Chicken with Pomegranate Sauce (Khoreshe Fesenjan)

Our Fourth of July 2009 dinner for friends, Kit from LA and Nancy and Bill from Sonoma, was not your usual grilled affair. I felt more inclined to support free and fair elections for the people of Iran than to celebrate the birth of American freedom with burgers and buns. So I planned a dinner around one of the most famous dishes in Persian cuisine: Fesenjan or Chicken with Pomegranate Sauce. We ate the Fesenjan with an herby rice dish and two salads. We started with Hummus and Toasted Pita in the living room over our first glasses of wine and a selection of gorgeous cheeses and finished with a decadent Chocolate-Lime Cheesecake from Nigella Bites. It was a splendid dinner, colorful and delicious.














10 chicken thighs, extra skin and fat removed
3 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon poultry seasonings or za’tar*
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste or 1½ tablespoons of paste and 1½ teaspoons harissa*
2 cups walnuts, very finely chopped.
Note: Use a food processor if you have one. Stop before the walnuts become a paste.
2 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon smoky hot paprika or regular paprika
2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup fresh pomegranate juice (Pom brand is very good)
2-3 tablespoons pomegranate syrup or molasses*
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley for garnish

1. Sauté the chicken in the butter, sprinkling each side with the poultry seasoning or za’tar, salt and pepper, until light brown on all sides. Remove to a plate.
2. Remove all but 3 tablespoons of the combined chicken fat and butter. Sauté the onions in the remaining fat until golden brown. Add the tomato paste and/or harissa and sauté for a few minutes. Add the walnuts and sauté over medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly so as not to burn the walnuts.
3. Add the stock, salt, cinnamon, paprika, lemon juice and pomegranate juice and syrup. Cover and let cook on a low fire for about 35 minutes. Taste the sauce and add salt if necessary and sugar if the sauce is too sour for your taste.
4. Arrange the chicken in the sauce. Cover and let simmer for 20-25 minutes. Taste for seasoning. I needed to add more salt and a bit more lemon juice.
5. Decorate with parsley and serve with rice.

**Za’tar, harissa, and pomegranate syrup or molasses are available at Middle Eastern or Persian food stores or delis.
You can make this the day before. Reheat gently before serving and garnish with the parsley.

6-10 servings, depending on appetites
Adapted from Maideh Mazda's In a Persian Kitchen

Rice with Herbs (Sabzi Polow)

   


Beet and Yogurt Salad or Dip









Parsley, Celery and Herb Salad

John’s Roasted Chicken with Herbs and Lemon

1 (3½ pound) free-range chicken
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, softened (in the microwave for 1 minute)
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme or rosemary
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
Lemon wedges, for serving
Chopped parsley to garnish, optional

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400ºF. Line a low-sided roasting pan with parchment paper. If you are using a pottery dish, there is no need to line it with parchment.
2. Remove the giblets and the neck from inside the chicken.
3. Set the chicken on its tail with the backbone facing you. Cut down along one side of the backbone from the neck to the tail. Cut down along the other side.
4. Open the chicken and split the chicken between the breasts from neck to tail. You now have two halves of a chicken, without the backbone. Remove the center breastbone if you want.
5. In a small bowl, mix the olive oil, butter, parsley, salt, and thyme or rosemary. Massage the mixture all over the chicken halves, slipping some underneath the skin. Season with salt and pepper, especially the inside without the skin.
6. Set the chicken halves, skin side up, on the prepared pan and roast until the juices run clear when the thickest part of the thigh is pricked, about 40 minutes. (A 4-pound chicken will take 50-55 minutes; a 5-pound chicken will take 50-60 minutes.)
7. Serve hot or warm, with lemon wedges and the optional parsley.

4-5 servings
Adapted from Carrie Brown’s The Jimtown Store Cookbook

Here are a couple of suggestions for dishes to eat along with your wonderful chicken:

Lemon Barley Pilaf









Indian-style Broccoli with Spiced Yogurt

Chicken in Saffron-Almond Sauce

This dish is so convenient. Ahead of time you can get the chicken steeping in the cream and saffron, chop up the garlic and ginger, and make the almond paste. When you are ready for dinner, everything is set to go and you can cook it up in 20 to 25 minutes.

1-2 pinches saffron threads
½ cup heavy cream, warmed (in the microwave)
1¼ pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch strips
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper [I used much less.]
½ cup blanched almond slivers
¼ cup water or chicken stock
1 teaspoon Garam Masala, see recipe below
2 tablespoons ghee, vegetable oil, or butter
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger
5 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

1. In a large bowl, steep the saffron in the warm heavy cream for 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Add the chicken, cilantro, salt, and cayenne. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes but no more than 8 hours.
3. In a blender, purée the almonds, water or stock, and Garam Masala until smooth.
4. In a 10-inch skillet, heat the ghee, oil or butter over medium-high heat. Add the ginger and garlic and stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes or until golden.
5. Stir in the chicken mixture and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 12 to 15 minutes, or until partially cooked.
6. Mix in the almond paste and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink in the center.
7. Pour into a warmed serving bowl. Rice or naan (Indian bread) are great for sopping up the delicious sauce.

4 servings
Adapted from Raghavan Iyer’s The Turmeric Trail

Garam Masala
You can find jars of Garam Masala in the spice section of your supermarket or in packets at an Indian spice store. I don’t particularly like the balance of spices in these jars—the one I tried has too much allspice or cloves in it. But if you are really pinched for time, try one out. It won’t ruin your dish, but your own mixture will make it much better.

1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon cardamom seeds (removed from the pods)
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
15 whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks, 3 inches in length, broken into pieces

1. In a small heavy skillet, roast all the spices over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly, until the spices turn one shade darker, start to crackle, and become fragrant.
2. Transfer the roasted spices to a plate to cool for 3 to 5 minutes. Grind in a spice grinder until the mixture has the texture of finely ground black pepper.
3. Store in an airtight jar in a cool, dark place for up to a month. Be sure to label the jar so you remember the contents.

Makes about ¼ cup
Adapted from Raghavan Iyer’s The Turmeric Trail

If you are interested in cooking a semi-Indian meal, here are a couple of dishes you might try to go along with the Chicken in Saffron-Almond Sauce. The carrot dip will be a hit under any circumstances. I love the chickpeas but not everyone does--and I would encourage you to moderate the hotness of it until you figure out what your palate can tolerate. You could also add rice and stir-fried spinach with garlic or a salad.

Curried Carrot Dip

Chickpeas with Mango Powder

CHAPTER 4: Beef and Pork and a Story of Two Birthday Dinners

January 24, 2010 was an evening that required an especially nice dinner. Katherine, my partner of twenty years, was born on January 25, 1955 and was turning 55. We had invited her cousin and his wife, our dear friends Trip and Rivka, to join us for dinner.


I wanted to fix something special that would warm us up from head to toe. I chose the following: spare ribs in a delicious wine-ladened sauce cooked in the oven for hours in one of my favorite Bram pots. Wasabi mashed potatoes which are so good it is hard not to poke your finger into the serving bowl for one more bite. Caramelized carrot salad which I made ahead and served at room temperature. A salad course of beautiful greens enriched with slices of avocado and my Papaya Seed Dressing. Home-made Apple Crisp for dessert, although a Persimmon Pudding or a Lemon Mousse would do just as nicely. We drank a gorgeous 2007 Bourgueil Avis de Vin Fort from Catherine et Pierre Breton.

The dinner party was a big success, Katherine loved the food and felt properly celebrated. As we were walking a few days later and talking more about the party, I remembered a special birthday dinner that my mom fixed for me sometime in the 1950s, perhaps in 1955 (I would have been 12), and was struck by how similar it was to the one I had prepared for Katherine. Is there a place in our brains where we store “Special Birthday Dinners”?

