Day into night at home / 12

A dose of celebration for cooking at home!

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This week's menu is partially inspired on Nowruz or Persian New Year, which falls each year on the Spring equinox. I wasn't familiar with this celebration until a few years ago when I helped my friend Tessa cook a springtime party that coincided with Nowruz. Tessa designed the menu on her food memories from living in Iran as a kid while her dad was on sabbatical there. That night we served Faloodeh for dessert.  

 

Faloodeh, this week's dessert, is kind of like a granita made with rice noodles and rose water infused sugar syrup. When it was first described to me I thought I might find it a tad too sweet, but the rice noodles and all the garnishes one adds at the end make a very balanced, pretty, and texturally wonderful dessert. I encourage you not to skimp on the toppings as they make the dessert extra fun and special.

 

The spring equinox marks the return of longer days, and while the weather is not quite warm yet it feels like more relaxed meals are in order.

This week to start, roasted scallions with beet romesco— my take on Calçots with romesco, a simple and delicious dish from Catalonia. Romesco is traditionally made with tomatoes, peppers, nuts, and bread. It's a rich, creamy sauce that has a mysterious earthy vibe. It's subtle, almost chocolatey earthiness, led me to make it with beets a few years back and I've never looked back. I love beet romesco on so many things, and have included lots of suggestions for it in the recipe description. 

 

For the main course roasted lamb shoulder with an herby cucumber yogurt sauce called mast-o-khiar, and flatbreads. The idea here is to serve everything at the same time. Scoop up some lamb with a piece of flatbread, smear some flat bread with romesco and tuck a roasted scallion in there, dip the flat bread into the mast-o-khiar. Set everything on the table and spend the meal picking at everything and enjoying the company. 

 

A few notes on the menu:

You will need to start working on some of the recipes about 3-4 hours before dinner. Most of the work-time on these recipes is passive.

The recipe for the flat bread makes 8 pieces, you will probably want 3-4 pieces a person, so if you are more than two double up on the recipe.

The lamb is plenty for 2-4. You'll need to roast it for about three hours before dinner time and it's best to season it early in the morning or the night before.

 

Happy Spring equinox! xx Ana

 

 

Menu breakdown:

• season your lamb the night before or morning of 

• about 3 1/2 - 4 hours before dinner take the lamb out of the refrigerator and let it loose it's chill. This is the perfect time to mix the flat bread dough and make the faloodeh

• turn your oven on and roast the romesco veggies. you can foorget about them in the oven for awhile. 

• 3 hours before dinner start roasting the lamb. It's okay if the veggies are still in there

• Once the flatbread has doubled in size, shape it and proof again 

• Check on the faloodeh and scrape it with a fork

• clean up a little

• check on the veggies— are they soft?

• make the mast-o-khiar

• make the romesco

• clean up a little

• when the lamb is done turn up the oven to 400 and roast the scallions

• scrape the faloodeh again

• put all your sauces in bowls 

• make the flat bread

• serve!

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