Yezmi Malek
Iran Foods Traditional – “You can go to school in America,” my mother told me and my siblings in the 1980s when we were little in our hometown of San Diego, “Iran.” And so we spoke Persian, and we went to Persian school on Saturdays to learn to read and write the language. We listened to classical Persian setar music. And Nuruz celebrated the Persian New Year.
But surely the most powerful form of cultural immersion we encounter is cooking. My mother, who left Iran in 1976, gave us a taste of Persian cuisine and traditions. She spends countless hours each week traveling not just to San Diego, but 100 miles away to Orange County and Los Angeles, in search of flavors that remind her of Iran. He taught us that what’s happening in the news, home is home and there you can’t taste anything.
Iran Foods Traditional
In Irvine, she found a bakery that made fresh toppings, a large flat board with the names of the stones, carried on the floor where the dough was baked. She drives us all there on weekends so we can order a maximum of 3 people each – enough to justify driving an hour and a half for 12 slices of bread.
Easy And Healthy Persian Recipes
Systematically, she buys and tastes all the brands of regular yogurt available at the grocery store to find the thickest and thinnest yogurts. She regularly packed us into our blue station wagon and drove across town to an international grocery store where she had seven feta options and could buy fresh herbs by the pound.
Every day, my mother prepared five kilograms of rice – always basmati – and divided one cup per person into a large bowl, rinsed and boiled it a little and soaked it for several hours. She would then begin the magic required to make tahdig, a dry rice husk for which every Persian chef is measured.
Sometimes she uses lavash pots for bread. On other occasions, when a special trip for bread wasn’t possible, he used easy-to-use flour tortillas, which produced equally delicious results. However, she would share the rice and the grandmother, encouraging our children to postpone gratification and hold back, against knocking on the very dry shell first. I don’t know when.
Persian food is more important than anything about weight – flavor and taste, texture and temperature. In every meal, even on every plate, you will find both sweet and sour, soft and crunchy, cooked and raw, hot and cold. In winter, we ate khrosh-e pesenzhun, sweet and sour pomegranate and spiced walnuts to warm us from the inside. In the summer we take the pumpkin for khoresh-e bademjon, which is a duck egg made with glazed tomatoes and lemon juice and grapes or unripe grapes.
Tahdig (persian Crunchy Rice) Recipe
No Persian meal is complete without an abundance of herbs. Each table is prepared with a basket of sbzi hordan, fresh herbs, radishes and jalions, which are eaten raw and with the hands, often placed on slices of fresh flat bread with slices of cucumber or walnut feta. I am not used to this habit and remember the incredible and very positive way to get medicine in the pot. Kuku sabzi, a type of frittata, is so densely packed with finely chopped sauteed herbs that the ingredient list reads like a real joke.
All over Iran, but especially in the north, where my family comes from, medicine is considered a basic ingredient rather than a vegetable or garnish. In the Bay Area, where I now live, I can always see an Iranian merchant’s cart in the distance—a tall cluster of parsley, cilantro, dill, and mint.
Although I am Iranian and a chef, I am not an Iranian chef. I’m very much an Iranian foodie, so when the Times asked me to choose a dish that embodied the quintessential Persian recipe, I interviewed my mother, surveyed Iranians and Iranian-American chefs. Compare dozens and dozens of ingredient lists. And techniques with every Persian cookbook published in English for the past 30 years.
As an Iranian-American – honoring, representing and incorporating two cultures that often feel at odds with each other – has always been a difficult walk for me. This project feels more important and personal than any collection of recipes I’ve ever created.
Delicious Persian Traditional Food In Persian Dishes Stock Photo
More than anything else, I sought to share the taste of my childhood, which means the taste of Iranian food in America. However, I often have to break my heart when choosing my favorite dishes such as Bagali Polo (fava bean rice), Tahchin (brown rice and curd with chicken or lamb) and Khorese Beh (Queen and lamb stew).
Terminology: For personal, political, and historical reasons, many Iranians in the West call themselves Persians. “Persian” is an ethnic group and a language also known as fascism, while “Iran” is a nationality. Not all Persians and Persian speakers are Iranians, and not all Iranians are Persians. If the difference baffles you, rest assured you’re not alone – I’ve spent most of my life confused by it, and for our purposes here, it makes sense to think of situations that are more or less interchangeable with one another.
Refining an entire 2,000-year-old dish into a handful of recipes is pointless, so think of this list as an invitation to cook rather than an actual declaration. It was also an invitation to my childhood home and Iran that my mother made for her children with rice, bread, cheese and herbs.
No dinner without pollo or rice in a complete Iranian family. And no Polonia pot is complete without a pot, the shill is called “under the pot.” Tahdig is one of the most popular dishes in Persian cuisine and can be made with rice, potatoes, salad or even bread like here. Every night, as she ate with me and my sisters, my mother described the remarkable patience of her grandfather, R. Always let his toads enter his heart, or stew, soft but not frozen. I never wait and always throw it away. (See recipe in NYT Cooking.)
Best Saffron Recipes
Kuku, which looks like a Persian meatball, comes in many forms, but this one, stuffed with herbs, is my favorite food. I especially love kuku sabzi for the contrast between its sweet dark skin and its vibrant green interior with a hint of tart barberry. Each bite has a surprising and complex flavor. Kuku is traditionally served with flatbread and a selection of acidic ingredients to balance the sweetness of the herbs. My favorites are fresh radishes, eggplant pickles called lite, and soft, salty feta slices. (See recipe in NYT Cooking.)
There are three main ingredients for this khoresh or stew, often called Iran’s national dish. First, take the leaves, either dried or fresh. The sweet taste, aroma of herbs determines the taste of the soup, which is not the same without it. Similarly, Omani lime (also known as dry Persian lime) adds a much-needed tartness to the dish. Finally, the ancient Persian technique of frying herbs, which are finely ground until dark and dry, lends character and complexity to the base of the stew. (See recipe in NYT Cooking.)
Bademjoon, sometimes written as bademjan, is an important summer dish in Iran and has been my favorite food since my childhood. Fresh lemon juice and gourd or raw grapes lighten the cooking and provide a special sesame. The sharp flavors contrast with the soft flesh of eggplants and tomatoes that soften as they cook. This dish is especially delicious with a slice of tahdig. (See recipe in NYT Cooking.)
Fesenjun, or Fesenjan, comes from the green mountains and coast of northern Iran, where both pomegranates and walnuts grow. The sweet and sour taste of pomegranate juice and orange juice, along with the silky texture that walnuts bring to the soup, makes it one of the most beautiful dishes in Persian cuisine. When I was young I was envious of fessengen, but in my teenage years it became my favorite dish. I ask my mom to prepare this non-stop for me. (See recipe in NYT Cooking.)
Iranian National Cuisine Stock Photos, Royalty Free Iranian National Cuisine Images
To me, bad ash signifies the arrival of spring. This soup is served during the festival leading up to the Persian New Year, Nowruz, which usually falls on March 20. Two specific Persian ingredients define its flavor: leftover or flat noodles are flourier and saltier than their Italian counterparts, and as they cook, the flour they leave behind thickens the soup. Kashk, a form of sour milk or skimmed milk, is more salty and sour than Greek or sour milk.
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