Here is what my mom cooked at my request: a pot roast simmered in a large oval enamel pan in the oven with peeled potatoes and carrots. The potatoes were browned and the outside developed a skin which would ever-so-slightly resist my teeth’s efforts to get to the creamy inside. The carrots were so orange, soft and delicious, it was hard to believe that they were the same vegetable she tucked in my school lunches. When the meat had cooked until it was falling apart into succulent shreds, she would remove everything but the juices from the pan. She’d mix up a combination of water and flour in a small metal container with a lid which she would shake up and down vigorously until the mixture was well-blended. She stirred the flour mixture into the juices and simmered them until they thickened into gravy. There may have been a salad, most likely iceberg lettuce, carrots, celery perhaps, and Italian bottled dressing. I don’t remember the dessert but it could have been a boxed yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I loved this dinner, especially the meat, potatoes, and gravy. Look in a 1950s edition of Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book for a close approximation. It was a real birthday treat.

She was cooking her dinner for me in Toledo, Ohio in the 50s and was influenced by middle class habits and customs of that time and by availability of ingredients. It was expected that she would cook; it was her responsibility. Within that context, she made cooking decisions based on her resources, the time she had to spend in the kitchen, and her desire to please her family. Let me give you a couple of examples:
1. My family never cooked with wine; she would have added water, not wine or stock, to her pot roast.  Nor did they drink wine on a regular basis. Hard liquor before and coffee with dinner. That was their custom. Wine was an extravagance.
2. When it came to salad greens, she had one choice. Iceberg lettuce.
3. Bottled salad dressings seemed to us to be a great improvement over everyone having to eat the same one.  They also saved time in a period when efficiency was highly valued.
4. Box cakes were fashionable in the 50s and stayed that way well into the time I was learning to cook. Because dessert was pretty much a nightly requirement, boxed cakes, instant puddings, and the like were seen as very helpful.

That I prefer wine to coffee with dinner, love the variety of the greens, make my own salad dressings and most of our desserts is the result of my living in the Bay area in this particular moment where great ingredients are readily available and the desire to eat healthy food is shared with a large swath of the community. I choose to spend time in the kitchen because I love to cook. Unlike my mom, efficiency doesn't matter all that much to me and thankfully, desserts are not an everyday necessity.

Finally, I imagine my mom and me standing side by side in a kitchen, straddling the span of time that separates us, each fixing birthday dinners. We share so many of the same values. We are both willing to spend time and effort in the kitchen. We both want the food to look beautiful on the plate. We both want the food to be cooked with an abundance of love. And most of all, we both want the dinner to be delicious and special for our birthday girls. Thanks, Mom.

Braised Short Ribs

6 beef short ribs (about 3½-5 pounds) cut in half (best to have your butcher do it)
3 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
4 shallots or ½ red onion, peeled and sliced ¼-inch thick
5 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons flour
¼ cup ruby port
3½ cups full-bodied red wine
1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped
6 sprigs thyme
2 sprigs rosemary
1 bay leaf
4 cups chicken stock
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
2 ribbons of orange or tangerine peel, optional
Parsley, coarsely chopped

1. Season the short ribs with 2 teaspoons of salt and the 2 teaspoons pepper. Heat the oil in a large sauté pan or metal Dutch oven over high heat until it is close to smoking. Brown the short ribs well on all sides, about 3 minutes per side. Remove the ribs and set aside. Pour off all but 3 tablespoons of the fat.
2. Lower the heat to medium, and add the carrots, onion, shallots, and garlic to the pan. Sauté for 5 minutes, until the onion is soft and light brown. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes. Add the flour and stir well to combine. Add the port, red wine, celery, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf. Raise the heat to high and cook until the liquid is reduced by a third, about 20 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 325ºF while the wine is reducing.
4. Return the ribs to the pan, along with any accumulated juices. Add the stock and the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt. The stock should barely cover the ribs. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover and transfer to the oven. Cook for 2 to 3 hours. (My 5 pounds took about 2½ hours.) Visit the pot occasionally to stir the ribs. They’re done when the meat is fork tender and falling off the bone.
5. Remove the bones and gelatinous material (scissors work well) from the ribs and transfer the meat to a bowl or plate. Skim any fat from the surface of the sauce. Strain the sauce through a sieve into a second bowl. Press on the vegetables to release as much liquid as you can. Discard or compost the solids. Return the sauce to the pan.
6. Over medium heat, bring the sauce to a strong simmer. Add the cinnamon and orange peel, if desired. Check the consistency of the sauce. If it is like thick cream, you don’t need to do anything except warm it for a few minutes. If it is thin like skim milk, cook it over high heat until it thickens up a bit. If it is too thick, add a little more stock or wine and simmer gently to heat.
7. Return the ribs to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes to reheat. Remove the orange peel. Transfer to a warm serving platter or shallow bowl. Garnish with parsley and serve.

