Zeytoon Parvardeh

Zeytoon Parvarde

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb pitted olives
• 1 pomegranate, (1/2 seeded, 1/2 juiced)
• 3/4 cup walnuts, ground
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp oregano
• 2 tsp mint
• 1/2 lime, juiced
• to taste salt and peper

Cooking Directions

1. In a large bowl mix everything but olives and pomegranate seeds together. Add olives and pomegranate seeds and toss. Do not overmix. Pack the mixture tightly in a container and refrigerate. 

Haleem

Haleem

Haleem is a very popular dish in India, Iran and Pakistan. It is a sort of spiced porridge made from wheat, which also frequently contains oats, barley, lentils and meat. To me it is just like liquid bread. Num num ... It is usually slow cooked for several hours but I sort of rushed the recipe for those who don't have time. It is made both in a sweet and savory version and is often served for breakfast but for me it is an all time dish. We usually have it for dinner. Many people compare Haleem to oatmeal but I think this comparison does not do it justice - it is likely a comparison made by somebody unfamiliar with oatmeal. Haleem has diverse flavors and usually has meat in it. The recipe I have here is a savory version which is closest to an Indian favorite called Hyderabadi Haleem. This recipe isn't low-fat, low-calorie, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, or All-American, but it's really good.

Haleem

serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp ghee
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 3 tbsp ginger garlic paste
• 5 green chiles, chopped

• 1 cup bulgur #3
• 1/2 cup steel cut oats
• 1 tbsp each dry yellow split peas, lentils, red lentils, green split peas
• 1 tbsp cashews
• 1 tbsp almonds
• 1 tsp peppercorns

• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• as needed water/stock/milk
• to taste salt

• 1/2 lb chicken/turkey/lamb, shredded 
• for garnish fried onions

Cooking Directions

1. Melt the ghee in a large, preferably non-stick pot. Saute the onions and chiles and add the garlic ginger paste. Add bulgur, oats, peas and lentils, nuts and pepper corns. Fill with stock, 1 inch over all ingredients and cook on medium low heat for an hour or until everything is cooked. Don't forget to stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Add water or stock as necessary. Do not add too much liquid at once - it makes the Haleem runny instead of chewy.
2. Add the spices and the yogurt and use an immersion blender to process until the Haleem is smooth. If the Haleem is too thick for the immersion blender, add some milk/broth/water and then use the blender.  Adjust the salt if necessary.            
3. If you love meat like me, add some shredded meat. It could be chicken, turkey or lamb. My favorite is turkey. 
4. Let it simmer on low heat for about half an hour, or until reduced to the desired consistency.
5. Sprinkle with some fried onions and serve.

Tips:

If you do not have an immersion blender don't worry. You can grind the dry grains, peas, lentils, peppercorns and nuts in a food processor before adding to the pot, and chop the onions and chiles fine.

If you don't have the variety of split peas and lentils just use the ones you have. Different lentils, peas, or even other beans will lend different flavors.

Vegetarians can substitute more nuts for meat. Cashews, almonds, and walnuts would work well.

Beef Biscuit Pie

Our cuisine tends to be fairly eclectic - we make a lot of curries, improvised pasta sauces, pilafs, pulaos, and Peruvian delicacies. Most of these are improvised, and sometimes involve ingredients we've never actually used before. We mix cultures, and sometimes have no particular cultural cuisine in mind while we cook. Sometimes we do this.

But sometimes, you just want some beef and gravy. And biscuits. That was the simple craving that led to us making this particular dish, which is, essentially, a pot pie of sorts. Everybody loves pot pie, right?

Turkeyless Turkey

On Christmas Eve, Mariam and I wanted a nice big Christmas dinner. We wanted a ham, or a leg of lamb - or a turkey. But we weren't entertaining anyone for Christmas, so it was just the two of us. Dressing and preparing an entire bird - or indeed an entire ham or leg of lamb - is a lot of trouble when there are only two people eating, and it's really too much food anyway. The smallest turkey you can typically get is upwards of ten pounds, and even a duck weighs in at five or six. We wanted something like a stuffed bird dinner without stuffing a bird. Now, people say you can't have your cake and eat it, too, but I never quite understood what all the hoohaw was about - if I'm eating cake, I have it. It is had by me. In my hand, and my mouth. And on Christmas Eve, we ate roast turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes without ever stuffing or roasting a turkey. So take that, ubiquitous-idioms-with-nevertheless-obfuscated-meaning!

Santa's Nutsacks

Ahem. Santa's Nutsacks. Yes, that's what we're calling them.

This is the last cookie recipe we shall post for the 2013 post-holiday season, and it's an experimental cookie that we developed ourselves, though not without a lot of inspiration from existing cookies and pastries. In Persian cuisine, there is a sort of pastry called qottab (قطاب), a deep-fried pastry frequently filled with almonds or walnuts - they are delicious. However, Mariam and I don't really like deep-frying if we can avoid it - it's messy, smelly, and quite honestly, we're fat enough, thanks. We wanted to make something similar as a Christmas cookie, but strictly as a baked item with nut fillings made from pistachios or pecans.

Fred, the fish we stuffed

I tend to meet my meat before I cook it. By meeting my meat I don't actually mean seeing the live animal. That would be creepy. I just try to become close to it by naming it. I only name whole animals, like a whole bird. They are rather cute and I feel a closer connection to them than to chunks of chicken thighs, you know.

Fred

So, meat Fred, the trout. I bought him at a supermarket. At most supermarkets you can ask the butcher to debone it for you. Or like me you can forget to do so and bring Fred back home and ask your husband to do the deboning. It is a surgical procedure and my hands are too shaky for that.

Linzer Augen

Linzer Augen are almond sugar cookie sandwiches with a simple fruit preserve filling, commonly raspberry or apricot, though this year we tried lingonberry to great effect, and we have used barberry in the past. These are probably the most labor intensive cookies we make for Christmas, as each one is actually a sandwich composed of two discrete cookies, each of which needs to be rolled and cut separately. However, they're just too pretty and too delicious not to make them. The name comes from Linz, a city in northern Austria where these cookies ostensibly originate. The word augen is German for "eyes", representative of the appearance of the cookies, thanks to a hole punched through the top cookie of the sandwich to give a tiny window to the fruit filling underneath.