Fabulous Fesenjan Recipe: Little Work, Big Flavour

Turks are very fond of pomegranates. They use them in lots of dishes and in lots of different ways. Pomegranate vinegar, pomgranate juice, pomegranate molasses, and just plain old pomegranates to eat. (Laurel spent a long hour pulling one apart, and she recommends leaving this to the professionals!) We are also fond of pomegranates. In the U.S. they were expensive and hard to find, but here they are on every street corner, and cheap. So on our very first day, we got a giant bottle of pomegranate molasses. Why? Because it is the key ingredient in one of our very favourite pomegranate dishes, fesenjan.

We know fesenjan is not a Turkish dish (it’s Persian). But – although we are not yet sick of Turkish food – we couldn’t resist making it our first week here, and then making it again recently. We first tried fesenjan in Tallahassee, at the much-loved International House of Food. Fesenjan is a long-cooking stew often reserved for special occasions. You can make it with duck, chicken, or beef, and serve it over carbohydrates or greens (traditionally, long-grain rice).

Proper fesenjan can take all day to make. We’ve got that kind of time on our hands, but we are impatient and lazy. So we’ve simplified the traditional recipe drastically, with minimal impact on its taste. Full-on fesenjan falls off the bone, but this much-faster version will have you eating in less than an hour.

You Will Need

No equipment beyond our kitchen essentials. Serves 4 and takes about 45 minutes to make. Easily doubled.

• 1½ lb/ 3/4 kg boneless skinless chicken thighs and/or breasts, trimmed, washed, dried, and salted
• 2 T (14g) unsalted butter and 3 T (21g) virgin olive oil (or 5T/35g of either)
• 1 large onion, quartered and thinly sliced
• 2 t/9g black pepper, or more to taste
• 2 cups/500 ml chicken or vegetable stock (we use cubes dissolved in boiling water)
• 3 large handfuls walnut pieces (don’t tell anyone, but we’ve used other nuts in a pinch: cashews, hazelnuts…)
• 5 T /35g pomegranate molasses
• 2 T/14 g honey or sugar
• large pinches of turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg if you have them (no big deal if you don’t; we sometimes add oregano or another herb instead)
• Garnish: fresh pomegranate arils, parsley, reserved walnuts.

Directions

Preheat the oven if you will be toasting walnuts in it.

In your larger frying pan on medium-high heat, brown the chicken pieces, about 3-4 minutes each side, in half the butter and 1/3 the olive oil. Remove them and place on a plate to drain, leaving the juices.

Add the remaining olive oil and butter into the same pan and melt, then add the onions and black pepper and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent and starting to turn brown. This should take about 5-7 minutes.

While the onions are cooking, cut the walnuts into smaller pieces (if you have the equipment, you can use a grinder or a mortar and pestle). Be sure to reserve about 1/5 of the total in larger pieces for garnishing. Toast all the walnuts either in the oven or in your smaller frying pan over low heat, about 3-5 minutes. The walnuts should change in colour, but not too much. [We cut before toasting to save time.]

Once the onions are ready, add the stock. Boil away about a third of the liquid, then lower the heat to medium.

The chicken should have cooled down by now. Cut it into bite-sized pieces and add. Add the pomegranate molasses, honey, smaller walnut pieces, and any additional spices or herbs. Mix well and cook over medium-low heat for about ten minutes. Check the chicken for doneness. If it is done and you want a thicker sauce, remove the chicken and boil the sauce down.

Serve your fesenjan over rice, garnished with pomegranate arils, parsley, and/or walnuts.