Prepare for Nowruz with herbs to symbolize birth and renewal

In 1983, an Iranian friend took me out for my first taste of Persian food. The first thing we ate was sabzi khordan, the plate of vegetables, cheese, and herbs that often welcomes people at the table. To this day it’s one of my favorite flavor combinations. In his new book Bitter + Sweet: Global Flavors from an Iranian-American Kitchen, Omid Roustaei, takes that classic Persian spread and turns it into a bruschetta with a feta pesto decorated with thin slices of radish on top. 

It got me thinking about how food morphs through migration. Roustaei was born and raised in Tehran, and at the age of 17 he immigrated to Sedona, Arizona where he finished high school. He went on to a career in biotechnology, before reconnecting with his roots through food.

Evan Kleiman: You speak very movingly throughout the book about experiences you've had at different parts of your life. One thing that really hit me, given our politics today and how divisive everything is, is that at the onset of the Iranian Revolution, so much of the conviviality that happened around the table and with your family started to break apart. 

Omid Roustaei: It was particularly a difficult time. I think maybe a lot of folks can relate to that as what's happening today, here in the US, as just different political perspectives and taking sides. What was once a very tight knit network of friends and family became a little divisive, and a more divisive to such an extent where there were indeed family ties that broke and maybe never repaired. So that was one of the notable experiences when you have a sense of disconnection with your own family system.

"It was particularly a difficult time," says Omid Rostaei about the divisiveness between family and friends during the Iranian Revolution. Photo by Sama K Rahbar.

It must have been so hard and then leaving and being displaced as well.

It definitely was that. Obviously, you have some connection with your family, and when you leave and come to a whole new country without really any ties, and having to start all over again. For me, I came on my own, as a teenager, kind of navigating my way through the notion of belonging, really was always very important to me, given that I had struggles with family in Iran, then starting all new, brand new in the United States, without that sense of family, then seeking that connection. 

All of this, of course, it's just happening behind the scenes. You're too young to know what's really happening, and you're too busy assimilating into a culture. It wasn't really until many, many years later, that I realized, wow, there is such a price you pay for transporting yourself and starting somewhere new. Yet that kind of fundamental, underlying, primal need for all humans to belong and recognizing wow that is still so poignant and alive for me, even today, as we speak.

At the beginning of the book, you have a quote from novelist Marjan Kamali that perfectly describes these feelings of being part of two places. Could you please read it for us?

"She knew how to swing her legs on that hyphen that defined and denied who she was: Iranian-American. Neither the first word nor the second really belonged to her. Her place was on the hyphen, and on the hyphen she would stay, carrying memories of the one place from which she had come and the other place in which she must succeed."

In his cookbook "Bitter + Sweet: Global Flavors from an Iranian-American Kitchen," Omid Roustaei reconnects with his roots through food. Photo courtesy of Weldon Owen.

Way back in 1983 an Iranian friend took me out for my first taste of Persian food. The first thing that came to the table was sabzi khordan, the plate of vegetables, cheese, and herbs that often welcomes people at the table. I still eat it often for breakfast. Tell us what's usually on the plate and how it's eaten. Then share the great twist you have on it, where you fashion the ingredients into a bruschetta.

So sabzi khordan. Sabzi is herbs. Khordan is the verb "to eat." So it literally is "to eat herbs," and it's literally finding its way into breakfast, lunch, and dinner plate tables. Often, it is very flexible. At a basic level, you will want parsley. You will want some mint. You may incorporate some basil or dill or tarragon. Watercress. These are the primary herbs that you can arrange on a platter and then sprinkle feta, radishes, cucumbers, walnut pieces that are then often served with a flat bread. The tradition around it is that you tear a piece of bread, grab a bunch of herbs. There is no rhyme or reason, just grab a bunch of herbs and make mix and match to experience different flavors of the herbs with the crunch, the texture of the radish, and or the walnut.

I always thought it was so genius because you're creating your own recipe in your mouth.

I agree completely and every time I serve that in my classes, people look at it and it's like, "Is it just a bunch of herbs? What do I do with it?" And then, at the end of the class, I asked people, "What did you like? What really stood out for you?" Most people would say they were blown away by that freshness of the herbs that doesn't require a salad dressing. It's kind of like a salad without the dressing. 

For the book, I thought one thing I wanted to do is add a little twist to some of these recipes, some of these traditions. I thought what would make it more convenient and or maybe familiar to my American audience, to the American readers that know about herbs and know about bruschetta and know about the word pesto? How about I rearrange it and essentially make a feta pesto with a medley of herbs that then you can arrange on a lightly toasted baguette with olive oil? Then, you can, if you choose, put sliced radishes and cucumbers on top, and celebrate it and enjoy it as a very contemporary, cool appetizer or an item on your table.

So much of Persian cooking involves an extravagant amount of herbs but there are a few key pantry items that lend an absolutely unique flavor to dishes. Most of us these days are familiar with flower water, saffron, and pomegranate molasses. What are some others that we should seek out?

