Farewell to 2023!
Sweeten New Year's Eve with a Persian rose-water cream roll strewn with rose petals and crushed pistachios
Happy Friday, mirthful cook!
Only two days till New Year’s Eve, and I still don’t know what we’re cooking. Covid has caused our small dinner party to dissolve (sheesh — enough already!). We’re all fine at my house; it’s our would-be guests who are under the weather.
Just we three, then. We’ve considered duck, spoken about oysters, contemplated burritos. Ye olde jury is still out.
Last year we made a Persian feast — a fantastic braised lamb dish called khoresh, with an abundance of herbs: 4 cups of chopped parsley (if you can imagine that), a cup each of chopped chives and cilantro, a handful of dried fenugreek leaves. Also turmeric, cardamom, saffron, kidney beans and a lot of dried Persian limes. We served the saucy, sumptuous dish with chelow — saffron-steamed rice. We even got a little tahdig action going.
I haven’t yet posted recipes for those, but I will soon. I will tell you that finely chopping all those herbs is a lot of work.
The dessert that followed, however — a rose-water cream roll — is less work than you might think, and the wow factor is major. I’m a sucker for anything scented with rose water or orange blossom water, and this baby has both. Strewing it with dried rose petals and chopped pistachios makes it feel like a party on a plate. And yes — it’s wonderful with Champagne!
It’s adapted from Food of Life, Najmieh Batmanglij’s magnum opus.
To create it, you make a sponge cake batter, spread it on a sheet pan, bake it (it bakes in a flash), spread it with whipped cream flavored with the two blossom waters, plus sugar and vanilla, roll it up jelly-roll style, chill it, strew with petals and pistachios and slice. It’s very light and fluffy — like diving into a creamy bottle of perfume. Fun!
Here’s the recipe:
