Khoresh Fesenjan

Techie Smurf told me about this Persian recipe.  He made it with duck for Rosh Hashanah.  It's a special-occasion recipe that I figured I could make for Chanukah with duck or turkey if I liked it with chicken thighs for myself.

Thus began my quest for the specialty ingredients.  Ralphs carries pomegranate molasses, so I didn't have to go to an ethnic store.  It's pomegranate season, but I know that Pavilions carries frozen arils if I ever want to make this when fresh aren't available.  I decided to get basmati for the Persian rice, as long as I was spending on this one anyway.  A $2 pack of chicken thighs turned into a $20 meal very quickly.  It really made me appreciate the way I have stocked my pantry with ingredients I use regularly.

Making this and the rice at the same time was a bit exhausting.  I was toggling between recipes on computer tabs, trying to get everything to finish at the same time, and blogging.  There were elements I could have prepped in advance, like both the onions and walnuts.  Once those are done, it's just putting everything in the same pot and simmering until tender.

I think this would have become even more tender if I had used bone-in chicken, either with or without skin.  I'll do that next time.  Using the boneless thighs was on my wish list for the month, before restocking during a very good sale on chicken dark meat.

And this is another one that's going to land you with a ton of pots and things to wash.  Not necessarily from the stew itself, but the food processor and everything that goes into the rice.  Plus, it was my challah baking day.  After a month or so of phoning it in, I was overdue for some elaborate recipes.

3 Tb vegetable oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1-1/2 C walnuts
1/4 C water
*4 chicken leg quarters (or 1 chicken, cut up)
1 C pomegranate molasses
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
pomegranate seeds for garnish

1.  Heat oil on medium-high in a wide skillet or large pot.  Add onion and cook until well browned, stirring frequently.  This isn't caramelized onions.  You want them fried.  It's going to take 15-20 minutes.

2.  While the onions are cooking, run the walnuts in the food processor until ground.  Slowly trickle in water to make a paste.

3.  Add chicken pieces to the pot and arrange the fried onions on top.  Smear with the walnut paste.  Pour in the pomegranate molasses, the generous sprinkle of sugar, and top everything with a dusting of salt and pepper.  Heat on medium until everything comes to a boil and the chicken starts to give up its juices.

4.  Cover pot, reduce heat to low, and cook until chicken is fall-apart tender.  Stir every fifteen minutes or so, to make sure the molasses isn't scorching and the chicken is basted.  This could take anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour, depending whether you use bone-in or boneless, skin on or off, etc.  My boneless/skinless thighs took a little more than half an hour to cook.  Also, I ended up with far more sauce than I expected.  Once the walnuts melt into the molasses and chicken fat, you're going to end up with a pool of gravy.  You can remove the chicken and turn up the heat to reduce it if desired.

5.  Serve chicken and sauce hot, with Persian rice and pomegranate arils to garnish.

Difficulty rating  :)