Treat yourself to bastani — gorgeously perfumed Persian saffron-and-rosewater ice cream

By Leslie Brenner

Last time I made bastani — the saffron and rosewater ice cream that’s one of Iran’s most famous and beloved desserts — my friend Greg closed his eyes, seeming to drift away to a faraway land, and said: “This may be the best ice cream I’ve ever had.”

After having tweaked my recipe a couple times, I knew I’d gotten it right.

There are several different ways to approach bastani. Traditionally, it includes salep (also transliterated as sahlab), a flour made from orchid tubers, which gives it a distinctive sticky-chewy texture. Sometimes bastani also includes nuggets of frozen clotted cream, or chopped pistachios folded in.

Egg yolks are another variable: Some versions use a lot of them, maybe six yolks for a quart of ice cream; others do without eggs entirely.

Whatever direction you take, chances are excellent that your bastani will be dreamy. How could it not? Rosewater and saffron are such an enchanting combination.

To make a custardy bastani, which is probably most common, combine and heat cream, milk, sugar and saffron, whisk the hot mixture into whisked egg yolks, slowly cook, stirring, until it coats a spoon, strain and stir in rosewater and vanilla. Chill it down and freeze in your ice cream maker.

I like bastani rich, but not heart-stoppingly so: Three yolks tastes just right.

And I keep it simpler — going for a smooth and velvety vibe; mine skips the salep and clotted cream. Chopped pistachios go on top as a final flourish, if I use them, along with dried rose petals. If you want to lean more into the pistachio vibe, go ahead and stir some in before you freeze it. Or skip the nuts, if you’re so inclined — it’s also delightful without them.

Want to try something really fun? Consider making the ice cream sandwiches known as bastani-e nooni or bastani-e nuni — a scoop of bastani between two round ice-cream wafers. Or you could plop a scoop into a waffle cone, for a pointy spin on that traditional treat.

If your goal, on the other hand, is to impress Greg, just serve a scoop or two in small dishes, and scatter those dried rose petals and crushed pistachios on top.

RECIPE: Bastani (Persian Saffron & Rosewater Ice Cream)

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Hope for a “new day” for Iran’s women by cooking these dishes for Nowruz, the festival marking the start of spring

Fresh Herb Kuku, from a recipe in ‘Food of Life’ by Najmieh Batmanglij

By Leslie Brenner

How delightful to be turning to spring, which begins Monday. Celebrated by people in and from Iran, Nowruz — a two-week festival with Zorastrian roots, marking the season’s return — begins on the vernal equinox. Nowruz (also spelled Norooz), which means “new day,” is also celebrated by people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and other cultures in the region.

Traditionally, it’s a time of feasting and rejoicing. This year, however, is bound to be a difficult one in Iran, due to the severe repression of and violence against women and the resulting protests. One can only imagine the battered population there wishing for a true new day.

Here, stateside, Iranian families will be cooking traditional foods or enjoying them in restaurants. Persian eateries in Los Angeles are offering solace to Iranians living there; L.A. holds the largest Iranian population outside of Tehran. Should you choose to cook to mark the holiday — whether you’re Iranian or cooking in solidarity with the women of Iran — we’re here to help.

There’s a wonderful primer about the Nowruz festival in Food of Life, Najmieh Batmanglij’s encyclopedic book subtitled “Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies.”

In every household, Batmanglij explains, a special cover is spread on a carpet or table — the sofreh-ye haft-sinn, or “seven dishes” setting. Each dish served begins with the Persian letter sinn, and they represent, respectively, rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience and beauty. Now that’s a lot to celebrate!

“The traditional menu for the Nowruz gathering on the day of the equinox usually includes fish and noodles,” Batmanglij writes. “It is believed they bring good luck, fertility and prosperity in the year that lies ahead.”

Batmanglij’s Menu:

• Noodle Soup (osh-e reshteh or ash-e-reshteh). Noodles, she writes, “represent the Gordian knots of life. Eating them symbolically unravels life’s knotty problems in the coming year.”

• Rice with Fresh Herbs and Fish (Sabzi polow ba mahi). Herb rice represents rebirth and fish represents Anahita, an angel of water and fertility.

• Herb Kuku. The eggs and loads of fresh herbs in this frittata-like dish represent fertility and rebirth.

• Sabzi Khordan with Bread. Iran’s ubiquitous herb platter with cheese and nan-e barbari (flatbread) represents prosperity.

• Wheat Sprout Pudding. For fertility and rebirth.

• Sprout Cookies. Prosperity and fertility.

• Seven Desserts. Representing nourishment, light, love, sweetness and prosperity.

Three great dishes to make

Sabzi Khordan — an Iranian herb platter — is a must at Nowruz celebrations (and every other Persian meal!).

Sabzi Khordan with Cheese and Nan-e Barbari

We’re leading off with the herb platter known as sabzi khordan, as it’s such an essential part of the Iranian table – not just during festivals, but every other day, as well. “It’s essential to any meal we have, always,” says Nilou Motamed. The food-world celeb — a permanent judge for Netfix’s “Iron Chef” revival and my editor long ago at Travel + Leisure — is a native of Iran.

Putting together the platter itself requires no cooking, just collecting, washing, trimming and assembling herbs, scallions, cukes and radishes, and sourcing the best feta you can find (Bulgarian, if possible). Toasted walnuts are optional. Nibble all of it to your heart’s delight before, during, and in-between everything else.

With it you’ll want the flatbread known as nan-e barbari. Making one is easier than you might think, thanks to a hack Nilou gave us when I interviewed her a few years ago for a story about sabzi khordan: Her mom uses frozen pizza dough. It’s super fun and easy to make. Flatbread in hand, you can create the perfect bite — what Nilou calls a loghme. “You put some feta cheese in the bread, and then whatever your perfect complement of herbs is — whether you’re a dill or a tarragon person, or you like both, maybe the little tail of a scallion.”

RECIPE: Sabzi Khordan and Nan-e Barbari

New Year’s Bean Soup (Ash-e-Reshteh)

This vegetarian bean soup, chock full of herbs and other greens, stars those long soup noodles (known as “reshteh”) that will untangle life’s problems You can make them by hand; Naomi Duguid gives instructions for doing so in her gorgeous book, Taste of Persia, from which our recipe is adapted. You can also buy them in Middle Eastern groceries carrying Iranian ingredients, buy them online, or substitute dried linguine — which many recipes, including Duguid’s suggest. Another Iranian ingredient, kashk — a fermented milk product made from whey — may also be found in Middle Eastern groceries; it’s optional in Duguid’s version, and the soup is delicious even without it.

We featured the recipe a few years ago in a short piece about Persian New Year’s bean soup.

RECIPE: ‘Taste of Persia’ Ash-e-Reshteh (New Year’s Bean Soup)

Fresh Herb Kuku

Finally, there’s the glorious frittata-like egg-and-herb kuku (shown at the top of the story). To make it, season beaten eggs with turmeric and advieh — a fragrant mix of ground dried rose petals, cinnamon, cumin and cardamom. (Cooking Iranian food is always a delightful to the senses.) Add a ton of finely of herbs (parsley, cilantro, dill and fenugreek) and lettuce, plus garlic, scallion, chopped walnuts and sautéed chopped onion. Pour the batter into a skillet in which you’ve heated oil, butter or ghee, cook it slowly until it has set in the center, then finish it quickly under the broiler. Top it with caramelized barberries.

RECIPE: Najmieh Batmanglij’s Fresh Herb Kuku

Here’s hoping for that true new day.

Author Najmieh Batmanglij is the revered ‘goddess of Iranian cooking'

By Leslie Brenner

Editor’s note: Women have a history of writing the best cookbooks. That’s why throughout March — Women’s History Month — we’ll be featuring cookbooks by our favorite female authors.

The Washington Post called her “the grande dame of Iranian cooking.” Yotam Ottolenghi called her its “goddess.” Super-chef José Andrés has called her “a wonderful guide to the Persian kitchen.”

We’re talking, of course, about Najmieh Batmanglij — the author of seven books, including Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies; Joon: Persian Cooking Made Simple; Cooking in Iran: Regional Recipes and Kitchen Secrets and other titles.

I’m embarrassed to say that Batmanglij’s wisdom only came into my life last year, when I started exploring Persian cooking in earnest. Food of Life — the magnum opus that she first published in 1986, revised for a 2020 25th-anniversary edition and is once again updating — is a great place to begin, if you want to explore this magnificent cuisine.

