Having eaten Persian food at countless dinner parties hosted by Parvine Latimore in Connecticut, I usually take advantage of my friend's fabulous knowledge of Iranian cooking and plan a special Persian dinner party for our Texas friends whenever Parvine comes for a visit. This year was no exception since Parvine had taken over my kitchen as I was still convalescing from some unscheduled surgery.
Cooking is even more fun for Parvine when there are extra people to enjoy the food. This particular dinner was served to 4th and 6th generation Texans who usually think of party food as barbecue, grilled Texas quail, or catfish. Never have I seen food disappear so fast! Although it was perfect for my diabetic meal plan, I was glad she'd made huge amounts of food as our Texas friends and my husband, all of whom do not have diabetes, were back for seconds.
For an appetizer, Parvine arranged a tray of small wedges of pita bread, feta cheese, broken walnut pieces, and fresh herbs such as sprigs of mint, basil, and parsley. Since a dinner party in her home and mine usually ends up with the guests gravitating into the large kitchen to chat while she (or I) are putting the finishing touches on the meal, she merely placed the large tray of appetizer ingredients and an assortment of beverages on a vacant kitchen eating bar for everyone to help themselves while they moved about the kitchen or sat on bar stools to chat while the cooking was finished. This is a familiar appetizer to my husband and me, and often is used by us for a quick lunch. You have to "guesstimate" your exchanges if you're on a diabetic meal plan, counting your carbs and exchanges as given with the recipe.
The main course is the Chicken and Eggplant Khoresht, one of my particular favorite Persian dishes, which is served with a side dish of basmati rice. The word "Khoresht" means "with rice." The dish then names the main ingredients of the dish, in this case chicken and eggplant. So Chicken and Eggplant Khoresht means chicken and eggplant with rice. You'll notice a very American ingredient in the chicken dish - mixed dried Italian herbs. Parvine uses a lot of this herb mixture in her cooking as it cuts down on keeping the many different dried herbs that one would normally use in Persian cooking, to just one jar. For the rice, Parvine uses imported basmati rice and cooks it in a special pot, which she's also equipped my kitchen with so she can prepare her special crusted rice cake whenever she's cooking in my kitchen. Since the pot is difficult to come by, I'm suggesting you use steamed basmati rice (even a domestic basmati rice works well). Remember that 1/3 cup of steamed basmati rice provides 15 g of carbohydrates or 1 carbohydrate (bread/starch) exchange.
Since the chicken looks like a picture on its serving platter, Parvine stacked the dinner plates near her seat at the dinner table and served up each person's plate with the rice and the chicken. The filled plates were then passed around the table until everyone was served. Seconds were on a "do it yourself" basis. With the dinner she served a delicious salad with her special dressing.
Dessert in Iran means fresh fruit, so she served a huge shallow bowl of beautifully arranged whole fresh fruit of the season - apples, pears, oranges, and Clementines or other loose-skinned tangerines. She offered small plates and small fruit knives with the fruit so everyone could peel and cut their own fruit.
Luckily I have some brilliantly colored placemats and napkins with a paisley design (very Persian) so she set my antique pecan dining room table with those and beautifully arranged low bowls of fresh flowers and candles for the centerpiece. I don't have any Iranian tapes or CD's so she selected some CD's by Enya that I happen to own to play as background dinner music.
Though much of the dinner conversation dwelled on Parvine's experiences as head of the Shah's television network, and her subsequent life in London and now in Connecticut, the weather outside and the unmistakable Texas twang of the guests reminded us that we were definitely in Texas, not Iran. But the food was pure Persian, prepared by one of the premier hostesses in Iran during the Shah's regime, later in London, and now Connecticut. More than one Texan was heard to exclaim that "this is food, I'd happily eat anytime" as they donned their Texas hats and bid us all a goodnight.
(for the recipes, click on the individual recipe above)
FTG
