The beautiful dish is one the oldest and most authentic persian dishes. This dish actually originates from my part of the world in Iran, the north right under the Caspian sea also known as Gilan province. This recipe is one that has been made in my family for decades and my grandmother, who is also named after the province Gilan, is an absolute master at perfecting this dish. Her talents have therefore passed onto my amazing mum who has helped me measure everything and create this recipe step by step for Peanutswirls.
Don't be fooled by the colour of this dish, I don't think I have personally seen anything like it and the initial reaction for anyone who sees it for the first time is 'oh wow a black/brown stew', but when they try it they always follow it up with 'wow I wasn't expecting that'.
To break it down, it has a few of the most nutritiously valued ingredients. The base of the sauce is made with completely ground walnuts, a lot of walnuts, no lumps and pumps, no graininess. After speaking to a few Iranian foodies we all agreed the fact that it is extremely frustrating when this dish is by non Iranian chefs or content creators and the texture is always grainy because the walnut hasn't grinned enough. Back in the olden days this would be done with a very large mortar and pestle and they would get it to become super smooth. In today's day and age however, with so many food processors on the market we have no excuse, it just has to be done right.
The second most important component of this dish is the molasses. Now lets speak about pomegranate molasses, the truth is that this dish traditionally is not made with pure pomegranate molasses. Till this day, once a year my mum is sent her portion of molasses from Iran. A distant aunt of hers cooks this molasses from scratch on her farm where she has endless pomegranate and sour plum trees. She has other fruit trees too and the fruit of those trees are also used in the process of cooking this molasses but she has never given her full secret away. I personally visited her farm with my mum ervery year when she would go to pick up her 1kg of molasses. Yes she cooks in tons, the entire city and the surrounding region shop from her, her molasses travels the whole world all the way t the US and Australia and almost every year her molasses is sold out before she has even started the process of cooking it.
The most beautiful part of this process is that this now very old lady has over 10 children and many many grandchildren, who travel to her every year to help her make the molasses, it takes days to prepare and many days to cook drain etc. so it becomes a big family affair but most importantly a way to create wonderful memories.
In the western world feel free to purchase the best quality pomegranate molasses to use for this recipe. Something as pure as possible with at least sugar as possible.
In this recipe I used the homemade molasses I mentioned above, so of course it is a lot more concentrated and darker in colour. A shop purchased molasses will not give you the same result, a higher quantity will certainly have to be used. Start by using 1/4 of a cup, wait for the Fesenjan to boil for at least 10 minutes before deciding whether to add more pomogranate molasses. As the longer the stew boils the darker it will become in colour.
Note - The final colour of the Fesenjan will always depend on the amount and the quality of the pomegranate molasses used. You should aim for a colour ranging from a dark brown to black line mine in the photographs.