Sabzi polow — rice with fresh herbs — prepared from Najmieh Batmanglij’s ‘Food of Life’

Some of my happiest memories of annus horribilus 2020 involved Food for Life. For my late-September birthday, a masked celebration in the backyard of dear friends, my son Wylie and his girlfriend Nathalie prepared (at my request) an elaborate, insanely delicious rice dish from the book: Sabzi Polow,* Rice with Fresh Herbs. There are a full seven cups of fresh chopped herbs in the dish: dill, chives, parsley and cilantro, and it sports a crisp tah-dig crust. (Once I prepare it myself — soon! I’ll be sure to write about it.)

A couple months later, I spent a luxurious afternoon preparing abgusht-e morgh ba kufteh-ye nokhodchi — Persian chicken soup with chickpea-and-lamb meatballs. The aromas of dried rose petals, cardamom, saffron and fresh herbs lifted my spirits and transported me to another time and place.

The book has been on my mind lately because Nowruz — Persian New Year — begins this coming Saturday, the first day of spring. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with Batmanglij’s Fresh Herb Kuku, which is traditional for the holiday. It’s like a Persian frittata packed with dill, parsley, cilantro and spring onions, beautifully spiced (more rose petals!) and garnished with quick-confited barberries.

[If you’re cooking with kids this weekend, consider quick-ordering Batmanglij’s Happy Nowruz: Cooking with Children to Celebrate the Persian New Year.]

Najmieh’s other six books are all on my wish-list(Joon is at the top.)

Still if I had to choose only one cookbook to cook from for the rest of my life, I would seriously consider Food of Life. The 330-recipe volume has enough delicious culture in its 640 pages to keep me delighted cooking and discovering Iran for a long time.

RECIPE: Najmieh’s Fresh Herb Kuku

RECIPE: Persian Chicken Soup with Chickpea and Lamb Meatballs

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*The dish is the vegetarian variation of Sabzi Polow Ba Mahi — Rice with Fresh Herbs and Fish. We dropped the fish as the dish was meant to accompany delicious lamb kebabs my friends grilled outside on the Weber.

Rose petals, saffron and tender lamb meatballs: Now that's a chicken soup!

This is the fourth story in our series, Around the World in Chicken Soup.

The Great Confinement has been for me, as much as anything, a year of cooking. My time in the kitchen — chopping, simmering, marinating, braising, baking, slicing, stirring, researching dishes, poring over recipes — has kept me sane, kept me focused, provided escape, resulted in joy and kept my family well fed. We are extremely lucky that we can afford to eat and that we have access to food — facts that have not escaped my consciousness for a single moment, and for which I’m continually grateful.

During these 11 months, if there’s one dish that took me out of myself and away from that narrow physical and mental place that the pandemic has wedged us into, it would be the Persian chicken soup with chickpea-and-lamb meatballs called abgusht-e morgh ba kufteh-ye nokhodchi.

The obvious and immediate miracle of the dish is its incredible flavor and aromas: the perfume of saffron, the gorgeousness of mint leaves and rose petals strewn on top, the tender lusciousness of the lamb meatballs, the soothing comfort of the rich and aromatic chicken broth. I still have a hard time conceiving that we ate something so delicious, so unusual, in our own home. Honestly, it’s one of the most interesting things I’ve eaten ever, anywhere.

But equally (if not even more) transporting was the experience of cooking this soup. The afternoon I spent discovering its mysteries was one of the most pleasurable I’ve spent all year long.

Consider the premise: You stuff a whole chicken with rice, spices and dried rose petals. (Rose petals!) Wrap it in cheesecloth, submerge it in a broth scented with cardamom, rosewater, saffron and more, and simmer it gently for an hour and a half. Remove the chicken and debone it. Then drop in meatballs you’ve made from ground lamb, aromatic spices, onion and chickpea flour. Chickpeas go in the broth as well, along with the chicken meat and stuffing, and all that wonderful stuff cooks some more. 

Your home now smells heavenly, and for a grand finale, here comes a whopper of a flourish: Chopped mint or cilantro, plus garlic and more dried rose petals. You’ll pass that in a bowl around the table for everyone to add on top just before eating. 

The meatballs are spectacular. The scents of rose and saffron and cardamom and cumin and herbs are intoxicating. The garnish sends it into a transcendent dimension. 

