Persian Peregrinations - 24th March 2018

Post date: 08-Mar-2018 12:56:36

PSC has amazing volunteer cooks from all around the world. We're incredibly lucky to have two of our cooks who are especially passionate about Iranian food … perfect excuse for a Persian supperclub! Join us on a journey to the land of pomegranates and Persian gardens, rose water and Rumi.

Persian food is unique, with its warming stews made from walnuts and huge handfuls of fresh herbs, and its sweets scented with bitter orange, rose and cardamom. Persian food has, over the centuries, influenced many other cuisines: it’s believed that Italian risotto, Spanish paella and Indian biryani all have their origins in the Persian pilaf. A heaven for food nerds!

Victoria Burrows runs a travel company that specialises in cultural tours to Iran - so she is definitely an expert! After working as a food and travel writer in Hong Kong and India for almost 15 years, she visited Iran where she fell in love with the country. She loved it so much she set up a travel company, Burrows &Bird, leading cultural tours there every Spring and Autumn.

She will be ably assisted by Daniel Vais, who works with people with Downs Syndrome both as a choreographer and stylist for a fantastic project called the Radical Beauty Project - and is an amazingly talented cook, not surprising given his extremely multicultural background.

On the menu will be:

Kashk-e bademjan – the delicious eggplant dip found all over Iran and enjoyed with freshly baked nan bread [V]

Shirazi salad – a refreshing salad from Shiraz, the city of poets, made from chopped tomato, cucumber, onion and radish with a mint and lemon dressing [VEGAN]

Borani-ye laboo – beetroot and mint yoghurt dip [V]

Gormeh sabzi – Iran’s unofficial national dish is a lamb stew scented with dried lemons and plenty of fresh coriander, parsley, chives and fenugreek leaves. Can be made in a VEGAN version –­ please let us know.

Fesenjoon – another classic of Persian cooking, this unusual chicken dish involves simmering ground walnuts for hours until they turn into a sauce almost like chocolate. The richness is balanced with a hint of sour pomegranate molasses.

Saffron rice – plain rice lifted with a hint of the Middle East’s most valued spice [V]

“Marmalade” rice – rice with sweet orange rind, pistachios and raisins [V]

Kuku-ye mahi – fish cakes with tamarind dip from Bandar Abbas, a coastal town in southern Iran where fish is part of the staple diet and kitchens are more aromatic

Persian love cake – this prose, lemon and cardamom cake is not strictly traditional, but true to the flavours of Persia … and oh so pretty [V]

Poached fig yoghurt cake – yoghurt cakes are a classic dessert from Tabriz, in the Northwest of Iran, where Turkish culture is more prevalent [V]

The cost will be £45 of which £35 will go direct to Medecins Sans Frontieres. Please email us on info@parkholmesupperclub.co.uk with bookings.