Nouruz Birthday Combo

Nouruz, the Persian New Year, is celebrated on the first day of spring. It's not often I do something special for it, but my husband's birthday falls around then as well. After wondering what to do for his birthday cake, and getting a little inspiration from the kids, I decided to pull out the stops and have a Persian-themed meal and dessert.

For the meal, I made a version of Khoresh Ghormeh Sabzi: lamb stew with greens. And beans, but I left those out. My recipe uses dill and cilantro, and is one of two similar recipes I found written on scraps of paper in my first cookbook binder from when I learned to cook in college. Apparently, prior to this week I'd made it exactly once. I generally go to the tomato based basic Khoresh which does not have the greens. I also made boorani (spinach and turmeric with sour cream or yogurt), and Zereshk Polo, rice with barberries that have been slightly candied with saffron. For the first time, I tried to make tadiq with bread rather than rice or potatoes, it didn't come out well at all, so apparently that's a thing I need to work on. 

Dessert was a baklava cheesecake. I used a honey cheesecake recipe which is literally just cream cheese, honey and eggs, and made a crust of two layers of baklava in the springform pan. After pouring in the cheesecake, I put another two layers of baklava on the top, and baked it at 325˚ for 30 minutes and 350˚ for 35 minutes. Likely it could have used another 15-20 minutes as it was a little soft in the middle. When the cheesecake came out of the oven I immediately poured rosewater syrup on it and decorated it with more of the sugar and almond mixture and then some dried rose petals.

We've spent most of the week working through the leftovers. I'm not sure why, but many Persian dishes taste even better the second day. These were no exception!

Cheesecake and baklava layers, mmm

Series of Small Dinner Parties

We haven't done this in a while: have company for dinner more than once a week. Last night Lisa came by and we had grilled chicken marinated in yogurt, plus zereshk polo which is Persian rice with barberries. I have never gotten the tadiq to do this so well before. It just fell out of the pot, with all the rice in a pot-shaped disk. The difference is, I think, that I added some oil to the butter before I put the rice in. The barberries we brought back from Halifax. I'd never seen the right kind of berries around here so I bought enough to last me for years. Barberries are super tart and have to be cooked with a little sugar before steaming in the rice.

Tonight with another friend we had the grilled octopus I've been marinating for a few days. I used this recipe from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook and it was so delicious! It was served with homemade bread, baba ganoush which I made this afternoon, the marinated fava beans from the farm share, and roasted summer squash. To round out the theme, our guest brought Lebanese pastries which are like baklava but round with pistachios in the middle. Like these.