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Nan-e Berenji

It is rice flour, and the cookies are kept white rather than allowed to brown.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (clarified butter).

Ingredients

Method

  1. IT IS RICE FLOUR, AND THE COOKIES ARE KEPT WHITE RATHER THAN ALLOWED TO BROWN. Its article describes them as rice-flour cookies, flavoured with cardamom, garnished with poppy seeds, formed into flat disks, and usually white, though sometimes tinted yellow. White is a baking instruction, not a description: they come out of the oven at the point where they are set and still pale, which is well before anything looks done. Baked to a golden biscuit colour they are overcooked, dry and wrong, and the poppy seeds on top are the only dark thing that should be visible.
  2. RICE FLOUR IS NOT INTERCHANGEABLE WITH CHICKPEA FLOUR. It is finer, bland rather than nutty, and it gives a sandier, drier crumb that dissolves rather than crumbles. The two cookies share a method and taste nothing alike.
  3. THE DOUGH IS MIXED AND THEN RESTED FOR HOURS. Butter beaten with the icing sugar, then the yolk and rose water, then the rice flour and cardamom. Then two hours in the fridge at least, and overnight is better: rice flour hydrates slowly and a dough used straight away bakes gritty.
  4. THE ROSE WATER IS THE LIQUID AND THERE IS NO OTHER. Three tablespoons. It is both the flavour and the only thing bringing the dough together apart from the yolk.
  5. THEY ARE FLATTENED INTO DISCS AND MARKED. Walnut-sized balls pressed to about eight millimetres, and usually patterned by pressing the tines of a fork or a small stamp into the surface.
  6. THE POPPY SEEDS GO ON BEFORE BAKING, PRESSED IN. Scattered and pressed lightly so they stay put, which its article names as the garnish.
  7. THEY BAKE AT 150C FOR AROUND FIFTEEN MINUTES. Low, so they set without colouring. The test is the edge: when it is firm to a light touch and the top is matt, they are done.
  8. THEY ARE FRAGILE AND LEFT TO COOL COMPLETELY ON THE TRAY. Like the chickpea cookies, they have no gluten and no strength while warm.
  9. THEY ARE ALSO ONE OF THE SEVEN NEW YEAR SWEETS, and its article records them keeping well, which is the reason given for their existence: sweets made with rice for travellers who needed food that would last.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes