Preparing for France

I know we are not finished with Iran until Friday, but I am really looking forward to starting France!  Send recipes if you have a favorite!

Chicken Musakhan

Chicken Musakhan: Put 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil in pan.  Preheat oven to 350.  Put 6 chicken thighs in pan.  Sprinkle with 1 tbsp sumac, salt and pepper.  Turn several times in pan to coat chicken.   Finely dice 1 cup onion.  Mix with 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp sumac, salt and pepper.    Spread this mixture over the chicken.  Bake for 1/2 hour then flip chicken and increase heat to 400 and cook 30 more minutes.  Increase heat to 425 for the last couple of minutes.  Serve with chelo.

So far, I have only found a few things that I love cooking Iranian food.  I really like the chelo kabob.  In fact, I love the rice cooked this way.  Especially with an egg yolk cracked on top and sprinkled with sumac.  So tonight I looked online for a chicken recipe that used sumac.  I found the following recipe on a website called www.wineloverspage.com  It was really delicious!  Absolutely one of my favorites, but when reading the recipe I realized this was a Palestinian recipe.  I also cheated by adding olive oil and vinegar to my salad of diced cucumber, tomato, bulgarian feta and dill.  (We have been cheating the last couple of nights with this salad.  It's great.  I never thought I was much of a dill fan, but I am now.

Kukuye Sibazamini and Khoreshe Kadu

Kukuye Sibzamini:  Potato Omelet (from the complete middle east cookbook):  Boil 1 pound peeled potatoes.  Drain and mash.  Mixed with 1 large grated onion, 1 tsp tumeric, salt and pepper.  Let cool.  Whisk 6 eggs.  Temper eggs with potatoes.  Mix.  Melt 1/4 cup butter.  Pour into pan.  Put in potato mixture.  Bake at 350 for 30 min.

 We couldn't help comparing this to Tortilla Espanola.  Sanford and I  preferred the spanish version, Jack loved this one.  If I made this again, I would put less butter.  I ended up pouring the butter off at the end.

Khoreshe Kadu: (Squash sauce from In a Persian Kitchen):  Slice 5 med squash into 1 inch sticks.  (We found some small middle eastern squash.)  Rinse and cover with 2 tbsp salt.  Let sit 20 minutes.  Rinse and dry.  Saute in 3 tbsp oil.  Set aside.   Brown 1 pound stew meat with 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp pepper in 3 tbsp oil.  When brown add 1-2 cups water and 3 tbsp lemon.  Simmer 30 minutes.  Add zucchini and simmer another 15 minutes.  Serve with chelo.

This had nice flavor, but the meat didn't get tender.  Simmering time needs to be adjusted according to the meat used.

kuftch sabzi

This recipe had mixed reviews.  I hated it.  (Granted, I am not a fan of lamb, but I am trying.   I liked the Chelou Kabab).  Jack didn't like it (he likes lamb).  Sam tolerated it.  (He is a growing 12 year old boy that might eat anything) and Sanford liked it.  So here's the recipe.  See what you think.

Vegetable Meatballs (from In a Persian Kitchen).  Simmer 2 tbsp rice and 3 tbsp yellow split peas in 3 cups water for 30 minutes or until tender.  Mix 1 pound ground lamb, peas and rice (drained), 1 cup finely chopped green onions, 2 cups finely chopped parsley, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and one egg.  Mix well and form about 20 meatballs.  Saute 1 large diced onion in 3 tbsp butter with 3 tbsp tomato sauce until tender.  Add 1 1/2 cup water and 2 tbsp lemon juice.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Add meatballs, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.  Baste meatballs (or turn them over) and cook another 15 minutes covered.

Havij Polou

Borani Esfanaj (Spinach salad) (from the complete middle east cookbook):  Saute 1 diced onion in 1 tbsp canola oil until translucent.  Add 1 1/2 pounds washed spinach.  Saute until wilted.  Add 2 minced garlic cloves, salt and pepper.  Remove from heat and let cool.  Whisk 2 cups greek yogurt.  Add spinach mixture and stir.   Drizzle Nano Dok ( Melt 1 tbsp butter or ghee.  Add 1/2 tsp turmeric.  Stir.  Add 3/4 tsp crushed mint.) over the top.  Serve at room temperature.  (Sam liked this much better than last night's yogurt salad)

