Vanilla-saffron Biscuit
Posted: 15 January 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized, Vanilla-saffron Biscuit | Tags: Biscuit Leave a commentThe recipe below is great in that it could be used as a basis for a variety different tasting biscuits. You could skip saffron and have purely vanilla tasting biscuit, add walnuts to the batter and have walnut-tasting ones or replace vanilla with orange or citrus zest to have the refreshing fruit tasting biscuits. And of course, you could use your creativity to add to the list!
I initially saw this recipe in a friend’s blog, Saloomeh’s Kitchen. Then I added saffron and pistachio component to her vanilla formula and felt it looked and tasted great!
Fereni: A Persian comfort desert
Posted: 6 January 2015 Filed under: Fereni: A Persian comfort desert, Uncategorized | Tags: comfort food Leave a commentTastes savory; feels homey; looks dreamy: That’s Fereni: A pudding made of rice flour, milk, sugar and rosewater. This is a desert for all seasons, but a winter delight in particular.
- Ingredients: (for a small bowl serving 2) Read the rest of this entry »
A Baking affair & two muffins
Posted: 28 November 2014 Filed under: A Baking affair & two muffins, Uncategorized | Tags: Apple Sauce, Banana Muffin, Cakes, Fruit-Mixed muffins, Pastries Leave a commentI have recently developed a taste and appetite for pastries and cake hence my new adventures in following sweet blogs and facebook pages and baking all week long! My kitchen cabinets are now equipped with a whole new set of baking ingredients and tools, and my ever busy oven now emanates wafts of cinnamon and vanilla, making me fall in love with my kitchen all over again.
The learning process has been challenging and extremely fun. So I thought why not share my experience of this newly acquired skill. May other beginners find some insight into the baking ways and may the old timers enjoy my proudly presented new section: Cakes and Pastries! Read the rest of this entry »
How to cook a tender breast chicken
Posted: 17 November 2014 Filed under: Tender breast chicken, how to, Uncategorized | Tags: chicken-breast, tender-chicken-how-to Leave a commentIf you know the answer to the title’s question, I would love to hear your solution. Mine is very simple, so simple it had skipped my mind to make it into a blog post until a friend asked about it just recently.
Traditional Persian cuisine rarely involves the use of oven. So, to cook breast chicken, to accompany for instance lentil mixed rice or barberries mixed rice, we either fry, boil or use a combination of the two methods. These methods however, are best suited for very young and small chickens. On the other hand, I personally find most of the packaged breast chickens available in the supermarkets a bit too big and old, resulting in a dry and bland chicken dish if I were to boil and/or fry them. So, here is my simple solution to get a really tender and juicy chicken breast dish.
Lentil Salad with Bell Pepper & Cumin
Posted: 16 October 2014 Filed under: Lentil Salad with Bell Pepper & Cumin, Uncategorized | Tags: Fall_food, food_photogaphy, Lentil, vegan Leave a commentAs promised in my previous blog post, here is the recipe for a hearty salad, to add more color and flavor to any autumn table.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup large lentil
- 4 halves of bell peppers in green, red, orange and yellow, (1 half, each)
- ¼ tbsp. cumin
- Fresh lemon juice, salt and olive oil as desired Read the rest of this entry »
Pomegranate Stew, anaar-daneh mosamma: A Persian dish of fall & love
Posted: 9 October 2014 Filed under: Pomgranate stew (Anaar-daneh mosamma), Uncategorized | Tags: anaar-daneh_mosamma, Fall_food, Mehregan, Mehregan2014, Pesrian_fall_foods, Pomegranate_Stew 34 CommentsFall maybe associated with pumpkin & apple pies, Halloween and Thanksgiving if you reside in the northern hemisphere; and fall is certainly associated with a rainbow of colors no matter where you live. For me, as an Iranian, fall is also strongly linked to my Persian heritage and one of its most beautiful manifestations, Mehregan, or Fall Festival.
This 4000-year old tradition, originally celebrated for the six first days of autumn, has its roots in Zoroastrian religion as well as having cosmic and seasonal connotations: It is a festival to acknowledge the Autumn Equinox and honor the god of justice “Mehr”; it is also a celebration of the end of harvest season and a way to express gratitude for the gift of nature and gods. Today, Mehregan has gained even more significance, especially among Iranian expatriates as a means to familiarize the world with Iranian culture, and to preserve what some feel is being diminished by the current regime of Iran.
