This introduction to Persia’s extensive culinary history includes recipes for every occasion, along with serving suggestions for memorable meals at home.
Nader Mehravari has been exploring the history, principles, and practices of Persian cookery and Iranian food for over 35 years. Most recently, his work has been published in Petits Propos Culinaires and presented at Oxford Food Symposium. He is in the process of writing a modern and innovative cookery book about the legendary food of Iran and Persianate societies.
A Persian sofreh is incomplete without a bowl of a yogurt-based accompaniment known as borāni. Borānis combine yogurt with some raw or cooked vegetables and one or two simple flavorings. Their popularity stems from the fact that they are simple, healthy, often very quick to prepare, and able to serve multiple needs as a restaurant appetizer, as a side dish, or as a dip for cocktail parties.
The most esteemed among Persian rice dishes, chelow is is snow-white, fragrant steamed rice with light and fluffy, separate grains. To achieve this desirable texture, long-grain white rice is thoroughly washed and soaked and then parboiled for just a few minutes until it is partially cooked. The parboiled rice is then strained and returned to the pot, and it finishes cooking in the steam generated in the tightly covered pot over gentle heat.
Tahdig is the delicious, buttery, golden-brown crust that forms at the bottom of a pot of chelow as the rice cooks. It is often the most coveted treat at a Persian meal and usually disappears seconds after it has been put on the table. is a meat braise that incorporates ground walnuts and pomegranate molasses and has a subtle, uniquely Persian sweet-and-sour flavor profile. This type of gentle sweet-and-sour flavor is also characteristic of some other Persian dishes; in fact, there is a single word for it in Persian language called “malass.”
is a prized delicacy, as its preparation uses more saffron than other Persian sweets that have saffron in them. Sholeh-zard