6 servings
Adapted from Keith McNally, Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson’s The Balthazar Cookbook

Wasabi Mashed Potatoes

Caramelized Carrot Salad

Everyday Green Salad 
with Papaya Seed Dressing
Just add avocado.








Apple Almond Crisp

Bistro-Style Steak with Sauce Marchand

This is a good-sized piece of meat on a small plate. I was only able to eat about half of it. The rest will go into a dinner salad. Check out the Thai-Style Steak Dinner Salad in the Dinner Salad section of this blog.

2 rib steaks, ½ to ¾ inch thick or up to 1 inch
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme
2 tablespoons butter
¼ cup minced shallots
½ cup dry red wine or a bit more
Salt and pepper to taste for the sauce

1. Trim the steaks of external fat. Pat them dry; sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme, pressing the seasonings into both sides.
2. Heat a heavy nonstick skillet or cast iron frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon of the butter. When it has melted and is near sizzling, put the steaks in the pan, searing them for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, depending upon the thickness of the steaks and how you like them cooked. (Four minutes per side works for a 1-inch room temperature steak, if you like medium rare.) Keep the heat high, but don’t let the butter burn. (I hate testing for doneness by cutting into the steak, but sometimes you just have to do it.) When the steaks are done to your liking, remove to a warm platter and loosely cover with foil while you prepare the sauce.
3. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the pan juices. Return the skillet to the heat and add the shallots; sauté until they are translucent. Add the wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up any bits clinging to it.
4. Reduce the wine by half (it will thicken), then stir in the remaining butter. Taste for salt and pepper; add more as desired. Pour the hot sauce over the steaks.

2 servings with plenty left over 
Adapted from editors Michael Bauer and Fran Irwin’s The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook

These are both lovely dishes to have with your steak:

French Potato Salad

Oven-Roasted Asparagus
This is the first asparagus of the season and I just couldn't resist passing along a recipe which many of you probably already know. It is a great easy way to prepare this harbinger of spring.

Bobotie from South Africa

There are so many cultures involved in South African cuisine. I knew nothing about the complexity and the diversity until I found two South African cookbooks and started cooking. Dutch settlers (the Afrikaners) brought a European influence with Milk Tarts and other delicious baked goods along with an amazing barbeque (braai) with beef and chicken; Malay laborers from Java and Indonesia brought their spices; indigenous Africans added in cornmeal porridge and greens, reminders for us of the soul food of the American south; Indians brought their curries. I love how the colors and flavors intermingle and dance with each other. Bobotie is a classic example.

2 onions, finely chopped
2 pounds ground beef, or a mix of ground meats
1 slice bread
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon curry powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
1½ tablespoons sugar
½ cup raisins
3 tablespoons chutney, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon pepper
Zest of 1 lemon, see photos if you need them
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup slivered almonds
1 egg

1. Pre-heat oven to 350ºF.
2. Sauté beef or meat mix with onions until meat is brown, breaking the meat up into small pieces. If necessary, drain fat from the pan and discard.
3. Soak the bread in half the milk; mash it with a fork. Add it to the meat.
4. Combine all the remaining ingredients except the egg and the remaining milk. Spread the mixture in a greased casserole.
5. Bake for 20-30 minutes. Beat the egg with the remaining ½ cup milk and pour it over the casserole. Return to the oven for another ½ hour.

6 servings
Adapted from The Africa News Cookbook

Here are several lovely dishes to go along with your Bobotie:

Braised Carrots









 Oven-Roasted Zucchini









 Yellow Rice