This year, a group of over twenty active and talented Persian Cuisine Bloggers and writers from around the world got together and decided to have a Persian Food Round Up for the occasion of Mehregan. I am honored and thrilled to have been invited to join this exciting initiative. Please scroll down to see the list of links to these blogs and find out about their selection of Fall-theme Persian dishes. Read the rest of this entry »
Eggplant wraps, Iranian style
Posted: 30 September 2014 Filed under: Eggplant wraps, Uncategorized | Tags: eggplant_wrap, Fall_food 4 CommentsAs a Persian saying goes “My eyes sees, my soul desires”, I initially just saw a picture of someone’s platter of eggplant wraps posted on her fb page.
The picture, posted from Tehran, did not contain any recipe and I was not personal enough with the owner to ask for one. So, I started looking into Persian food sites and blogs for the recipe without much success. Although the food itself is not Persian, the method of wrapping looked quite “Persianized”, pretty much in grape leaf dolemh fashion. I did however come up with a lot of scattered info, which coupled with my impression of the initial picture and some culinary creativity resulted in what you see and read below. It was my first experiment with eggplant wraps and I am delighted to say it turned just perfect – both physically and sensually.
Make your own dipping olive oil
Posted: 22 September 2014 Filed under: Make your own dipping olive oil, Uncategorized | Tags: dripping_oil, garlic_Olive, home-grown_vegetables, Olive_Oil Leave a commentEach year, at the end of gardening season, my vegetable beds and pots leave me with a whole lot of chili peppers, which I usually string and dry and let dangle from a cabinet’s knob to be used in coming year.
My little garden also leaves with some herbs such as mint and rosemary (which I am too lazy to do anything with!) and with unripe green tomatoes, which I do make some use of, such as this one here, if I find time.
This year I found a marvelous and super tasty solution to using my home grown products at the end of the season: Dipping olive oil. Making the mix is super easy, and once you try it on your salad and foods you will wonder how on earth you have been living without it thus far!? 😉 You could of course buy all the ingredients, home-grown or not would not make a huge difference in the taste.
Green Beans mixed rice (Loobia Polow, vegetarian version)
Posted: 16 September 2014 Filed under: Green Beans mixed rice (Loobia Polow, vegetarian version), Uncategorized | Tags: green-beans 3 CommentsLoobia Polow is another of popular mixed rice, typically made with cut green beans and diced meat (often beat or lamb, and less frequently with chicken breast).
Developing a dislike for meat family over the past years, I have been trying to skip or replace the meat component of Persian foods – with much success, I must boast! As for the dish at hand, I have replaced meat with potatoes which makes it quite similar to another Persian dish called estamboli polow. This version is much faster to prepare and just as delicious in my opinion. Please read through, as I will be explaining, for the first time in this blog, a simple method of preparing rice which is half way between two methods of preparing rice Iranian style: soaked & drained (saaf kardeh) and not drained (kateh).
My Little Treasure of Chinese Teas
Posted: 8 September 2014 Filed under: My Little Treasure of Chinese Teas, Uncategorized | Tags: Chinese Teas Leave a commentBlessed by a new family member of Chinese origin, aware of my love for foreign food stuff and generous enough to shower me with gifts of such nature each time she visits us in Montreal,
in the past two years I have gradually become familiar with and fascinated by a vast array of Chinese tea. I take this as the most fortunate and welcomed introduction to the Chinese culture, albeit through a small (steamy) window.
As an Iranian, I grew up knowing and loving our national beverage, tea, which could be translated into loose black tea leaves, always prepared and drunk in the same fashion by steeping and simmering, then sipped from small delicate glasses that allow one to see its translucent mahogany color while relishing its flavor. In Iran, tea is the first thing you serve to your visitor – or drink on your own for that matter – at any time of the day or night, at happy or sad, formal or informal occasions, always the same black tea, always processed in the same way, though. I think it is safe to say that the Iranian tea culture while being extremely popular is quite simple plain down to earth. The Chinese tea culture, on the other hand seems anything but simple! Read the rest of this entry »
My Caldron 
