Silk Road & N. African vegan & vegetarian recipes for the coming spring season

Regardless of your faith or ethnicity, try these recipes and enjoy these traditional delights of the Silk Road, Persia, and N.W. Africa. Leave out the yogurt garnish for the holidays when you're not allowed to eat fermented products on Passover, for example kefir, cheese, Japanese-style tempeh, Chinese-style tofu, almond cheese, or other cultured milks, fermented nut milk substitutes, or soy products.

If you celebrate Easter or other holidays, try these recipes for variety. It makes no difference what your ethnicity is. The vegan and vegetarian-style foods can be adapted for anyone's holiday events.

Regardless of your ethnicity, you can find these vegan and vegetarian spring holiday recipes appealing with their exotic spices, ground pistachio nuts, rice, vegetables, and fruit combinations. Examples might include flax seed meal, ground nuts, carrots, and potatoes.

Along the Silk Road, you'll find similar Passover and other holiday vegan feasts for numerous ethnic groups in the Persian style from the Caucasus to Azerbaijan. When some of the Jews (called Mountain Jews of the high Caucasus) migrated from Persia in 700 BCE to settle in the Caucasus mountains, some of their traditional recipes focused on numerous vegetarian entrees for Passover in the Mizrahi style, which differs from the Ashkenazi style of Passover cooking.

Here are some Persian Passover gluten-free vegan recipes for your spring seasonal seders or for any ethnic group, Easter season snacks and vegan meals or plant-based foods of the Silk Road. The idea is to serve a vegan or vegetarian entree for whatever early spring seasonal holiday you celebrate between the beginning March and the end of April.

Let's call this a Mizrahi version of Ashkenazi kugel. Without matzo meal, eggs, or potato starch, it's also favored among some of the Krymchaks of the Crimea, and it's also gluten-free. You can find the zatar and sumac spices in any Middle Eastern or Mediterranean-style grocery. (Looking for a paperback time-travel novel similar to this type of  ambiance? Check out this novel set in the medieval Caucasus in the time-travel adventure novel, Adventures in my beloved, medieval Alania and beyond.)

Persian Variation of Kugel (served with pomegranate punch)

Serves a dozen people.

Ingredients

2 large onions, diced

Garbanzo/Chick Pea Patties ( or fava bean tameya)

2 cups cooked or canned (drained and rinsed) chickpeas/garbanzos

1 clove of peeled garlic

1 tablespoon of tahini paste or ground sesame seeds to a paste consistency in a blender or food processor. You can blend chick peas with a little water or  a little olive oil, grape seed oil,  or sesame seed oil to form a paste consistency or use raw tahini paste/sauce. Or make your own tahini paste by liquefying sesame seeds to a paste consistency in your blender with some water, lemon juice, and/or oil.

1/4 teaspoon of black pepper, celery seed, or any other spice you prefer

1/2 teaspoon red cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon of honey (optional)

1/2 teaspoon of turmeric

1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander

1 teaspoon of cumin

1/3 cup of chopped fresh dill or cilantro

2 cups of healthy oil for frying such as olive oil, macademia nut oil, grapeseed oil, rice bran oil, or sesame seed oil.

1/2 cup of sesame seeds

2 tablespoons of ground, milled flax seed and 3 tablespoons of water

Garnish: chopped parsley, cilantro, basil, and mint or plain nonfat yogurt.

Matzo for eating with the patties. You can substitute cooked fava beans (tameya) for the chick peas. But if you're allergic to fava beans as many people are, use chick peas/garbanzo beans.

Method:

Combine all ingredients except the garnishes in your blender or food processor.  Pulse until you have a soft patty. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or overnight. In a deep wok, skillet, or frying pan, heat up a cup or two of oil over medium heat.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Spread the sesame seeds on a plate. Place a bowl of warm water next to your cooking area to wet your hands. Separate the dough into lumps the size of walnuts. Flatten each lump of dough in your palms into a patty the size of a burger.

Fry the patties for three minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Add more oil when necessary. You may have to use 2 cups of oil for all the dough. Each patty should be covered with oil. When light brown on each side, remove the patties and drain on paper towels.

Arrange each of the patties on a serving dish. Garnish with parsley, basil, mint, and serve with warm matzoh and yogurt or kefir. This is in the Silk Road tradition for Passover. If your Ashkenazi tradition forbids the use of chickpeas on Passover, save this recipe for Hanukkah. However, since the usual leavening has been left out of the chick pea dough that would be used on days other than Passover, it is used by some Mizrahi on passover from the Caucasus and Silk Road locations.

The non-Passover recipe adds baking soda leavening to this recipe. However, on Passover, the baking soda leavening is left out. Asheknazi customs, of course, are different when it comes to serving garbanzo/chick peas on Passover.

Mizrahi and some Sephardic Passover traditions also allow rice to be served on Passover. In the Mizrahi tradition of the Mountain Jews, Azeri, and Persian styles, the brown rice served as a side dish with this vegan feast would be Persian saffron rice with chelow (golden crust).

To make this saffron rice dish, cook 3 cups of washed, long-grain Basmati brown rice in 8 cups of water. Add 1 cup of nonfat plain yogurt to the cooked rice. Dissolve 1/2 teaspoon of ground saffron threads in 2 tablespoons of hot water. Mix the saffron into the cooked rice.