After I made the soup and recovered from my saffron-and-rose-petal high, I wanted to learn more about the recipe, so I called Najmieh Batmanglij — the Washington, D.C.-based author of Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, in which I found it. The 1986 cookbook is widely considered to be the definitive tome of the genre; Yotam Ottolenghi called Batmanglij “The goddess of Iranian cooking.” 

She and her husband fled Iran in 1979 during the revolution, relocating to Vence, in the south of France, where she wrote her first cookbook, Ma Cuisine d’Iran. Recently Batmanglij spent three years researching her latest book, Cooking in Iran, published in 2019. “I traveled all over Iran,” she said, “and I noticed they love meatballs.” 

Persian chicken soup with chickpea-and-lamb meatballs — abgusht-e morgh ba kufteh-ye nokhodchi. The Iranian dish is served with sabzi khordan, the fresh herb platter ubiquitous on Iranian tables.

Talking with the author was nearly as much fun as making the soup. I knew from her headnote that it’s traditionally served by Jews in Kashan and Hamedan for sabbath dinner (those two cities are south and southeast respectively from Tehran), that it should be served with “saffron flavored rice, pickles and a platter of herbs,” and that it was inspired by one Professor Abbas Amanat, who had gotten the recipe from his mother. Batmanglij told me that Professor Amanat teaches history at Yale University. 

She also revealed that she brought a couple of her own thoughtful touches to the dish — among them, deboning the chicken.  “Traditionally,” she told me, “they use the whole chicken, and when they serve it, the whole thing is in the soup. Wrapping it in the cheesecloth, that’s my French background.”

Diluting the saffron in rose water rather than plain water was her innovation as well, inspired by a technique she’d seen in a medieval Persian cookbook. The two ingredients together do something truly magical.

I made a couple of slight modifications of my own, including adding an option to use canned chick peas rather than soaking overnight and pre-cooking dried ones. More significantly, I also suggest passing of the rose-petal-and-herb garnish at the table. Batmanglij’s recipe calls for stirring it all before in serving it. 

Nan-e-barbari — Persian Bread. We fashioned ours from store-bought pizza dough.

Of course the author’s way is culturally correct. A soup like this, Batmanglij told me, is usually eaten “by people from humble backgrounds. They put the garnish on top, and they put the pot in the middle of the table, with plenty of bread. Serving individual things means more labor.” 

While at our house, we skipped the saffron-flavored rice accompaniment, I did serve the soup with nan-e-barbari, Persian flatbread, and a sabzi khordan, the fresh herb platter Batmanglij suggested, and which is ubiquitous on Iranian tables. (Here’s a hack for making home-made nan-e-barbari from store-bought pizza dough, courtesy of Nilou Motamed, former editor of Food & Wine.)

The herbs of the sabzi khordan brought beautiful freshness to each bite.

Obviously, building this marvelous soup is a project, something to take slowly and enjoy, not something to be rushed through on a busy weeknight. But should you find yourself wondering how to fill a long and lazy Sunday or Saturday afternoon, I can’t think of a more delicious undertaking.

RECIPE: Persian Chicken Soup with Chickpea and Lamb Meatballs

RECIPE: Sabzi Khordan

RECIPE: Nan-e-Barbari (Persian Flatbread)

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For 'Top Chef' judge Nilou Motamed, the Iranian herb platter sabzi khordan is a way of life

Ever since the pandemic cooped us up back in March, beautiful, generous flurries of fresh, soft, fragrant herbs have felt like an antidote to everything awful. My kitchen windowsill has become a garden; next to the pots, lemongrass sprouts and flourishes in a vase. When I can make it to my favorite Middle Eastern grocery, I come back with armfuls of dill and tarragon; at the Asian supermarket, I bring back ridiculous volumes of shiso, Thai basil, mint. Because I’ve developed an acute fear of running out, I just installed an LED-powered hydroponic AeroGarden outfitted with dill, spearmint, thyme, parsley and two kinds of basil. 

Toss a handful of fresh herbs on the plainest dish — potato salad, hummus, grilled zucchini — and it instantly becomes gorgeous, alluring, uplifting and even life-affirming. 

