Every once-in-a-while (and not enough, if you ask my girls) I like to play a game of spin the globe. Well, until I find a suitable, super-spinny old-school globe, we use this website. It’s pretty simple, wherever their little fingers land, I make a dish from that area. While I do my culinary research or cook, I have the girls do a little studying up on the geography. Then when we eat, we compare notes about what we’ve learned. It’s a very good way to get your children more worldly, learning different cultures, as well as a cool way to expand your food knowledge. I highly recommend it!
So, the other day, my older daughter selected a spot on land with her the first try! In that the world is nearly 70% water, it is common to land in the ocean, so keep going until you hit terra firma. She ended up in Rasmatabad, Iran, and to the interwebs I went researching cuisine. I’ll have you know that Rasmatabad’s population is a paltry 10 humans! I guess that should be expected for a town located in a wildlife refuge. So, I had to back out my research area a bit and went provincial and researched Razavi Khorasan cuisine. Mostly what I found was a dish referred to as Ash or Aush, a meal that is served all over Iran with regional variances. In this specific area, it’s mainly vegetable based and referred to as Asheh Reshteh.
I pulled a few articles and recipes together and assembled a recipe for you to try. This dish is rich, tasty, fragrant, soul satisfying and quite filling, even with no substantive protein. After the familiar scent of onions and garlic, once the turmeric heats in the pan, you know you are heading into more exotic territory and then when the herbs hit the enriched broth, you quickly and eagerly anticipate eating this amazing dish. Since I couldn’t easily obtain Reshteh (noodles), I went with thin egg noodles. If you can’t find those either, go ahead and use fettuccine. I couldn’t purchase kashk at my local grocer either, so I mixed together some sour cream and plain greek yogurt. You could also add lemon juice to sour cream.
Asheh Reshteh (vegetable and noodle stew)
The interplay of ingredients in this dish is nothing short of magical. Soft noodles, supple beans, juicy pomegranate seeds, tangy yogurt, charred onion, herbaceous and spiced stew with small bites of filling, earthy lentils that comforts you with every spoonful. If you must use canned beans, add them in with the lentils. They will absolutely not be as flavorful though. Trust me and get on the soak-your-beans-overnight train with me, already!
⅓ cup each of dried chickpeas and kidney beans
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 yellow onion, 1 red onion
8 cloves of garlic
2 tsp turmeric
4 cups of vegetable stock
½ cup of lentils
2 bunches each of parsley and cilantro, rough-chopped
1 bunch of mint sliced
20 green onions (green portion only- sliced in 2-3 inch lengths)
12 oz baby spinach
4 cups of reshteh or thin egg noodles such as kluski
1 cup of frying oil (vegetable or peanut oil)
2 cups of kashk ( or equal blend of greek yogurt and sour cream)
Soak your chickpeas and kidney beans overnight in salted water; drain and reserve.
Preheat a large pot with a ¼ cup of evoo. Sauté the thinly sliced yellow onion with a dash of salt until translucent. Then, stir in garlic until fragrant, for about a minute. After the garlic has become fragrant, stir in chickpeas, red beans, and turmeric and sauté for a few minutes until fully incorporated and fragrant. Add the vegetable stock along with 4 cups of water and a heavy pinch of salt and a teaspoon of black pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low, cooking for an hour, stirring every 20 minutes.
After an hour of simmering, uncover the pot and turn the heat to high. Stir in the lentils, followed by half of the spinach. Once the spinach has cooked down, add in the remaining spinach until wilted. Then, stir in the chopped herbs and green onions. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes have passed, uncover the pot and bring to a rapid boil. Stir in a tablespoon of salt along with the noodles, ensuring they’re submerged and continue to boil, uncovered, until the pasta is fully cooked (about 20 minutes). Be sure to stir occasionally so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. You will likely need to reduce the heat as time goes along. Once the pasta is done, taste for any additional seasoning needed for the broth.
Meanwhile, thinly slice the red onion and fry in 1 cup of oil in a preheated non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until crispy. Using a slotted spoon, remove and set aside the fried onions on a paper-towel lined plate. Mix the sour cream and yogurt together (if you don’t have kashk) and prepare the pomegranate seeds by slicing it in half (horizontally) and banging the exterior of the pomegranate with a large spoon, over a bowl, until the seeds fall out. Remove any white pith.
Plate the soup into bowls and garnish with pomegranate seeds, fried onions, the kashk or blended yogurt/sour cream and additional fresh mint or cilantro, if desired. _________________________ Copyright 2020, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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