Persian Cooking: For a Healthy Kitchen

by Najmieh Batmanglij

Persian cuisine is exotic yet simple like a poem by Omar Khayyam, healthy yet colorful like a Persian miniature painting. It combines rice, the jewel and foundation of Persian cooking, with a little meat, fowl or fish; plenty of onion, garlic, vegetables, fruit, nuts, herbs; and a delicate, uniquely Persian mix of spices such as rose petals, angelica seeds, dried limes, candied orange peels, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin and saffron to achieve a delicious and balanced diet. Drawing on her 15 years of experience collecting and adapting authentic Persian recipes, and inspired by her years in Southern France and the United States, Najmieh Batmanglij has brought about a marriage of ancient Persian cooking, French Provencal food presentation, and contemporary American eating styles. The result is Persian Cooking for a Healthy Kitchen, 95 exquisite kitchen-tested recipes that are low in fat yet high in flavor--a feast for both the eyes and the taste buds--that meet the current health goals of limiting the calories from saturated fats. The recipes have been kitchen tested by both American and Persian chefs. They are intelligently written and easy to follow, one per page, each facing a magnificent photograph by the renowned French photographer, Serge Ephrahim.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Najmieh Batmanglij, hailed as “the guru of Persian cuisine” by The Washington Post, has spent the past 30 years cooking, traveling, and adapting authentic Persian recipes to tastes and techniques in the West. Her cookbook New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, was called “The definitive book of Persian cooking” by the Los Angeles Times; her Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey was selected as “One of the ten best vegetarian cookbooks of the year” by The New York Times; and her From Persia to Napa: Wine at the Persian Table won the Gourmand Cookbook Award for the world’s best wine history book of 2007. She is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier and lives in Washington, DC, where she teaches Persian and Silk Road cooking, lectures and consults with restaurants around the world. Her most recent book is Happy Nowruz: Cooking with Children to Celebrate the Persian New Year.

Reviews

[Peggah Ghoreishi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as expansive as Food of Life, this is a small cookbook with Persian dishes.
One of my biggest annoyances with this cookbook is the page dedicated to 'caviar'... which requires no preparation or cooking.
Another annoyance was that many of the pictures of the beautiful mixed dishes were presented with their ingredients separated. At least the dishes that I did recognize. While I am a first generation Iranian American, and a very picky eater, many of these dishes I've never seen at home, in Iran, or in a Persian restaurant.

There is also a slightly out of date list of Persian restaurants and grocery stores in the back of the book.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to get a book on Persian cooking after reading this amazing book called "Searching for Hassan". I know a little bit about Persian food from getting a book on Middle Eastern food last year, but I had no idea Iranians cooked so much with quinces and rhubarb, and that peaches originated in ancient Persia. The cookbook is about 15 years old, but I figure Persian recipes haven't changed in that amount of time. This book is an attempt to make Persian recipes more low fat, by using less butter and more olive oil and low-fat yogurt. I like that they had the English and the Farsi script/name for each of the recipes, and sometimes had a bit of history mixed in as well. I think the weirdest looking recipe in there was a Rice Stick Sherbert, which was essentially a rose water and lime juice flavored rice sticks that were frozen into a sherbert.
There were a couple recipes that I wanted to try out, namely the Persian Chicken Salad, Stuffed Cabbage Leaves, Baked Lamb, and Paradise Custard.

[Kathleen Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this cookbook at Yekta Market in Rockville, Maryland, where almost all of Najmieh Batmanglij's exotic ingredients are available. I brought it home to Temple, Maine, where they are decidedly NOT. Nevertheless, the book is a treasure. Delicious food comes from these recipes, even after local substitutions!
I learned:
a. to soak dried herbs before adding them
b. to use four times as much fruit in main dishes as I would ever have imagined
c. to serve whatever I serve, with the intent of its being enjoyed!
I just returned from a quick but fruitless check of the cookbook shelves (and stacks) -- I can't therefore end this review with the cheerful equivalent in Farsi of "to your good health, and enjoy it" which ends each recipe in this delightful book to read AND to cook from. One of my friends is doubtless enjoying it -- and waiting for erik(green plums) to come into season.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, all the recipes are wonderful, easy (though many time consuming) and turn out perfectly. We mostly make the koreshes, so those are the ones I know. Ignore the pictures which look nothing like the finished dish and often add extra ingredients.