Nilou Motamed on the stoop of her brownstone in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn | photo by Peter Jon Lindberg

So why not just eat herbs? That’s the idea behind sabzi khordan, the platter of herbs and accouterments that anchors every Iranian table. “It’s essential to any meal we have, always” says Nilou Motamed. Like just about everyone I know who cooks, the former editor-in-chief of Food & Wine, current “Top Chef” judge, global food and travel guru and co-founder of Story Collective has been planting herbs profusely. 

“Our entire fire escape is an herb garden,” she says, “something we’ve never done before.” 

Nilou also shows up early to line up for herbs from Lani’s Farm at her local farmer’s market in Brooklyn; she describes them as phenomenal. “Our farmers market has gotten really competitive, and she has cilantro I’m trying to sprout, with incredible, deep, almost anise flavor. It has a purple stem.” 

Nilou, who was born in Iran, grew up eating Persian food at home even after she moved with her family to New York when she was 13. Because of that, fresh herbs have always played an outsized, aromatic role in her life. (I’m calling her Nilou because I’ve known her more than 25 years, and referring to her by her last name just feels too weird.)

Herbs from Nilou Motamed’s fire-escape garden | photo by Nilou Motamed

She fondly remembers spending time back in Iran at her father’s family house in an orchard (“bagh” in Farsi) in the town of Hamedan, amid groves of sour cherry, apricot, plum, almond and walnut trees. They’d lay down a Persian carpet outside under a big shade tree and picnic on kababs made from a just-slaughtered lamb. 

“Coming from the mountains, there were these qanat that run through all the countryside — mini mini mini streams — and all these herbs, the mints and watercresses would grow there,” says Nilou. “We’d pick the herbs and put our bottles of Coca-Cola in the ice cold water and drink it with the kabab. There’s something about herbs that makes you feel like you’re connected to your environment.” 

Maybe that’s why herbs are speaking to us so sweetly just now — we need them to connect to the natural world. 

They’re celebrated lushly on the sabzi khordan platter, which generally includes tarragon, dill, parsley, mint, cilantro and reyhan (a family of basils that includes Thai basil), along with scallions, radishes and/or Persian cucumbers, feta cheese, and sometimes walnuts, is there to nibble on throughout any Iranian meal — including kabab, of course.

“On Friday, every family does kabab,” says Nilou. “It’s very basic; we don’t use a ton of spices. It’s beautiful grilled meat, very plain rice, the meat basted in butter and saffron, a great cut char-grilled on aromatic wood, and then with the sabzhi khordan, you can do whatever you want to create the flavors.”

But serve it with freshly baked nan-e barbari (Persian flatbread), and sabzi khordan can also be a meal in itself. 

I know what you’re thinking: Where are we going to get nan-e barbari, especially during a pandemic? 

“I cheat and make it with pizza dough,” says Nilou. “If you use a pizza stone, it’s amazing, and it’s so easy to make.” Five minutes to pull and stretch the dough onto the pizza stone or baking sheet, press in some grooves, brush with a yogurt wash and sprinkle on nigella and/or sesame seeds, then 20 to 25 minutes in the oven and you’ve got barbari.

We tested her recipe using a couple different brands, including Trader Joe’s, and it turned out stunningly well. 

Nan-e Barbari made from store-bought pizza dough. Really!

Once you’re at the table — with your splendid sabzi khordan and your golden, crisp barbari bread — the idea is to create the perfect bite for yourself or a tablemate. There’s even a word for that bite: loghme. “You put some feta cheese in the bread, and then whatever your perfect complement of herbs is — whether you’re a dill or a tarragon person, or you like both, maybe the little tail of a scallion.”

Treat yourself to one sabzi khordan fest, and you may find yourself hooked. The herb habit is truly addictive; if you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself scattering herbs over all kinds of dishes with abandon. Untreated, you may even turn into someone like Nilou, who will “literally buy bushels of herbs, and spend way too much time stemming and freezing. If you dry everything really well, and freeze them in Tupperware containers, they stay fresh. I’m like my own Jolly Green Giant.”

Go ahead. Treat yourself. Live a little. I’m pretty sure that even if the fix is fleeting, it’ll make you feel better.

Would you like a window on Nilou’s Persian cooking adventures? Follow her on Instagram @niloumotamed.

RECIPE: Sabzi Khordan (Persian Herb Platter)

RECIPE: Nan-e Barbari (Persian Flatbread)