Cooking in Iran: Regional Recipes and Kitchen Secrets

Najmieh Batmanglij was exiled from Iran 40 years ago. She was living in France where she did not speak thelanguage or have proper documentsand above all, she was pregnant. Out of a nostalgia and yearning to connectwith her roots, she wrote her first cookbook,Food of Life, as a kind of love letter to her children. She wantedto share with them all the good things she had experienced growing up in a traditional family in Iran.Over the years,Food of Lifehas been called the definitive book on Persian cooking by the Los Angeles Timesand the Persian cookbook Bible by Iranians and others. Food of Life was followed by six more cookbooksincluding Silk Road Cooking, which according to the New York Times, read like a good novelonce you start itshard to put down. But as she worked on these books at home in America, a fantastical dream took holda cravingto revisit Iran and celebrate the specialties and traditional dishes of each region.The challenges that faced heremotional, political, and logisticalwere daunting, but she felt she had to do it.She knew from her Silk Road research trip to China twenty years earlier that, under the bulldozer of modernity,Iran too would soon lose many of its traditional ways, special cooking techniques, and small artisanalworkshops. Najmieh was determined to capture and preserve them before that happened.After five years of overcoming obstacles, meticulous planning, and ten thousand miles of traveling the lengthand breadth of Irancooking with local cooks, visiting workshops, and developing recipesNajmiehs dream hasbeen realized with the creation ofCooking in Iran: Regional Recipes and Kitchen Secrets. This book is adistillation of those past five years. It is an authoritative exploration of a cuisine whose cultural roots areamong the deepest of any in the world.Najmieh takes us with her on an extraordinary culinary journey: from the daily fish market in Bushehr, on thePersian Gulf, where she and her host buy and cook a 14-pound grouper in a tamarind, cilantro, and garlic sauce,to the heart of historical Isfahan, in central Iran, where she prepares lamb necks in a yogurt, saffron, andcandied orange peel sauce topped with caramelized barberries. Traveling north to the Caspian Sea, she introducesus to the authentic Gilaki version of slow-cooked duck in a pomegranate and walnut sauce, served over smokedrice; and the unique flavors of a duck-egg omelet with smoked eggplant and baby garlic. Lingering in the north,in tribal Kurdistan, she treats us to lamb-and-bulgur meatballs filled with caramelized onions and raisins in asaffron sauce. Dropping south, to Bandar Abbas on the coast, she teases our palate with rice cooked in datejuice and served with spicy fish, while in Baluchistan she cooks spiced goat in a pit overnight and celebratesthe age-old method of making bread in hot ashes.At every village and off-the-beaten-track community, Najmieh unearths traditional recipes and makes surprisingnew discoveries, giving us a glimpse along the way of the places where many of the ingredients for the recipesare grown. She treks through the fields and orchards of Iran, showing us saffron being picked in Khorasan andpomegranates in Yazd, dates harvested by the Persian Gulf, pistachios in Kerman, and tea and rice by theCaspian.With more than 250 recipes and 450 photographs, this updated edition ofCooking in Iranis packed with inspiring ideas and practicaltipseverything youll need for recreating these glorious dishes so that you can embark on a culinary journey ofyour own.