make with what I had on hand -- and I came across Moussaka!! I cut up a big onion and fried it, stirred in the rest of my lumpy eggplant dip, cooked it together and put it aside. Then fried up the beef with some garlic. Then stirred the eggplant onion mix back into the pan, and added tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, and a big pinch of Greek oregano. The eggplant was already fairly soft (not soft enough to be a dip) and seasoned so I had a true short cut and made Moussaka in record time, plus I used up a troublesome left-over. I'm not going to bother to bake it with a topping, we'll just serve it with some rice.

Sounds like a great fast fix.

Of course, you know it should be lamb rather than beef.

Yeah, but Louise bought beef and it tastes pretty darn good!

Ground lamb isn't sold much around here, you pretty much have to buy a leg and grind it yourself!

Yeah, but Louise bought beef and it tastes pretty darn good!

Ground lamb isn't sold much around here, you pretty much have to buy a leg and grind it yourself!

There was a time when I would do that at home. The only way to stop me, was for my wife to secretly get rid of the meat grinder that I bought one day and decided I had to use because, well, I had it. I used to create both a mess and a tense existence whenever I dragged that thing out and screwed it to a counter.

Ground lamb isn't sold much around here, you pretty much have to buy a leg and grind it yourself!

Can't believe you can't find ground lamb in NJ Frank. This is a much more remote area and we can find it any food store around.

Carl, it's local culture, and people from other parts of the USA have trouble believing that everywhere is not like where they live. If I want pork butt I pretty much have to go to a Chinese Grocery. And I don't really see ground lamb anywhere -- I went to a halal butcher and asked, and he took out a leg of lamb and ground it while I waited. In fact around here most shops don't have much lamb period. A few lamb chops or perhaps a shoulder. Costco is the best bet for me, they have big chunky lamb chops, expensive little lamb chops, and boneless legs from NZ (I think). I can get lamb shanks at Wegman's.

People in California don't believe we can't find Tri-tip on the east coast. So it goes.

FWIW I have a circuit of stores -- Patel Cash and Carry (everything Indian), H Mart (Korean), Kam Man (mainly Chinese), a produce store (run by Koreans and staffed by Mexicans), a Mexican mercado in New Brunswick, plus a variety of the usual run of the mill American supermarkets. There is an Amish Market down towards Princeton where we can occasionally find hanger steaks or quail. But there are some things that are tough to find regardless of all that variety. OH and the Phoenician Bakery which is where I found all sorts of weird stuff for my Persian meal. But they have no meat. And the "Greek Store" but no meat there, either.

OK, this is the meal that wouldn't die...

BUT when I was making the lamb Khoresh I got so sick of cleaning and cutting up the leg of lamb that I put the rest in the freezer and quit. So this morning I got it out of the freezer and thawed it. I cleaned it up and cut it in thin slices (as if for Chinese) and fried it up. I also cut up a sweet red pepper and fried THAT up. So supper tonight is the Moussaka topped with sweet red pepper and lamb bits.

Thomas you were right, it totally puts the dish up a notch. I am so happy now with my kashke bademjan!!

On another note -- I wrote my brother in law, whose hobby is grilling and smoking meat (and collecting rare whisk(e)ys) and asked him if I could send him some flat "sword" skewers. As I mentioned he and his wife lived in Iran for a while, and he wrote back that the kubideh/kofteh kebab was one of his best memories of Iran. As you mentioned, chelokebab!! So I will go back to Phoenician tomorrow and pick up some skewers. I will probably keep a couple for my own experimentation.

We do have 2 restaurants (!) within an easy walk that make very good ground meat kebabs -- one Turkish and one Pakistani. But it's nice to be able to make your own and I want to try that.

OK, this is the meal that wouldn't die...

BUT when I was making the lamb Khoresh I got so sick of cleaning and cutting up the leg of lamb that I put the rest in the freezer and quit. So this morning I got it out of the freezer and thawed it. I cleaned it up and cut it in thin slices (as if for Chinese) and fried it up. I also cut up a sweet red pepper and fried THAT up. So supper tonight is the Moussaka topped with sweet red pepper and lamb bits.

Thomas you were right, it totally puts the dish up a notch. I am so happy now with my kashke bademjan!!

On another note -- I wrote my brother in law, whose hobby is grilling and smoking meat (and collecting rare whisk(e)ys) and asked him if I could send him some flat "sword" skewers. As I mentioned he and his wife lived in Iran for a while, and he wrote back that the kubideh/kofteh kebab was one of his best memories of Iran. As you mentioned, chelokebab!! So I will go back to Phoenician tomorrow and pick up some skewers. I will probably keep a couple for my own experimentation.

We do have 2 restaurants (!) within an easy walk that make very good ground meat kebabs -- one Turkish and one Pakistani. But it's nice to be able to make your own and I want to try that.

Yeah, the lamb flavor with eggplant works better than beef.

If you have any slices of lamb leftover, puree some roasted eggplant and roasted sweet red pepper with cumin, garlic, and olive oil; warm it and slather on lamb slices as sauce. FABULOUS!

[Jenise]

Great meal, frank, a most entertaining exchange between you and Thomas too. Re ground lamb, not something on offer fresh in our local markets either as there's so little local demand for it in spite of a fair Greek community, but always available frozen. Not great, but at least I can make dolmas whenever I like.

Thanks Thomas and Jenise

Not meaning to spin out this thread forever -- but I just got invited to "cater" for our friend Karl's Easter party. We had told him if he wanted us to cook he should tell us real soon. If he had wanted ham we might have ordered one from Nueske's. But he's invited some people who are really into good Italian red wines, so we decided to go with lamb instead.

Thomas's comment makes me think -- got to have some eggplant with that lamb!!

I'll probably use Julia Child's marinade for Butterflied Leg of Lamb, we've made that 100 times and it's always delicious.

And a rice pilaff from the 1977 Gourmet Magazine Easter issue. That article calls for Saddle of Lamb and while that cut of meat is exquisite, it is mostly bone and the amount of meat is really minimal. The butterflied leg will go a lot farther. I used to enjoy writing up menus in French for our shared Julia Child meals. Ah, "Selle d'Agneau"!! Sigh. "Asperges..."

For the wines I am thinking of a good old Brunello and maybe a good old Supertuscan. I love Barolo and Barbaresco but I don't think they are quite such a great match with lamb.

got to have some eggplant with that lamb!!

I've been ordering Imam Baiyildi in Middle Eastern restaurants recently. Imagine what the Imam would do if he found some ground lamb in there, too....

Thanks Thomas and Jenise

Not meaning to spin out this thread forever -- but I just got invited to "cater" for our friend Karl's Easter party. We had told him if he wanted us to cook he should tell us real soon. If he had wanted ham we might have ordered one from Nueske's. But he's invited some people who are really into good Italian red wines, so we decided to go with lamb instead.

Thomas's comment makes me think -- got to have some eggplant with that lamb!!

I'll probably use Julia Child's marinade for Butterflied Leg of Lamb, we've made that 100 times and it's always delicious.

And a rice pilaff from the 1977 Gourmet Magazine Easter issue. That article calls for Saddle of Lamb and while that cut of meat is exquisite, it is mostly bone and the amount of meat is really minimal. The butterflied leg will go a lot farther. I used to enjoy writing up menus in French for our shared Julia Child meals. Ah, "Selle d'Agneau"!! Sigh. "Asperges..."

For the wines I am thinking of a good old Brunello and maybe a good old Supertuscan. I love Barolo and Barbaresco but I don't think they are quite such a great match with lamb.

Frank:

Can you get your hands on Cannonau di Sardegna? Goes well with lamb.

[Jenise]

Frank, braise the whole lamb leg in a nice marinara cut with some white wine,sliced onions, garlic and bay leaf. Sear it off first. You'll find yourself wondering why you don't eat lamb with Italian wine more often.