If you want a crust on top of your rice, (the chelow) then whisk 3/4 cup of nonfat yogurt with 1/4 cup of oil, 1 tablespoon of saffron, 2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds with a little water, and a few tablespoons of the cooked rice and spread this on the bottom of a pan. Then put the rice on top of it and bake the rice until the rice and yogurt mixture on the bottom of the pan forms a crust.

If you're not making a vegan meal, two beaten eggs or egg whites can be mixed into the chelow/rice crust mixture before baking on the bottom of the pan. This forms a thicker golden crust. Add saffron and water mixture (dissolved saffron) to this crust mixture before baking.

Bake the rice until a golden crust forms on the bottom of the pan. Then turn the rice mixture upside down so that the golden crust is on top. Cut into squares. Remember that Ashkenazi customs on Passover do not include rice dishes. Mizrahi and Sephardi Passover customs include rice. If you don't want a rice crust, substitute six layers of spinach or collards (stems removed) fitted into the bottom of the pan. But the rice crust is more aesthetic than the baked lettuce.

Variations include rice and cardamom (kermani polow with saffron and pistachios) in the Persian, Azeri, and Caucasus Mountains tradition. As condiments, you'd add a tablespoon of organic rose petals and a cup of fresh, chopped dill. Chopped almonds may be substituted for pistachio nuts.

Passover rice dishes in the Mizrahi and Persian traditions as well as the Azeri and some of the Caucasus Mountains and Krymchak traditions may also mix ice with 4 cardomom pods, crushed, and 1/4 teaspoon of saffron threads dissolved in 2 tablespoons of water to add to cooked rice. The rice can be cooked in vegetable stock. Use brown basmati long-grain rice because it has more nutrition than white rice.

Serve fresh fruit for dessert such as dark cherries and blueberries, strawberries, or apples baked in pomegranate juice. The Ashkenazi may serve carrot tzimmas for Passover. But the Mizrahi along the Silk Road traditionally eat carrot palov with cumin.

To make Silk Road Passover Palov with Cumin, use short grain rice. In a nonstick pot or wok, heat a tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Add a handful of almonds and currents (raisins and almonds are familiar to Ashkenazim).  Stir fry the almonds and currents in the wok and set aside after draining off any oil on paper towels. But save the oil in the wok, skillet, or frying pan.

Add a pinch of cumin and cook for a few seconds, until you smell the perfumed aroma. Use a cover if the cumin seeds start to pop at at you. Add a handful of chopped onions and fry for 10 minutes or more until golden brown.

Add a cup of chopped or shredded carrots along with 1/2 seeded red bell pepper. You can also add a pinch of cayenne or chopped, seeded serrano chili.

Add two cups clean, washed, long-grain brown Basmati rice. Stir fry for a few minutes. Then add a pinch of turmeric and some water to cover the rice. You can substitute 1/2 teaspoon of saffron dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water for the turmeric or use both.

Add 2 cups chopped fresh cilantro just as the rice is about to finish cooking. About 3 cups of water may be needed to soften the rice enough for cooking until chewy. Simmer the rice for 30 minutes. To keep the cilantro fresh and crisp add it only as the rice is done. Add to the cooked rice a handful each of chopped almonds, currents, and any other chopped green vegetable you prefer such as parsley or spinach along with the cilantro.

Serve with fresh sliced or chopped tomatoes and sliced cucumbers. If desired, add 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves, and 2 pinches of ground cardamom. This variation also is known as Chahar Masala. Enjoy a Silk Road Passover in the Mizrahi style. The vegan-style Passover feasts of the Silk Road are traditionally served with pomegranate punch.

Pomegranate Punch for Passover with Rose Petal Extract (Water)

To make Silk Road Passover pomegranate punch, mix a quart of pomegranate juice with your favorite spices such as cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, and lemon-tasting tart sumac spice. For a slightly peppery zest, you can add a pinch of ginger.

Or serve a punch made of pomegranate juice and a teaspoon of chopped crystallized ginger topped with a pinch of almond meal. Also you can mix rose petal water with pomegranate juice, about 1/4 cup of rose petal extract to a quart of pomegranate juice.

The pomegranate juice also may be mixed half and half with dark red cherry juice topped with a sprig of mint. Or you can mix dark purple grape juice with pomegranate juice. Another version is to mix a quart of pomegranate juice with 1/4 cup of lime or lemon juice and float dehydrated nectarines on top.

If you're looking for Persian-style and Silk Road area recipes, try the book, Silk Road Cooking, A Vegetarian Journey, by Najmieh Batmanglij, 2004. (Mage Publishers, Washington, DC).This wonderfully illustrated cookbook is chock-full of vegetarian recipes in the Silk Road adventure style of cooking. Excellent for ovo-lacto vegetarians.

Try the stir-fried celery roots or the chickpea vegetable fritters, and the Armenian bulgur and pomegranate stuffed with grapevine leaves in this book of recipes. You mix lentils with bulgur wheat, pitted prunes, spices, mint, parsley, and pomegranate paste with lime juice and chili flakes in the sauce. It's on page 84, under the "salads" chapter. It's great. When you're allowed to eat fermented items again, try the yogurt and cucumber cold soup with walnuts and rose petals on page 100 of Batmanglij's book.