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It’s how I came up with this green lentil, tomato and coriander soup/stew recipe yesterday. I’ve included quite a few exotic Persian soup recipes in Nightingales & Roses including the ones in the pictures below and a very exotic Persian Plum Soup with Fried Mint Topping here on this blog. Add the garlic and spices to the rest of the onions and cook for 2-3 minutes, then add the tomato paste and cook for a further two minutes. Add the lentils to the pot and cover with boiling water (coming up about 3-4 centimetres above the lentils).

Autumn is almost upon us and as usual when it’s getting colder I’ve begun craving the comfort of a rich sweet and sour quince stew spooned over steaming mounds of fluffy rice, Kkhoresht-e beh aloo to be exact. You’ve probably noticed that I’ve titled this recipe ‘Quince & Plum with Chicken Stew’ and might have wondered if it shouldn’t have been the other way round, chicken first. * If you can’t find Persian dried plums cook/roast half a dozen yellow plums, then peel, stone and puree. When the chicken is tender add the sauteed quince as well as the plums and some of their soaking liquid and the prepared saffron to the pan and cook until the plums are plump and the quince slices are almost tender.

Saffron, cumin and turmeric all work really well with cauliflower and the barberries and toasted slivered almonds I put in the ‘rice’ completely transformed it. It was quite appropriate to flavour cauliflower ‘steaks’ similarly to imitate the chicken that usually goes with zereshk polo, a Persian rice dish with saffron, barberries and nuts that was the inspiration for the ‘rice’. Heat one tablespoon of the oil on medium heat in a large non-stick pan and place the steaks in the oil. Add the prepared saffron, 3/4 of the barberries, 3/4 of the toasted nuts and 3/4 of the chopped herbs into the rice and gently mix and reheat.

It took very long to write about 150 recipes, test every recipe several times and to take photos of every single dish (I did the styling and photography myself). With the help of the brilliant Head of Zeus team (my UK publisher), we made the book into what I believe is a very comprehensive collection of authentic Persian recipes. but I wanted the book to only contain authentic recipes so the recipes in the book are quite different from most of what I have shared here. I’m so very excited and wanted to thank you, my dear readers, for giving me motivation by sharing the recipes of this blog on the social media.