Havij Polou (from the complete middle east cookbook):  (Carrots with rice):  Cut 2 lbs chicken breasts into quarters.  Heat 2 tbsp butter in pan.  Brown chicken and remove.  Melt 2 more tbsp butter and add 1 finely chopped onion and saute until transparent.  Add 1 tsp turmeric.  Stir.  Add 1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks.  Cook 5 minutes, and stirring often.  Add 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 1/2 cup water, scraping bottom of pan.  Add chicken back into pan and simmer covered 10 minutes.  Meanwhile make chelou (previous blog) up through boiling for five minutes.  Then drain and put 1/2 the rice into rice pan.  Pack down.  Put chicken in next.  Pour carrot mixture over the top.  Spoon remaining rice over top.  Make hole in rice and pour in remaining butter mixture (from chelou recipe).  Wrap lid in a towel.  Cover pot and cook over med low heat for 40 minutes.  (I would use chicken thighs the next time I make this.  The chicken breast dried out a bit.  I might have had the heat a little too high, but we ended up with a tasty crisp layer on the bottom.   This was really good with the spinach salad)

 

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Khoreshe Gormeh Sabzi

All recipes tonight were adapted from The Complete Middle East Cookbook

Khoreshe Gormeh Sabzi (Green vegetable and meat sauce)

Trim and cut 1 1/2 lb lamb shoulder into  3/4 inch cubes.  In a heavy pan fry one finely chopped onion in 1/2 of 1/3 cup of oil until transparent.  Add 1 tsp tumeric and cook another 2 minutes.  Add lamb and turn heat to high.  Cook until starting to brown.  Add 1 1/2 cup water, 1/4 lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Cover, turn to low and cook 1-1 1/2 hours, until tender.  Cook 1 1/2 cup diced potato in the remainder of the oil until lightly browned.  Add potatoes to lamb, leaving oil in pan,  and cook covered 10 minutes.  Add 1 cup chopped spring onion tops, 1 1/2 cup chopped spinach, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 1/2 cup chopped parsley and 1/4 cup chopped garlic chives to pan and cook until wilted.  Add to sauce and cook covered for 15-20 minutes.

Chelou (steamed rice):

Soak 2 cups basmati rice.  Drain and rinse until water runs clear.  Bring 8 cups water to a boil.  Add 2 tbsp salt and rice and cover.  Cook 5 minutes.  Drain rice.  In a separate pan heat 1/4 cup butter with 1/4 cup water.  Pour half of butter mixture into rice pan.  Add half of rice to pan, packing down rice with a wooden spoon.  Then gently scoop the remaining rice into the pan to form a mound.  Make a hole in the rice with the end of the wooden spoon.  Wrap lid of pan in towel and put on pan.  Cook 10 minutes at med low heat.  Reduce heat and cook 35 minutes at the lowest heat possible.  Stir.


Mast Va Khiar (Yogurt with cucumber and sultanas)

Thinly slice 1 cucumber and place in sieve to drain.  Whisk 1 cup greek yogurt.  Add cucumber and stir.  Add 1 chopped green onion, 1/4 golden raisins, 1/8 chopped walnuts, salt, pepper, and 1/2 tsp crushed dried mint.  Stir.  Refrigerate one hour.

Chelou Kebab

Bill and Chris kicked off our Iranian month (2 weeks).  We had a delicious chelou kebab.  Rice (with an egg yolk and sumac mixed in at the table) with grilled lamb and tomato.  Served with bulgarian feta, cucumbers topped with dill and yogurt.  Thank you both for a great meal!  We will start tomorrow, tonight being father's day and ribeyes a must.

Our two week break

We haven't done a lot of cooking during our two week break.  Went to a couple of bar-b-ques over the holiday.  We made tortilla espanola for each of those parties.  It might be my new favorite "bring a side dish".  We are planning to cook our favorites for Sanford's parents.  Looking back, I realized that I didn't add all the recipes that we made.  I've added some, and will try to add more.  The problem is that a lot of the recipes came from the library, but I don't know which books!  Also, I realized that I would like to repeat Mexico.  There were a lot of recipes that I never tried.  I feel like we mastered the tortilla and made a delicious chorizo, but didn't even try tortilla soup, which is one of my favorites!  I'm happy with our pasta making from Italy, but feel like we barely scratched the surface.  The piece of meat is still hanging in my basement.  No bugs and no drippings, which I feel is a good sign.  We will weigh it next week to see if it ready.  I'm a little nervous about this, but the hospital is right down the street.  The kids really want another Korean meal.  I'm not as excited.  I posted very few Ethiopian recipes, so I'll have to go to the library.  Jack wants the stewed cabbage.  We have one package of teff left, so I should get that started.  Then back to Spain.  I am very excited to make the paella again, but I loved almost everything we cooked.  Now that tomatoes are abundant at the market and I'm starting to see cucumbers and peppers, I will try to make the gazpacho.  It seemed wrong to make it before the tomatoes were ready!  The chicken fricassee was another of my favorites.