a festive welcome drink and a free e-cookbook
When initially planning this festive post, I started writing about how after a long time it seemed we could, very cautiously, celebrate this holiday season in company, as it’s meant to be. Things however have taken a different turn, so fast, that this blog post too, like everything else in our lives had to adapt quickly to the fast pace of change.
We’re at the end of a very strange, very exhausting year, and I don’t know about you, but I myself have never felt more strange or exhausted. On one hand I do look forward to Christmas celebrations to unwind, on the other, can we unwind when we still need to be this alert? Nonetheless, we’re at last at what seems to be the Friday night of a very loooong work week that has been 2021, and we deserve a drink! A proper pomegranate aperitivo drink, whether to kick start your celebrations among guests or to sip on your own, if that’s your lot this time round.
“And speaking of feasts (and pomegranates), did you know I have made an e-cookbook of the recipes I’ve most taught during my Iranian cooking classes of winters past, and that you can download it for free?”
A Little Persian Feast is an easy to access, beautiful digital collection of recipes that you can download here for free to print out at home and keep in the kitchen, or pull up on your phone or computer so that you can throw a little Persian feast at home.
It’s also a perfect match for Yalda, the Iranian holiday celebrating the winter solstice (or the Yule, for my fellow witches.)
Yalda is the longest night of the year, and traditionally Iranians — for many centuries — have celebrated it in company of friends and family, often under a Korsi, which is a huge blanket you would put on a heater and cosy up around it, passing the hours away with stories and poetry reading, and munching on dry fruit, certain sweets, and for some weird reason watermelons (which were used to be stored in cellars since summer). But the true star of shab-e Yalda (the night of Yalda) is pomegranate, often peeled and seeded while telling stories. Naz Deravian, Iraninan-American author and food writer has written a compelling story for New York Times about the traditions and foods of this dear winter festival.
More Yalda inspiration can be found from this blog archives; this ever favorite recipe of chicken with pomegranates (I also nerd out about the connections of the winter holidays in this post, so have a read if that’s your jam), and this recipe for Turkish delights or the Iranian Baslogh, which doubles up nicely as an edible Christmas gift.
A few weeks ago, I spotted fresh pomegranate juice in the Campo de’ Fiori market. Squeezed the same way they do in Tehran, and Istanbul. It was a delight to sip on the tangy and slightly astringent ruby red juice under the blue skies of a wintery, but sunlit Rome.
Pomegranate welcome drink with sparkling wine
I’ve made this drink two ways: the second of which is slightly lighter on alcohol and perhaps advisable even for brunch. There’s no recipe really: in the first version there’s 1 part pomegranate juice, 1 part campari, 2 parts sparkling wine, with an optional dash of orange liqueur such as Cointreau. The second version has one part pomegranate juice, one part campari, one part tonic and one part sparkling wine, again with a touch of cointreau. It’s hard to quantify the exact amount of the sparkling wine because I mix everything else in a jug, fill half of each glass with it and top it with spumante (sparkling wine). Both versions have pomegranate seeds for garnish.
Serves a crowd of 8 - 10
About 8 oz (240 ml) fresh pomegranate juice , or the juice of 1-2 pomegranate
8 oz (240 ml) bitter (I like Campari)
3 oz (90 ml) cointreau
About 500 ml sparkling wine (spumante), or enough to top each glass
Seeds of ½-1 pomegranate
Chill all the juices, liquors and wine several hours before serving, since there’s no ice in this drink.
In a jug, mix the pomegranate juice, Campari and Cointreau and stir. You can keep this jug in the fridge until your guests arrive and you open the bottle of Spumante.
Fill half of each glass with the mix of pomegranate juice, then top with spumante in 2 steps to prevent the foam from overflowing. Top each glass with a teaspoon or two of pomegranate seeds and serve immediately.
Note: For a lighter version, pour 250-500 ml of tonic water into the jug of pomegranate and liquor mix and proceed the same way.
Yalda Mobarak and Merry Christmas! (And bright solstice!)
P.S. Unrelated location shots are from Palazzo Cozza Caposavi in Bolsena in northern Lazio.
