June’s KTC brought us together for a taste of the exotic. Damian and Frank invited the knowledgeable Clydia (whom I believe Jessica knows from dragonboating) to give us all a crash course in Persian food.
We certainly had a packed house: Nearly all our KTC’ers (we missed you, Joyce!), our guest expert in Persian food Clydia, our two auction winners Lillian and George, Frank’s and Damian’s houseguests Mifune and Paul, and their two impeccably-behaved kiddos, Ken and Marina. Whew!
On the menu:
- Dolmeh (Stuffed Grape Leaves)
- Homemade pita bread (woot! Recipe coming soon...)
- Saffron chicken
- Salat Shirazi (Traditional Iranian salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, parsley, lime juice, and olive oil.
By the time I remembered to pull out the camera, we’d already begun making the filling for the Dolmeh. Yellow split peas, onion, garlic, rice, lime juice, and a heckuva lot of parsley!!!
In a different corner of the kitchen, some serious salad-making was going on...
Clydia walked us through the process for filling and rolling the grape leaves, and she made it look REALLY easy...
Voila! Dolmeh, ready for a-steamin’! Note that some leaves have the veins rolled outside, and some inside. This was our very clever way to differentiate which dolmeh were made with
Homemade pita bread was next: The dough was put together and had rested and risen. The next step was shaping these small rounds of deliciousness for baking...
Holy cow, that's a lot of pita! (note the chicken marinating in the background, heh heh)...
We placed them onto a pizza stone and smeared the tops with a bit of olive oil. Then, and into a 500-degree oven they went...
We peeped through the steam to see that our pitas were puffing up nicely...
And we enjoyed a gorgeous (and delicious!!) finished product...
William enjoyed some fine American-style confections...
Paul’s and Mifune’s daughter, Marina, made a peel-able banana out of a paper napkin...
And their son Ken enjoyed the kitties...
Remember that chicken marinating on the counter? The menfolk, as I recall, put it on the grill in the backyard. Thanks to William’s fool-proof tip for how to determine when the chicken was cooked without being over-cooked, said chicken emerged looking as pretty as a picture. As THIS picture, as a matter of fact...
We prepared our serving platters...
The tables were set...
Every time I saw this guy I thought of Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli saying “Eeeeeeeeyyyyy!”
In addition to our aforementioned passel-and-a-half o' guests, to our absolute delight, we were able to add one more: Clydia's husband Ali was able to join us for dinner. Our efforts earned us an enthusiastic Persian thumbs-up, which was a lot of fun for all involved. We followed our extraordinary meal with some equally-extraordinary desserts:
Bread, baked with honey and cream (Author's note: I can die, now that I've eaten this!)...Here's the before photo (and yes, that is creme fraiche slathered all over the top!)...
And, after (YUM!)...
As you can see, bread baked with honey and cream was a popular option...
Also, Frank and Damian prepared a marvelous cardamom milk pudding (Extra yum!!!). There is no way to display how popular this pudding was, because there wasn't a gram of it left over - folks were sneaking pudding from the other table, and I saw more than one finger in the serving bowl. SO delicious!
Someone (who?) had also brought an impressive selection of Persian-style pastries, and somehow those M & Ms never managed to run out...
By the end of the evening, we were miserably stuffed. Even the kitty looks like he ate too much...
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