Brilliant. Golpar is the English name for Persian hogweed. Essentially, it is a flat seed pod that grows naturally in the Caspian Sea region of Iran. You would harvest that, dry it, and crush it into a powder. It is beautifully potent and a little goes a long way. Often, it is used as a sprinkling on top of the food. There is an Iranian tapenade with olives, walnuts, and pomegranate molasses that you finish with a dusting of golpar. We also sprinkle it on just pomegranates. 

It adds a depth of flavor that if you've never had it, I think you will be amused by its aroma and flavor. Is it sour? Is it bitter? I would qualify it more on the bitter and pungent side than sour. I think you'd just think of it in terms of adding a dimension. When I pass the jar around to my students to smell, they often think, how many spices are in here? Because it is that complex. It's just a singular item, but it has such a complexity of aroma that makes you think there's a blend of something.

Beyond golpar, there's kashk. I think you mentioned kashk is truly a beautiful experience. I love it, and I know some folks might struggle with it, because it is also very strong. Kashk is a way of preservation of milk that today, I think we can call it a fermented liquid whey sauce. I think it's a mouthful to qualify that way, but it is essentially something particularly tangy and salty. The best equivalent is maybe sour cream. For recipes that uses kashk, if it's hard to come by, experiment with yogurt and sour cream because at least it could give you that tartness and sour flavor.

Nowruz, the Persian New Year celebration, is coming up. It is such a rich tradition. There are two dishes that show up on every table during the holiday, Āsh Reshteh and Sabzi Polo ba Mahi. Can you tell us about both of those dishes?

Absolutely. What's in common between these two dishes are both the ingredients and the symbolic references. They both have herbs. Herbs for us are, beyond the fact that they are omnipresent and used in vast quantities, a reflection of birth and renewal and sprouting and beginning anew. So Āsh Reshteh is a very thick soup that the language, the word we use for it, is āsh. It’s with a medley of beans and lentils and noodles. Think of it much like a linguine noodle that with a ton of herbs that kashk that we were talking about earlier, is the signature component of it that gives that tangy, salty base to it and all the āsh is then decorated with caramelized onion and garlic chips and a mint oil sauce that we drizzle on top, and the noodles, much like many other cultures, are really symbolic for good fortune, reflecting life's path and and how relevant that is for the new year. That's one that is often served during the 13th day of Nowruz celebration. 

The other one is sabzi polo. Sabzi, again, is the word for herbs. Polo is rice. That has a medley of herbs layered with rice and often is served with fish. Fish, once again, is a symbol of rebirth and renewal, fertility, and along with the herbs, is a dish that most Iranians will have on the eve of Nowruz, the night before the Nowruz, arrival of Nowruz.

Āsh Gholvat, a light potato egg drop soup, is a quick and easy meal to prepare on a weeknight. Photo courtesy of Weldon Owen.

Āsh Reshteh is a famously filling soup. For something a bit lighter, tell us about the potato egg drop soup. It looks so delicious.

Thank you. I love that you picked up on this āsh. It is one that I never knew about. The story that I share in the book is that during the peak of the pandemic years, I started being particularly active on Instagram, and I started cooking Iranian food with a lovely friend in Tehran, and we would each week present different dishes as a way of keeping ourselves preoccupied, as well as demonstrating the cuisine of Iran.

In my pursuit of what am I going to cook, with my friend, I came across an old Iranian cookbook in Persian language, which I often have struggled reading. But nonetheless, I found this soup, and I realized, wow, it is much lighter than some of the other āsh that tend to be both heavy in ingredients and also much heartier, and it takes much longer to prepare. To this day, that has become my favorite āsh  that I tend to make a lot more actually than Āsh Reshteh because it's quicker and easy to prepare for a weeknight.

What are some of the ingredients? Give us an idea of how it's made without getting into big detail.

Sure, and no surprise, there will be some herbs. I use parsley, cilantro, dill, and there's always some kind of an onion family present, be it chives or green onions. That's the base. The other part that is a bit unusual for Iranian cooking is that we swap out the kashk or the broth with milk. Often, Persian food does not use milk, so the base is in milk. Then you float some Yukon Gold or whatever potato you have on hand, dice it up and thicken it with a little bit of rice flour, and cook it until the potatoes are cooked. Then you drop some eggs in there and to each their own. If you want to scramble them in there, that's fine. If you want to poach it in there, that's fine. I typically just lightly beat the eggs and drizzle it in there to create these beautiful little strands of eggs in the soup. Then you top it with, if you happen to have, caramelized onion and garlic chips. Then you have a full meal, really, within an hour.

At the back of your book, you have an acknowledgement section to thank people who have helped and inspired you. Pat Benatar is the last entry.

It is true. What can I say? I love Pat Benatar. I saw the "Love is a Battlefield" video when I was living in Germany, right after I left Iran. Such a difficult, strange time. And yet, there was this music, this person I just fell in love with, with her, and fast-forward now we're both 40 plus years older, and I see her every year, and for as long as she can sing and go on stage and be this marvelous rocker, I will be there.