About Iranian Food

This Week’s Film: Gabbeh

Cuisine: Iranian

Iranian food features a rich variety of spices and ingredients. The most common main ingredients include lamb, chicken, and fish. Dairy products such as eggs, yogurt, and goat cheese are important elements of Iranian cuisine, as are starchy ingredients such as lentils, beans, chickpeas, potatoes, rice. Indigenous vegetables include peppers, eggplants, spinach, grape leaves, tomatoes, okra, carrots, and onions. Fruits such as lemons, limes, oranges, apples, cherries, raisins, dates, pomegranates are used in both sweet and savory dishes, as are nuts such as almonds, walnuts, and pistachios. Herbs include parsley, coriander, mint, dill, and garlic; and spices such as black pepper, turmeric, fenugreek, saffron, sumac, cardamom, and cinnamon give Iranian cuisine its rich flavors.

Preparation techniques include grilled meat kebabs, stuffed vegetables called dolmeh, kKhoresht stews served with various rice dishes called polow, pickled vegetables called torshi, and a tempting variety of pastries and other sweets.

Finding Middle Eastern ingredients is definitely a challenge, especially if you live in a small town. There are plenty of ethnic grocers in the larger cities, but they may require a lengthy drive to get to them. Online sources are a good option for finding Iranian ingredients, especially IranStore.com and ParthenonFoods.com. It is also possible to choose recipes that don?t call for too many esoteric ingredients, such as dried limes, pomegranate paste, reshteh noodles, and kashk, a thick, fermented whey.

As a beverage to go with special dinners, I always like to serve a good wine or beer. Although alcoholic beverages have been banned in Iran since the revolution of 1979, in which the Shah was deposed and the Ayatollah rose to power, some of the earliest historical records of wine production and consumption, dating back as far a 6000 B.C, were found around the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia, near present-day Iran.

An ancient legend tells the tale of a Persian princess who inadvertantly discovered wine. In a state of anguish over a dispute with her father, the king, she attempted to poison herself with grapes she believed had spoiled while stored in an earthenware jar. Instead, she became intoxicated and soon fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke the next morning, she remembered the euphoria she?d experienced the night before, and returned to the jar for a second helping of this newfound elixir. Thereafter, her disposition changed so dramatically that the dispute with the king was forgiven and gift of wine was introduced to his royal court.

My Iranian recipe will be posted at the end of the week along with my Gabbeh film review.