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Yellow split pea and saffron stew with fried aubergine
Rich in Persian tradition: Yellow split pea and saffron stew with fried aubergine. Wash and soak the barberries for this dish in hot water before using them - they often have grit. Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/The Guardian
Rich in Persian tradition: Yellow split pea and saffron stew with fried aubergine. Wash and soak the barberries for this dish in hot water before using them - they often have grit. Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/The Guardian

Persian recipes from Mazi Mas: ‘Saffron is good for depression!’

Persian food is as rich in spice as it is in folklore and tradition. With an elegant touch, Zohreh Shahrabi’s cooking shows that each ingredient has a purpose beyond flavour, says colleague Niki Kopcke

There is something very special about cooking with others. It is in the kinship we find and the stories we tell that food changes from something our stomachs need to something our hearts crave. This, I think, is what sets Mazi Mas apart from other restaurants: we cook not just to feed, but also to narrate, and to unite.

When I stop by the Mazi Mas kitchen during prep shifts, I often feel like I’m walking into scenes of my childhood: women clustered around the kitchen table, heads bowed, absorbed in chatter. Someone offers tea and everyone pauses, rearranging; Zohreh, our Iranian chef, produces a sleeve of biscuits and hands it round. I decline tea, but she won’t let me have a glass of water because, she explains solemnly, cold water causes cancer. In an instant I am back in Greece with my godmother, sitting at the table as she stirs a pot of artichokes with lemon and gravely insists: artichokes cure cancer.

I love the mythology of cooking. Old wives’ tales are aptly named; it is women who have handed down the history of food, the oral traditions that weave recipes into rich food cultures. But as the old ways die out, sacrificed to mass production and the strains of modern life, we are losing the stories, too.

One of the reasons I started Mazi Mas was to keep these stories alive, and Zohreh’s are some of the best. Zohreh came to the UK from Tehran, Iran, a decade ago to study art. In contrast to many Iranian women of her generation, Zohreh’s mother didn’t want her daughter to learn to cook; she wanted her to have a career instead. But Zohreh loved cooking and learned anyway, eventually starting a small food business in Coventry, where she settled after moving to the UK.

Zohreh’s food is refined, beautiful, and full of rituals, folklore and meaning. “Saffron is good for depression!” she chants whenever she makes gheymeh bademjan, a stew of yellow split peas and tomato gently flavoured with saffron. There is always a little saffron left over at the end of cooking, and she pours hot water over it for us to drink as a tea, reminding us of its healing properties. At home, I do the same for my friends, doubtful of the advice, but savouring the story.

Zohreh Shahrabi of Mazi Mas: ‘You always know when Zohreh is in the kitchen because of her singing...’ Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/The Guardian

You always know when Zohreh is in the kitchen because of her singing. She is impossibly glamorous, with a voice to match: clear, lilting and wistful. She sings songs that rise and fall in a minor key, songs that you can tell are about romance without understanding the Farsi lyrics. They fill the kitchen as she picks dill for baghali gatogh – a lima bean stew – pausing every so often to offer other morsels of advice: “Dill kills fat. That’s why we use it in oily dishes.”

Persian cuisine is rooted in a medicinal understanding of food, she says. Each ingredient is used deliberately; it has a purpose beyond flavour, and can only be used in combination with certain others. She balks at the suggestion of parsley to garnish her mirza ghassemi, a wonderfully smoky dip of roasted aubergine and tomato. No no; only toasted garlic. And whatever its medicinal virtues, she’s right: it is perfect with a scattering of toasted garlic.


Smoked aubergine, tomato and garlic dip

Known as mirza ghassemi, this is a beautiful variation on baba ganoush. It will be best if you char the aubergines over a grill or direct flame, and let them go very soft.

Smoked aubergine, tomato and garlic dip. For convenience, you could buy a jar of smoky roasted aubergine from any Turkish shop instead of roasting them. Photograph: Elena Heatherwick/The Guardian

Serves 4 as a starter or side
2 aubergines
½ garlic bulb, cloves peeled and minced
75ml vegetable oil
½ tbsp tomato puree
3 tomatoes, blended to a pulp, or 1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 egg
Salt to taste

1 Smoke the aubergines: if you have gas, roast them directly over a medium-high flame until they are charred on all sides, then transfer to a bowl and cover tightly with cling film. If you don’t have gas, put them in the oven under a very hot grill, turning every so often, until they are soft and blackened on all sides. Once cooled, peel the aubergines, reserving the soft flesh and discarding the burnt skin.

2 Toast a good pinch of the garlic in a little oil until golden-brown. Reserve in a bowl.

3 Heat the oil in a pan and add the remaining garlic. Fry for 5 minutes, until just golden, then add the aubergine. Let it all cook another 5 minutes.

4 Season the aubergine with salt, then mix in the tomato purée. Add the tomatoes on top of the aubergine but don’t incorporate. Let everything simmer gently for 15 minutes before mixing.

5 Whisk the egg in a small bowl. Stir it into the aubergine mixture and mix well, letting the egg cook completely. Garnish with the toasted garlic and serve with good crusty bread.

Yellow split pea and saffron stew with fried aubergine

Gheymeh bademjan is my go-to main for vegetarian dinner parties. Serve with rice studded with pistachios and barberries for extra flourish.

Serves 6
1 tsp salt
1 large aubergine
A pinch of saffron
3 onions, finely diced
1 tbsp tomato puree
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground turmeric
1 tin chopped tomatoes
250g yellow split peas
6 dried limes
½ tsp black pepper
3 tbsp vegetable oil, plus more for frying
100g barberries
A knob of butter

1 Halve one large aubergine lengthwise, then slice each half lengthwise into three equal spears. Salt generously and leave to sit for half an hour. They will exude moisture; drain thoroughly and pat dry before continuing.

2 Prepare the saffron: grind the threads to a powder with a mortar and pestle, then transfer to a small bowl and pour over 3 tbsp hot water.

3 Fry the onion in the oil over a low heat until soft, around 10-15 minutes. Add the tomato puree and spices, the chopped tomatoes and then the yellow split peas.

4 Let the mixture simmer over a low heat until the yellow split peas are soft, then add ¾ cup water, the dried limes, the saffron water and black pepper. Reserve 1 tbsp saffron water for garnishing. Continue to simmer the stew for 15 minutes.

5 Heat the oil in a small pan to a depth of 2cm. Fry the aubergine in batches of 2-3 until golden brown. Drain well on kitchen paper. Top each portion of split peas with one aubergine spear, then sprinkle with barberries. Mix the melted butter into the saffron water and spoon over each portion. Serve with buttered rice.

  • Mazi Mas restaurant at Ovalhouse Theatre is open Wed-Sat 6-10 pm: call 07856658936 to book. mazimas.co.uk, @eatmazimas

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