Tuesday, October 20, 2009

grandma's recipe- fesenjan






For today's mofo, I'm going to write about my grandma and give you one of my favorite recipes of hers. This article was originally written for Herbivore magazine.

Give It Up For Grandma!

My grandmother’s name is Houra, and she is a wonderful human being and nurturer. In my whole life, she is the one person who has never raised her voice at me or spoken in anger. Even more importantly, she is the foundation of the vast majority of my memories about food and cooking. To this day, getting a whiff of fresh dill or cilantro conjures up the warm feeling of nestling my face in her apron and standing at her feet as she cooked.

Houra was born in northern Iran in the 1920’s. She recounts happy early childhood tales of playing with her siblings and cousins, but also the sadness of being taken out of school while still a young teenager. Grandma tells stories of wistfully watching other kids going off to school, and these stories have ensured that all of her children and grandchildren have placed great value on education. Grandma has also instilled a love of traveling in our entire family, setting an example by visiting far-away lands starting in her 50s and 60s. She has been to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage, to Sweden, to Dubai, to England, to Romania, to the former Yugoslavia. She was with me when I visited Turkey for the first time as a young girl.

I became vegan over five years ago, and my grandma has always been the most supportive member of my family. Due to health concerns, she herself is not a big consumer of meat or dairy. She comes from a culinary background that places great emphasis on fresh, seasonal produce, and her table is always full of vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and herbs. It is only now, as I learn more and more about food that I see how rich her food world really is. For her, sun-dried tomatoes are not a gourmet ingredient on a high-priced restaurant menu, but what you make in late summer to make sure you have tomatoes in the winter. Fruit leathers are not a silly childrens snack, but a way to capture the bounty of whatever fruit you happen to have in abundance. Herbs are not merely decorations on a finished dish, but an integral flavor and nutritional component of that dish, meant to be savored rather than discarded. I credit grandma with the fact that I have such a taste for fruits and vegetables today, without which being a vegan would be pretty damn difficult!

For these reasons, eating vegan at grandma’s house has always been easy. Most of her recipes are easily veganized, and she takes great joy into observing me replace the eggs or meat in her dishes, just as I took great joy watching her cook for all the years of my life. Here, I have veganized fesenjan, a delicious, nutritious, and iconic Iranian khoresh, or stew. The recipe is very flexible, and you should approach it in terms of flavor instead of exact measurements. You will be surprised at the lip-smacking flavor that such a seemingly unexpected combination of ingredients yields. The rich taste of fesenjan and its deep brown color make it perfect for the fall and winter.

Fesenjan

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups fresh raw walnuts
  • 1 medium white onion, grated
  • ¼ cup pomegranate paste*
  • 3 TB tomato paste
  • 2 – 3 cups water
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • ½ - 1 tsp cinnamon
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 cup of your favorite vegan chicken (I used baked tofu, but seitan, tempeh, packaged faux chicken, or even legumes such as lima beans also work well)

Directions:

  • Using a food processor, grind the walnuts until they form a paste with a smooth nut-butter consistency
  • Crumble the walnut paste, along with the grated onion, the pomegranate and tomato pastes, and spices into a stock pot over medium-high heat, and stir in enough water until smooth. You want a thin consistency, like tomato juice, this will thicken up substantially. Make sure to get rid of any lumps in the sauce.
  • Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally. As the mixture thickens, the color will darken to a deep brown.
  • Add your baked tofu (or whatever chicken substitute you are using) at this point, and allow it to simmer for another 30 minutes. Towards the end, you can add 1 or 2 tablespoons of ice water to the mixture once or twice, to get the beautiful reddish walnut oil to rise to the top for presentation purposes. This step is totally optional.
  • Serve warm over rice. White basmati rice is traditional (click here for the recipe for Iranian-style steamed rice pilaf -scroll down), but I also love fesenjan with my favorite brown rice.
  • Enjoy!

Optional: eggplants also taste good in this dish. You can drop chopped eggplants, raw or cooked, into the stew for the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, in addition to or as a replacement for the chicken.

* Pomegranate paste is a thick, intensely sour paste that gives many Iranian dishes a distinctive flavor. You can find pomegranate paste at Iranian supermarkets, or hit up your closest Iranian friend! If you can’t, however, you can replace it in this recipe with pomegranate molasses or juice, changing the amount of water accordingly. The juice and the molasses are not as tangy as the paste, however, and you should probably add some lemon or lime juice to make up for this fact.


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28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent!

I am so jealous. My "culinary background" consists predominantly of various cuts of beef, corn products, and Velveeta.

Once, an ex-boyfriend suggested I make us dinner while he was at work, and it wasn't until he asked me, "Did you buy CANNED mushrooms?!" that I was introduced to the idea of buying fresh produce. My working single mom had always used Jolly Green Giant mushrooms in a jar, and so, so did I.

My grandmother used to shell peas and cook fresh greens, but ten year old me thought that was gross and unsophisticated.

I only started using herbs and spices (other than chili powder and cumin, which are necessary for the Tex-Mex I had to learn to cook while marooned in the UK for four years) since becoming vegan!

No wonder so many people think a vegan diet is rabbit food or bland. If you expected to make typical American meals sans meat and dairy, it would be pretty inedible stuff. But if you use fresh produce and fragrant herbs, it's so much BETTER! Right?

I have no idea if I can get pomegranate paste around here, but I want to try this - that dish looks so good!

Go, Grandma!

Anonymous said...

What a lovely post. Your grandmother sounds wonderful. Mmmmm koresh.

The Voracious Vegan said...

Wow, what a beautifully moving post. Your grandmother and the relationship you share sounds absolutely amazing. And how lucky you are to have such delicious cooking right at your fingertips.

Amey said...

oh bazu! I love the picture of you with your grandma! SO sweet. <3 <3 <3

Thanks for the fesenjan recipe... maybe I'll give it a go for my no rooz party this year. Also, I didn't know about the difference between pomegranate paste and pomegranate molasses. I think I've been using molasses this whole time. Aha!

veganfoodism said...

what a heartwarming entry and lovely recipe. i am meeting my best friend tomorrow, her father is Iranian and I will ask her for the paste!

Jenni (aka Vegyogini) said...

I love Iranian food...thank you for this!

Desdemona said...

What a wonderful post, thanks so much for sharing! The recipe looks delicious (I'm definitely going to try it with the eggplant), and the photo of you with your grandma actually made me tear up a little!

Anonymous said...

What a lovely story about your grandma!! I'm jealous because all my grandparents have passed away and I miss my maternal grandma immensely. The recipe you shared sounds/looks wonderful. I am adding it to my list of meals for next week!! I love the last photo of you with your grandma - so sweet!

radioactivegan said...

I'm with everyone else: this is a great tribute to your grandmother, and the photo is adorable! I'm definitely going to have to try this dish soon. It looks delicious

radioactivegan said...

I'm with everyone else: this is a great tribute to your grandmother, and the photo is adorable! I'm definitely going to have to try this dish soon. It looks delicious

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful post! Everyone has been writing about their wonderful grandmothers this week, or maybe I have just been noticing since mine is on my mind! It seems so crazy that in just one generation so much ancient knowledge of cooking and preserving has been lost.

No More Sad Geraniums said...

That looks simply delicious! Now I just need to hunt down pom. paste...

apricot said...

This looks amazing! I can't wait to try it.

Niki said...

Aww your Grandma sounds great! That recipe looks amazing, and so much different from anything I have had before. Definitely on my to-make list!

Trinity (of haiku tofu) said...

i love the photo of the two of you.

Theresa said...

Love this post!

JENNA said...

Such a great post Bazu! I must try this recipe. MUST, MUST, MUST!

BrisVegan said...

Your grandmother sounds and looks like an amazing lady. Thanks for introducing her.

I have never seen pomegranate paste here. I will definitely have to get the juice and give this one a try.

Eco Mama said...

Love this post about your awesome gramma! Makes me miss mine.
xo
Eco Mama

Kristi Oliveira said...

I will for definitely have to try this one! What a wonderful story and picture with grandma. It brought back memories of my grandma. She never raised her voice at me either and I miss her dearly. She is also the reason I am able to cook.

Gone Pie Vegan Bakery said...

I love this post! Brought back all kinds of thoughts of foods and smells from my Gramma's kitchen. Thank you!

KiKi said...

Your post makes me miss my gran even more.
Grans simply rock, right?

Thank you so much for sharing your gran with us!

Monique a.k.a. Mo said...

Aww. Such a cute post!

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

What a beautiful post!

Josiane said...

Up until today, I was coming to your blog whenever I saw you mention a post on Twitter, but tonight I finally realised I should just subscribed already (duh!)... and I'm so glad I did, because that's how I found out about this post I had missed when you published it.
Just like everyone else, I have to say that pic of you and your Grandma is fabulous! She seems to be a lovely lady. I must admit, though, that I'm particularly glad I've found this post because fesenjan is hands-down my favorite Iranian dish, and knowing that I can now make it at home makes me deliriously happy! Thank you, Bazu, for sharing your Grandma's recipe!

Anonymous said...
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RH said...

Any idea as to how many servings this makes?

Divya Jagasia said...

Great story and really well written! Can't wait to find pomegranate paste so that I can make this.

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