Feast from Persia

A few weeks ago, I had some friends over for a dinner party. To celebrate my receipt of a new cookbook, New Food of Life, we had Persian food.

Persian food is similar to Afghan and other Middle Eastern cuisines. Like many other cultures, a Persian meal with friends is bountiful, with far too much food. Luckily, Persian leftovers are almost as delicious.

The main dish we made together was a khoresh with prunes, ground beef, and butternut squash. The sweet and savory notes in the dish played well together, hints of saffron rising with the steam from our plates. Along with the khoresh, we had kuku, a baked egg dish like a frittata, with sweet peas instead of the more common kuku sabzi, filled with fresh herbs.

For dessert, we shared a platter of deep purple grapes and Persian tea. The tea's scent of cardamom filled my apartment and lasted long after the tea was drunk.

To make an impressive, age-old Persian dish, try a basic khoresh. There are a lot of ingredients, but they blend so well together that it makes all the chopping worth it.

Eggplant Khoresh
(6 servings)

-2 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
-2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
-2 lbs lamb shanks, or 2 lbs chicken legs with skin removed, cut up
-1/2 C oil
-1 t salt
-1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
-1 t turmeric
-1/2 t ground saffron dissolved in 4 T hot water
-2 C fresh squeezed tomato juice
-1 C unripe grapes
-4 T lime juice
-3 medium eggplants
-1 egg white

1. In a non-stick Dutch oven, brown the onions and garlic with meat in 3 T oil over medium heat. Add salt, pepper, turmeric, and saffron water.
2. Add 2 C water for meat and no water for chicken, tomato juice, unripe grapes, and lime juice. Cover and simmer over low heat for 2 1/2 hrs for meat and 30 min. for chicken.
3. Peel eggplants and cut lengthwise in quarters. Place in a colander, sprinkle both sides with water and 2 T salt, and set aside for 20 min. to remove the bitter taste. Rinse and pat dry.
4. Brush each eggplant on all sides with egg white and brown the eggplant in a non-stick skillet in 3 T oil; set aside.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Transfer the chicken or meat and sauce into a deep ovenproof casserole; arrange the eggplant over the top. Cover and bake for 30 min., then remove cover and bake anotehr 15 min. uncovered or until the eggplant is tender.
6. Serve immediately or keep warm in the oven until ready to serve. Serve with Persian steamed rice.

Though it may have seemed like a backhanded compliment, the one Iranian at the table told me the meal was something like his grandmother, living in a village outside Tehran, would make. I felt like I'd just been granted dual citizenship for the evening.

Noosh-e jan!

Instead of Sausage

I make sausage. But more about that another time. Today is about what happened when my Personal Shopper (and I love him very much) brought home the wrong kind of pork for sausage and I was left, having hauled out my sausage making supplies, holding a lean sirloin roast (all wrong for luscious, fatty sausage) that wanted me to "USE OR FREEZE BY" . . . that very day. I don't know about you, but there are times when I hesitate to freeze because I know my tendency is to let the deep freeze act as a food cemetery. "Good-bye, food that I don't know what to do with but don't want to waste, go away!" I call as I bury it in the icy depths, knowing full well I may exhume it, unrecognizable and inedible, some years down the road. It is so very convenient.

But change is in the wind, because this time, at 4 in the evening, with children at my ankles clamoring for animal crackers, I looked up a way to use this gorgeous, lean roast. And had it on the table by suppertime.

I doled out a few animal crackers in the interim.

Roast Pork Loin
Paraphrased from Roasting, by Barbara Kafka
Barbara Kafka's cookbooks are, in my opinion, not to be missed. They are cooking classes in book form, and every recipe works. In Roasting, she puts forth in encyclopedic form how to roast nearly every food--at high heat. The results are not only fast but arguably more moist and succulent. The One Rule with high-heat roasting, she says, is that the meat must be at room temperature when it goes in the oven. I repeat: The meat must be at room temperature when it goes in the oven.

The recipe below is simple, straightforward, and so good I don't know any pork lover who would complain about eating this once a week. Its main flavoring agent is garlic, in a subtly sweet, cooked form. If you happen to cook for anyone who likes the flavor of garlic but not the smell of garlic cooking (these people are out there), this recipe is for them. The raw garlic slivers get tucked into slits in the pork -- which sounds fussy, but if you set at it you will find it is soon finished -- and are never caught whiff of again, until you taste it infusing the pork you just put in your mouth.

If you like, you can throw peeled and quartered small potatoes, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and olive oil, into the roasting pan 10 minutes into the cooking time. Turn them every 15 minutes, advises Kafka, and they will be done at the same time as the pork. She is right.

1 (2-1/2 to 3-1/2 lb.) pork loin, about 8" across and 4" high, rolled and tied; set out at room temperature for 30 minutes
4 cloves garlic, smashed, peeled, and cut into slivers
Kosher salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Place oven rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Allow roast to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. (Do not skip this step or you will be very disappointed in the results.) Without cutting the ties, make 1" slits all over pork with a small knife. Tuck slivers of garlic inside. Salt and pepper roast liberally. Place prepared roast in a roasting pan just large enough to fit it, add a little water, broth, or olive oil just to coat the pan, and place in oven. Roast 45-50 minutes, or until pork reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees F. The inside of the pork will be moist and just slightly pink. Do not overcook, or roast will become dry.

My Roommate Bakes!

A great thing about living with three other girls is that I get to try lots of different kinds of food. I was reminded of this advantage earlier this week when one roommate made a sweet treat that she remembered from her childhood in Kansas: potato chip cookies.

I'd never heard of potato chip cookies, but I'm all for the combination of sweet and salty (Salted Nut Roll, anyone?), so I tried one. And then another. After all, one should eat dessert first.

For those of you who are also plagued by concurrent cravings for salt and sweet, a couple of these cookies will set you up right. And though this recipe is a great way to get rid of the little crumbs left in the bottom of the chip bag, there's no need to wait until the bag is empty to make a batch.

Potato Chip Cookies
(makes about 5 dozen cookies)

1 lb. butter
1 c. sugar
3 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. crushed potato chips
Nuts, if desired

Mix all ingredients. Roll into small balls; flatten with bottom of glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Lazy Weekend Morning

This Sunday I woke up wanting pastry. This is no uncommon occurrence, mind you, but yesterday I was in a position to do something about it.

I had a friend over for breakfast and a container of whipping cream in the refrigerator just begging to be used, so I pulled out a recipe for cream scones. For Valentine's Day this year, my mom sent me a book filled with recipes for "Students Far Away From Home." This scone recipe, originally from Anne Marie, was included.

I include the tidbit about the breakfast guest because, let's face it, most people these days are impressed by homemade baked goods, especially when they're pulled hot and fresh from the oven. Fortunately, all that impressing required very little effort on my part: this recipe comes together very quickly and has your scones in the oven and yourself sitting at the kitchen table enjoying your coffee and your company in no time at all.

P.S. Chocolate chips really start the morning off right.

Cream Scones

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

-2 C flour
-2 1/2 t baking powder
-1/2 t salt
-1/4 C sugar

2. Whisk until well combined.
3. Add currants or Ghirardelli chocolate, broken up into pieces (4 oz).
4. Mix well.
5. Add 1 1/4 C cream.
6. Mix with wooden spoon until batter holds together. Gather and knead. Pat into a 1" disk. Cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Put on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush tops with cream or milk and sprinkle some sugar on top.
7. Bake until just golden brown.