A Taste of Persia

Prior to being approved for A Taste of Persia from NetGalley, I knew nothing about Persian food. Hummus was about the entire extent of my Middle Eastern repertoire. But reading this book got me excited about attempting to cook Persian food. As soon as I published my review of the book to Goodreads, I hopped on the Zamouri Spices website and ordered a boatload of Middle Eastern spices – including mint, sumac, ground fenugreek, advieh, juniper berries, and pomegranate molasses – so that I could prepare some of the recipes prior to the cookbook expiring. Once I received that order in the mail, I submitted another order for an obscene amount of dried rose petals because I had found a recipe for Meyer Lemon and Rose Petal Marmalade in another NetGalley cookbook.

Once I had all the spices and condiments that I needed, I made a grocery list to prepare some of the recipes that I had marked. It was predominantly cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes and onion, in addition to fish and chicken. Unfortunately, pomegranates are not in season in the summertime, so I had to forgo the addition of fresh pomegranate seeds to the recipes.

Spicy Fish Salad

I had a few challenges with the Spicy Fish Salad recipe. First, the recommended “white fleshed fish” – black sea bass, striped bass, snapper – were not available at my supermarket. I had a choice of tilapia, flounder, or cod; I chose cod because it looked the freshest. After cooking for four minutes, the cod had started to fall apart in the poaching water. But I still cooked it for the full ten minutes. By the end of the cooking time, it had flaked apart to the extent that I had to fish out the pieces using a Chinese spider!

Second, my mini prep refused to “grind the walnuts to a fine powder.” The best I got was a medium chop. Rather than dump the medium chopped walnuts into a bowl and stir the vinegar and cooking liquid into that, I left the walnuts in the mini prep, added the liquids, and reprocessed the walnuts hoping that the liquid would help them process more finely. It worked! I definitely needed to use more that the recommended ¼ cup of cooking liquid to even come close to a pourable sauce. I’m not sure exactly how much cooking liquid I used because I kept adding it. I also added the spices to the mini prep, and whizzed it a few times to blend in the spices. I didn’t have fenugreek leaves, so I only used the recommended amount of fenugreek powder. I didn’t have powdered dried red chiles, so I used Aleppo pepper. I also skipped the marigold petals, and used dried thyme instead of dried summer savory, which was a substitution recommended in the recipe.

Finally, I got lazy toward the end of the recipe. Since it is summer, I didn’t have any pomegranate seeds to add. I also skipped the minced onion or minced shallot and the minced fresh herbs. I did that purely because I didn’t feel like fussing over the recipe any more.

In the end, it was a nice fish salad. The cod broke down so much that the texture reminded me of flaked tuna fish from a can. Of course, since cod has almost no flavor of its own, the predominant taste was that of the walnut sauce. It was good, but not at all spicy – perhaps because I substituted Aleppo pepper for powdered dried red chiles. It tasted mostly like ground walnuts, which was not unpleasant. With two pounds of fish in the recipe, I’ll be having this for at least two lunches and two dinners.

The following few days I had the fish salad cold from the refrigerator, and it continued to be good. However, the cold leftovers had more of a fish taste than the original hot dish. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different than expected.

I’m undecided as to whether I would make this recipe again. Five or six consecutive meals of the fish salad was a little much to tolerate, but I hate wasting food. Knowing the tastes of my routine dinner party guests, I think that if I served this as an appetizer to a Mediterranean themed dinner, I would end up with a lot of leftovers. And it is definitely not suitable for serving as a main course; no matter how I dressed it up, it would still be like serving tuna fish salad for dinner!

Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Pomegranate Molasses

This was an extremely easy recipe. It was basically large chunks of cucumber and tomato tossed with fresh herbs, pomegranate molasses, and salt. Because it was hot and I was being lazy, I skipped the steps requiring blanching and peeling the tomatoes. But I don’t think the salad suffered from it. Since I forgot to buy the right fresh herbs, I also skipped that component. Two tablespoons of pomegranate molasses seemed to be too much for the amount of vegetables used, because there was a lot of syrup pooling at the bottom of the bowl. Pomegranate molasses is definitely an acquired taste, although not an entirely unpleasant one. I suppose, having so recently worked with grenadine syrup, I expected the pomegranate molasses to be sweeter than it was and have more of a pomegranate taste to it than it did.

I’m not sure that I would make this recipe again, as I think that I would enjoy the same combination of salted vegetables more with a good balsamic vinegar instead of the pomegranate molasses.

Pomegranate Walnut Chicken Stew

Although this was a very straightforward recipe, I had to make some minor adaptations to make it work. Basically, this recipe required cooking a sauce of ground walnuts, pomegranate molasses, and water for an hour and then cooking chunks of chicken in that sauce for another 45 minutes. About 45 minutes into cooking the sauce, it had reduced to a thick paste, so I stirred in a half cup of water to thin it down (as recommended in the recipe if this situation arose). When I added the chicken 15 minutes later, the sauce had thickened again to a paste. Since the recipe directed that the sauce cover the chicken, I added another one cup of water to bring it to a saucy consistency (the recipe recommended “a little water” if necessary). Of course, the chicken gave off liquid as it cooked, so by the end of the simmer there was definitely a sauce. Because I was using boneless chicken breast rather than chicken parts, I reduced the simmering time from 45 minutes to 30 minutes (the recipe recommended “a little less” cooking time for boneless chicken), and the chicken was still slightly overcooked.

When I ate this dish hot, immediately after it finished simmering, I wasn’t sure whether I liked it. There was a definite taste of pomegranate molasses, which I still keep wanting to be tart-sweet like a pomegranate fruit. The ground walnuts added more texture than flavor. When I tried it again a few hours later at room temperature, it was much more palatable, but not phenomenal. The chicken was definitely dried out from overcooking. Given the dark brown color of the dish, I kept expecting it to taste like mole sauce and was consistently disappointed.

Although this recipe was very simple, I’m not sure I would make it again. There was nothing spectacular about it that kept bringing me back to the pot or refrigerator for more, other that I was hungry and that I hate wasting food.

Eggplant and Tomato Stew

This recipe came together very easily, although not very quickly. There were only seven ingredients: eggplant, crushed tomatoes, tumeric, ground cumin, kosher salt, extra virgin olive oil, and water. Essentially, this recipe involved a quick toss of eggplant spears with spiced oil in a large skillet, and then a long simmer with diluted crushed tomatoes. I didn’t measure the olive oil as directed; I just used enough to coat the bottom of my frittata/paella pan. The eggplant sucked up all the spiced oil almost immediately, so I added the crushed tomatoes and water fairly quickly. The sauce did thicken some (as it was supposed to) during the 20 minutes of vigorous boiling, but the spice flavors did not come through after the additional 15 minutes of covered low simmer. When I ate the dish hot, I couldn’t taste the tumeric, cumin, or salt at all. When I tasted the dish again, after standing at room temperature for a few hours, the spice flavors were a little more noticeable but still very subtle. I think I would have had to have doubled the amount of spices for them to come through clearly, even though I was very careful about using almost exactly the right weight of eggplant.

I’m not sure I would make this recipe again, as it reminded me of our family’s Italian eggplant camponata. I really enjoy eggplant camponata, and it is just about as much effort as this recipe, so I would probably make camponata from the family recipe when I have a craving for eggplant and tomatoes.

Kurdish Black Rice

After I discovered that I’m not terribly fond of pomegranate molasses, I probably should have skipped this recipe because there was approximately 1/3 cup of pomegranate molasses involved in it. It also involved a fairly substantial amount of walnuts relative to the amount of rice, so it almost sounded like a vegetarian version of the Chicken Walnut Stew. Of course, this recipe came together much more quickly. The recipe basically involved sautéing shallots in olive oil until translucent, adding a mixture of pomegranate molasses and water, and then bringing to a boil. After a vigorous boil, the salt, chopped walnuts, and Arborio rice are added. The mixture is boiled, steamed, and rested, for a total of approximately 45 minutes cooking time. According to the headnote, this recipe was supposed to be “a richly flavored dish that’s like a lush risotto.” As expected, the predominant taste was that of the pomegranate molasses, with notes of shallot and slight crunch of walnut.

I’m not sure I would make this recipe again because it strongly tasted of pomegranate molasses, which, in spite of my actual knowledge, I still expect to taste more like grenadine or pomegranate juice than it actually does. The overall texture of the dish was very good and the rice was well cooked, so I may use the general cooking technique again with a different flavor. Of course, when I turned the page in the digital galley – as opposed to advancing to the next bookmark – I discovered a recipe for Kurdish Red Rice, which is an extremely similar recipe that substitutes tomato paste for pomegranate molasses and omits the chopped walnuts. I probably would have been happier if I had tried that recipe instead!

Rose Water Pudding

Another very easy recipe! Basically whisk together milk and light cream, take out some of that mixture to whisk in rice flour, and then pour all of it into a large heavy saucepan with some sugar and rose water. The hardest part was whisking it while heating to thicken. At about 12 minutes, the mixture seemed thick but not as thick as a pudding. At about 15 minutes, the mixture was bubbling. And at about 21 minutes, the mixture was thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. However, yet again, I loyally followed the recipe and cooked the mixture for the full 30 minutes. I was a little frustrated that, despite my constant whisking, the mixture was browned to the bottom of the pan in spots, which required a little extra elbow grease to clean. When I tasted the mixture prior to refrigerating, the rose water was undetectable. So I whisked in another tablespoon in hope of strengthening its presence.

After the pudding had cooled for several hours, it had set nicely in the large bowl that I used to chill it. I served myself a small bowl as dessert to a meal of spicy fish salad and cucumber and tomato salad with pomegranate molasses. I was a little nervous about how it would taste because of the rice flour and small amount of white sugar - ½ cup sugar to four cups of liquid. Despite such a small amount of white sugar, the pudding was pleasantly sweet. The rice flour was unnoticeable; it didn’t leave a chalky or gritty taste as I had feared. The rose water was still undetectable, but I wasn’t about to ruin the set of the pudding by stirring in more rose water. In fact, the pudding was so good that I had a small second serving.

Because I’m generally unsure about how I feel about Persian cuisine, I’m not certain that I would make this again. While it is the perfect dessert for a Persian meal, I’m not convinced that it is a good go-to dessert for any other style of cooking. I definitely enjoyed the recipe, but I don’t see myself making a large bowl (or even individual ramekins) of homemade pudding as a dessert for one of my dinner parties.

Persian Spice Blend for Tea

This blend of cinnamon, ginger and black pepper came together very quickly. I stored it in a glass jar until I had room in my refrigerator for a pitcher of iced tea. I then adapted the recipe in the family cookbook for iced mint green tea. I brought nine cups of water to a boil, turned off the heat, and let five bags of English Breakfast tea steep for ten minutes. Then I removed the tea bags, and stirred in one cup of white sugar. Even though the spice blend was supposed to be enough for twelve cups of tea, I stirred in the whole jar. I figured that my experience with the cookbook so far was that everything was under-spiced and that the author may be talking about six ounce cups of tea rather than full eight ounce ones.

The iced tea was terrific! This is one recipe that I will keep, as I did continue to return to the refrigerator for the tea. The level of spice was perfect, as was the strength and the sweetness of the tea.

The Verdict

There was really nothing about the recipes that I tested from A Taste of Persia that made me fall in love with Persian cuisine. That could have been because, as I was reading the book, I bookmarked a large number of recipes with pomegranate molasses without knowing how I actually felt about pomegranate molasses. I’m not a fan of it, even though I went through a full 14-ounce bottle in my recipe testing efforts. Although this cookbook has expired, I still have a month left on a different Persian cookbook, so I may try other Persian recipes that don’t involve pomegranate molasses.

Otherwise, the recipes as written in the book were generally spot on and fairly simple to follow. The book as a whole, as discussed in my review, was spectacular: it had gorgeous photographs of the people and landscapes of the region in addition to photographs of finished recipes and it was extremely educational about both the greater Persian region and Persian cuisine.