Sometime between the mythical age — the creation of the world, the first man (and King) Keyumars and the discovery of fire — and the historical age, — after the conquest of Alexander the Great (Eskandar) — we had the Age of the Heroes.
Disclaimer:
I'm not a historian, or a good writer and this is my first time writing a recipe.
Yes, there is a recipe if you scroll down a bit.
One of these heroes, Esfandiyār, was Crowned Prince and a Divine Warrior of ancient Aryānā (Iran — or Persia to the Greeks). He supported Zarathustra, enabling him to spread the prophets message in the land. In return, he was given armour and a chain from Heaven, this gave him the power to blind any demon making them unable to escape.
(Hey, here’s a non-2001: Space Odyssey related moment to link to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, consider it a backing track to this blogpost)
Esfandiyar to him: “Thou luckless one!
I will advance thee to the crown and throne,
Will give thee all the kingdom of the Turkmans,
And will exalt thee to the shining sun,
As soon as I return victorious,
If thou wilt tell me truly what I ask,
Nor will I harm thy children, kith or kin;
But if thou go about to utter lies
In any way they will not pass with me,
My sword shall cleave thee, and the hearts of all
Shall tremble at thy fate.”
Gurgsar replied:-
“O famous, glorious Esfandiyar!
That’s according to the long epic poem, Shahnameh, or Book of Kings. It’s what you would get if you put the Iliad and all of Shakespeare’s work into a blender. I've even heard it described as like Game of Thrones but with some of the stories actually being true. A monument of poetry and historiography, its 50,000 couplets tell a more or less connected story, in metrical and rhymed verse, of the Iranian empire, from the creation of the world down to the conquest of the Muslim Arabs. The Book of Kings is considered by experts as one of the main reasons the Persian language and cultural identity resisted the Arabisation that swept much of the rest of the Middle East.
So why is this relevant? Well, in one verse, Esfandiyār is said to have gained invincibility after eating pomegranates or pomegranate juice. Since this is one of the main ingredients in the ancient dish Fesenjoon, I kinda wanted to add some contextual epic-ness to the dish. To add to that, in the Greco-Persian Wars, Herodotus mentions golden pomegranates adorning the spears of the warriors in the phalanx. And we all know Herodotus never exaggerated and that he is the authoritative, unbiased source of the era, right? *wink*
Another reason why this is timely is that December 21st was the ancient Zoroastrian festival of Yalda.
It’s celebrated on the longest and darkest night of the year, i.e. the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice.
(Most Iranian/Zoroastrian holidays are astronomical, for example the New Year or Nowruz is on the exact moment of the Vernal Equinox).
Yalda is a time for friends and families to get together to eat, drink, tell stories and jokes, smoke “Ghelyoon” and read poetry until well after midnight, but also red fruits are eaten especially pomegranates and watermelon.
Anyway, time get back to the reason you probably even clicked on this link in the first place. Traditionally, Fesenjoon (or in formal Persian Fesenjan) is made with duck since it’s supposedly originally from Gilan province in the north of Iran, or just generally the area surrounding the Caspian Sea (also known for Caviar, oil, geo-politics since Russia lives on the other side and for being near my mum’s hometown).
However, nowadays, it’s mostly made with chicken since that’s obviously more readily available, easier to prepare, cheaper etc. That could be chopped up breast and/or thigh fillets or you can just throw a whole chicken into the pot. I've had it both ways.
Also commonly made with meatballs and, apparently, even with lamb in some villages. Alternatively, for vegetarians, no meat at all since it’s pretty rich and filling by itself.
However, since it’s Christmas and I’ve had it with Turkey a few times before and it turns out pretty well, for this occasion I made it with Turkey. Also, Woolies had this pre-prepared whole boneless Turkey and that made the meat preparation step incredibly easy (otherwise, I just would have gone with chicken, to be honest).
1 Here’s a whole Turkey, with most of the skin ripped off because, you know, fat.
2. It’s always easier to eat things when they are chopped up into easily servable pieces.
3. Walnuts! A general guide is 500g of walnuts for every 1.5kg of meat.
4. Throw them into a grinder.
5. Until you get a grindy mixture like this.
6. So basically, you can do those last few steps in advance to save you time when it’s time to cook, e.g. I did this the night before.
7. If we’re sticking with the 1.5kg of meat as a guide, you’ll probably need 3 onions. The turkey was 2.5kg so I needed a little more of everything.
8. I’m lazy so I threw the onions in the grinder as well. Alternatively, chop them up finely.
9. Butter in the pot.
10. Gently saute the onion until they’re soft/change colour.
12. Add in the Turkey and cook for a few minutes until slighly brown, turn over and cook the other side for a few minutes as well. [If using chicken, add some salt now instead of later]
13. Add in the walnuts.
14. Boil some water.
15. Pour in the boiled water, enough to cover everything but not tooo much over.
16. Apparently, adding in a big tablespoon of tomato paste is the “secret ingredient” that’s been passed down through generations from my great-grandmother to grandmother etc…
17. Pepper. You want to stir it pretty, very, much thoroughly at this point.
18. Bring it to boil then turn down the heat.
19. Now you basically just have to let it sit and simmer for a while. However, you need to keep an eye on it and control the amount of water in it since it’s going to thicken. If it gets too dry and thick it could burn. A general guide is you want to start off a bit more watery than how you want it to turn out at the end, keeping in mind that it’s going to simmer for another hour or two. Give it a good stir every now and then.
20. This was a whole turkey, and so I was using double amounts of everything so it took about 50 minutes to get to this point. But basically, it’s going to turn slightly browner like this.
21. Pomegranate paste/syrup/molasses comes in bottles like this. You may need to find a speciality store near you, ask me for more details.
At this point give it another 5–10 minutes and then pour in Pomegranate paste/ syrup/ molasses. [For Turkey and other meat, add some salt now]
22. Northerners (or Shomalis as people from around the Caspian Sea are called) are known to like their food sweet so I’m used to this dish being really sweet. For 1.5kg meat, you probably want one 300ish mL bottle of the pomegranate syrup and one cup of sugar.
Stir thoroughly.
23. Since I’m using double amounts of everything, I used two 300mL bottles of pomegranate syrup and 2 cups of sugar, but really it’s to your own taste, depending on how sour and/or sweet you want it.
24. Once you’re happy with it, put on the lid, turn down the heat to very low and let the dish simmer for basically as long as you want. The longer you leave it the thicker it gets. I left it for another hour or so at this point.
25. Notice it gets darker and darker brown. Stir every now and then. And that’s pretty much it. You can also add in some cinnamon here, which for some reason I didn’t do… Don’t know why, cinnamon is awesome.
Rice is an extremely important part of Persian cuisine, so don’t skimp out on it. The way I made it was like this.
26. Pour in an equal amount of cups of rice and cups of water.
27. Add butter.
28. Put on high temperature, put on lid, leave it to boil and bubble up.
29. Once all of the water has been absorbed by the rice, turn the temperature down to very low, wrap a cloth around the lid and put the lid back on and give it 10–15 minutes, or until the rice is nice and fluffy to your taste.
Enjoy ☺
Thanks mum for teaching me.
Bonus:
To add a nice saffron layer to your rice, grind 2–3 small strands of saffron with warm water. Separate out a few spoons of rice, mix in the saffron-water mixture. Layer the now golden rice on top of the rest of the rice.
Extra links:
Wall Street Journal article about Fesenjoon
Some extra reading on actual historical cookbooks. Fascinating stuff.
