SC - My upcoming feast

[Rosalyn MacGregor]

>This actually makes a fair amount of sense when you consider that at one
>time India and Persia were, effectively, one country. 

The Persia-India connection rings a bell, but I had forgotten about that.  Thank
you!  That makes other things clearer, too.  Many of the dishes look like Indian
dishes.  For instance, the previously-mentioned chicken fesenjoon is chunks
of chicken in a thick sauce, spooned over rice.  And they made ground-meat kabobs,
a style I've only seen in Indian restaurants before.  I noticed those similarities,
but didn't make the actual connection.  Now, I wonder why the Persian food is
so very un-spicy? 

>Kateh! 

That's it - I couldn't think of the word.  Thank you!  When she put it on the
table, she didn't name it, but she explained it.  I remembered what it was from
a review of this restaurant that I'd read, but I couldn't remember the name.


>I've
>actually seen recipes for this, more or less cheat versions that are
>specifically made as kateh, rather than as a by-product of cooking pilau.

The review article said that every cook has her own trick for making it.  Some
stir in some yogurt and saffron, others an egg, some line the bottom of the
pan with lettuce, pita or other things to make a base.  It said that this restaurant
used pita, but the kateh that we were served had no such base.  It was a crispy
rice pancake.  It was really neat!

>Me, I'm a sucker for sizzling rice soup, which involves taking the
>cooled fan deoh (which lifts off pretty easily in a sheet once it has
>fully cooled), breaking it into pieces, and deep-frying them before
>dropping them, still hot, into the soup, which then hisses at you while
>you eat it. This dish is therefore not allowed at our house for New Year's...


Ooh, that sounds good!  I wonder if any restaurants in the Philadelphia area
serve that?

- -Magdalena vander Brugghe