I know what you’re thinking: Enough with the chicken soup, already! Yes, yes — this is the third story in our series. (Here is the first, and the second.) The soup I want to tell you about now will be the seventh. That’s a lot of chicken soup.
But this is a very special chicken soup, and here’s why: Persian abgoosht-e morgh ba kofteh-ye nokhodchi — or chicken soup with chickpea and lamb meatballs — may be the most enchanting and elaborate chicken soup in the universe. Spending a cozy Saturday afternoon putting it together was probably the most enjoyable of all my myriad cooking adventures during the entirety of the pandemic so far. It was one of those experiences that reminded me how pleasurable the cooking itself can be — and how transporting.
If you like to cook, and to discover new flavors, new aromas, new worlds, I hope you’ll give yourself over to this one as well.
Consider the premise: You stuff a whole chicken with rice, spices and dried rose petals. (Rose petals!) Wrap it in cheesecloth, submerge it in a broth scented with cardamom, rosewater, saffron and more, and simmer it gently for an hour and a half. Remove the chicken and debone it. Then drop in meatballs you’ve made from ground lamb, aromatic spices, onion and chickpea flour. Chickpeas go in the broth as well, along with the chicken meat and stuffing, and all that wonderful stuff cooks some more.
Your home now smells heavenly, and for a grand finale, here comes a whopper of a flourish: Chopped mint or cilantro, plus garlic and more dried rose petals. You’ll pass that in a bowl around the table for everyone to add on top just before eating.
It’s one of the dreamiest soups I’ve ever had in my life. The meatballs are spectacular. The scents of rose and saffron and cardamom and cumin and herbs are intoxicating. The garnish sends it into a transcendent dimension.
There is one crazy thing you’ll have to do: Peel the skin off a whole chicken. It’s really strange if you’ve never done it, almost like undressing it. If that doesn’t sound up your alley, you can buy the chicken at Sara’s Bakery and Market in Richardson, where you’ll also find dried rose petals and saffron, as well as the best ground locally-raised lamb and chickpea flour for the meatballs. Ask at the meat counter for a whole chicken, and they’ll be happy to remove the skin for you.
After I made the soup and recovered from my saffron-and-rose-petal high, I wanted to learn more about the recipe, so I called Najmieh Batmanglij — the Washington, D.C.-based author of Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, in which I found it. The 1986 cookbook is widely considered to be the definitive tome of the genre; Yotam Ottolenghi called Batmanglij “The goddess of Iranian cooking.”
She and her husband fled Iran in 1979 during the revolution, relocating to Vence, in the south of France, where she wrote her first cookbook, Ma Cuisine d’Iran. Recently Batmanglij spent three years researching her latest book, Cooking in Iran, published in 2019. “I traveled all over Iran,” she said, “and I noticed they love meatballs.”
Talking with the author was nearly as much fun as making the soup. I knew from her headnote that it’s traditionally served by Jews in Kashan and Hamadan for sabbath dinner (those two cities are south and southeast respectively from Tehran), and that it was inspired by one Professor Abbas Amanat, who had gotten the recipe from his mother. He teaches history at Yale University.
She also revealed that she brought a couple of her own thoughtful touches to the dish — among them, deboning the chicken. “Traditionally,” she told me, “they use the whole chicken, and when they serve it, the whole thing is in the soup. Wrapping it in the cheesecloth, that’s my French background.”
Diluting the saffron in rosewater rather than plain water was her innovation as well, inspired by a technique she’d seen in a medieval Persian cookbook. The two ingredients together do something truly magical.
I made a couple of slight modifications of my own, including the option to use canned chickpeas rather than soaking overnight and pre-cooking dried ones. I also suggest passing the rose-petal-and-herb garnish at the table. Batmanglij’s recipe calls for stirring it all in before serving it.
Of course the author’s way is culturally correct. A soup like this, Batmanglij told me, is usually eaten “by people from humble backgrounds. They put the garnish on top, and they put the pot in the middle of the table, with plenty of bread. Serving individual things means more labor.”
For me, it’s a labor of love.
Former Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner, now a restaurant consultant, writes about cooking at Cooks Without Borders.
Persian Chicken Soup with Chickpea and Lamb Meatballs (Abgoosht-e morgh ba kofteh-ye nokhodchi)
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground saffron, dissolved in 2 tablespoons rosewater
1/2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, drained and rinsed (or 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained)
Chicken:
Whole chicken, about 3 pounds, skin removed
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried rose petals
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 cup rice
Meatballs:
1/2 pound ground lamb
1 onion, peeled and grated
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chickpea powder
1 egg, lightly beaten
Garnish:
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro or mint
1 clove garlic, peeled and grated
1 tablespoon dried rose petals
To make the broth: Pour 9 cups of water into a large soup pot with the onion, salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin, cardamom, saffron rosewater and dried chickpeas (if using dried). Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer while you stuff the chicken.
To stuff the chicken, first wash it and pat it dry. In a small bowl, combine the garlic, salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin, rose petals, cardamom and rice, and stuff the chicken with the mixture. Bundle the whole chicken in a large piece of cheesecloth and tie it shut. Gently submerge the chicken into the simmering broth, cover, raise the heat to high until the broth returns to a simmer. Turn the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours.
Remove the chicken from the broth, place it in a shallow bowl and untie the cheesecloth. Remove the stuffing from the cavity to a small bowl and set it aside. Remove the chicken meat from the bones, setting aside the meat and discarding the bones.
Make the meatballs: In a wide mixing bowl, combine the lamb, onion, salt, pepper, turmeric, cardamom, baking powder, chickpea powder and egg. Use two forks to mix it together for a few minutes, until you have a soft paste (do not overmix). With moist hands, shape the paste into walnut-sized balls and gently add them to the broth. Bring the broth back to a boil, add canned chickpeas (if using), reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
Return the deboned chicken to the pot, stir in the reserved stuffing and the chickpeas (if using canned), cover and simmer another 30 minutes.
While the soup and meatballs are simmering, make the garnish: Combine the cilantro or mint, garlic and rose petals in a small bowl. Serve the soup with the garnish passed around for adding to individual bowls.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
SOURCE: Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies
