Bita and Beata have been looking for a Persian vegan food enthusiast to support you with recipe substitutions while keeping classic flavors and nutritional balance in mind. They found her in Elham! Special guest Elham shares her journey into the vegan lifestyle. The interview covers tofu, beans, and legumes as excellent protein-rich meat substitutions in stew. Beata is desperate to experiment with the can of jackfruit! What will she do with it?! Does Elham miss eating kabab? Listen on to find out.
Elham asks the Beats, “cooking Persian food can be a labor of love and very time consuming – do you have any strategies to cook Persian faster and easier?” The Beats love this question and each give insights on how to take shortcuts to make Persian food happen even on the witchiest of busy nights.
Find Elham at:
Elham الهام (@plant_basedpersian) • Instagram photos and videos
All Modern Persian Food podcast episodes can be found at: Episodes
Co-host Beata Nazem Kelley blog: BeatsEats – Persian Girl Desperately Addicted to Food!
Co-host Bita Arabian blog: Oven Hug – Healthy Persian Recipes | Modern Persian Recipes
Recipes references:
Episode 78: Vegetarian Persian Food
Bita’s Lentil and Date Rice recipe (vegetarian) | Adas Polo
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Transcipt:
This is Modern Persian Food. Our culinary podcast for today’s food enthusiasts. We talk about classic Persian flavors, modern recipes and embracing culture and identity through food. I’m Bita. And I’m also Beata. Welcome to our show.
Bita: Hi, everybody, welcome to episode 124. Today, we have a special guest on the show, Elham Marder, from Plant-Based Persian. Here to talk to us about how we can incorporate plant-based ingredients into our Persian cooking. Elham is attorney by day and an advocate for vegan and plant-based eating on the side. She has a great blog presence on Instagram and we are excited to have her on the show. Hi Elham.
Elham: Hi Bita joon. Hi Beata joon. So exciting to be here. I’m so honored. Thank you so much. For having me.
Beata: Absolutely.
Bita: Hi, ladies. I’m super excited to hear about your journey and it sounds like plant based eating and Persian food is very near and dear to your heart. And this is a venture that you started with your mom, and it has extended to your nuclear lovely young family.
Elham: It has, yes. I definitely feel like food has really allowed me to embrace my Iranian culture and heritage. I came to the US as a refugee when I was four, so really, I know Iran and my culture through the food. And so, it’s been incredibly exciting that as I’ve become vegan and plant based, I can continue to enjoy my culture and it’s wonderful food.
Bita: Awesome. Great. Well, I do have to say that I have had this can of green jackfruit sitting in my cabinet for a while and if we could talk about how I can incorporate this product into my Persian cooking that would be amazing. But before we get there, do you want to tell us a little bit more about your journey, about how and why plant based Persian food, how that came about?
Elham: Yeah, of course. So, I will say I actually have not really eaten very much meat my entire life. So, when I was about 12, I remember going to a friend’s house and they were serving burgers and I bit into a burger and it was a little undercooked and I thought, you know, I really can’t disconnect from this animal that we’re eating. And when I was twelve, I just decided I was going to be vegetarian and so pretty much since I was 12, I really stopped eating meat. The only meat I would eat was kind of the boneless, skinless white meat chicken to kind of really disassociate from the animal. And it was about 14 years ago. I was going on vacation to Hawaii, and I stopped at SFO airport at a bookstore, and I grabbed a book called The Skinny Bitch. And I really can’t remember why I bought that book, but I bought that book and I was sitting on a beach in Hawaii. And I’m reading this book, and there’s a chapter there about chickens and about high speed slaughter of chickens and about how, you know we kill chickens at the rate of about 170 chickens a minute. So, you imagine how quickly these animals are being slaughtered, and often they’re put in these like scalding water defeathering tanks alive because the process is so quick. And I just decided that in there, like, I’m not eating any meat, no chicken, nothing. And it was about 14 years ago that I became vegetarian. And then my transition to vegan was really through my dog and my connection with my dog. So, I got a dog and it was really my first time really being with an animal. I didn’t grow up with an animal and so I really saw that animals can suffer, they can experience pain. They can experience joy and I thought, you know, I wouldn’t want my pet, my dog, to suffer. Why would I pay for the suffering of other animals? And so, I really kind of started learning about other industries, the dairy industry, the egg industry, the wool industry and that kind of really transitioned me to being an advocate for animals and being a vegan. And that was about 10 years ago.
Beata: That’s really interesting, thank you for sharing that. It’s a huge topic that I know that we could probably talk about for an hour. But since we’re really anxious to hear about some of your strategies, we do have listeners that have asked us and specifically for what to do when you want to eat Persian food. And you may be vegetarian or vegan. Now our cuisine as you both know, is really heavy on the kind of legume and bean and herb and veggie side. So, it’s not hard to do. I think if you grew up eating Persian food and your vegan or vegetarian, you probably have figured it out. But we have listeners that some of them have no connection to Persian food. They may be new to it, find themselves in a restaurant. So, I think whoever you are, it’s interesting or maybe you’re hosting something and you have a vegan or vegetarian guest, so it’s always I think great to have some ideas in your back pocket.
Bita: Yeah. And you know, we have a vegetarian episode that we did last year that we kind of showcase some of that, you know, you’ll hear me also talking all the time about how you don’t necessarily need to include me in a lot of the hardish since sues. But also, aside from the animal issues that you brought up, there’s also from health and global impact and resources that it’s, you know, a much better alternative not to include me. So, I think that this is a timely episode now that a lot of people can relate to.
Beata: Yeah. I think if we wanted to each of us share how we choose to eat, I know that I’m not vegan and I have tried being vegetarian at various stages and just not very good at it. But in general, with my health background and coaching nutrition background, I absolutely believe in plant based and plant forward eating from a nutritional standpoint. And we’re a huge, animal loving family as well. And I have gone through stages really similar to what you described. And I think that that is actually part of I have like a little bit of a personal aversion to dealing with me when I’m cooking for other people and they think that it is really hard for me to not think about the animal. So, I get that. I understand.
Elham: And I think Beata joon, you raised a good point, too about like health and, you know, climate change and I think you know it’s really important to kind of realize that you know there are people who are vegan and it kind of extends beyond just what you eat. It extends to, you know, what you wear and things like that. But you know the plant-based movement I think really has grown in the last five years I think and it doesn’t get more modern than like plant based Persian cooking, right? And on this modern Persian podcast. But you know, I thinking the realization these days about how animal agriculture really has a negative impact on our planet. The amount of water and resources and energy and emissions and also and Vito Jr talking about nutrition just like realizing how you know plant based whole food, plant-based diet. It can really reverse a lot of chronic diseases like diabetes. So yeah. So, I think it’s becoming much more, much more prevalent.
Beata: Absolutely. We would love to learn and hear about some of your strategies in particular, do you have like a favorite meat substitute for Persian Koresh?
Elham: Yes, I do. So, I love Bita how you showed your young green canned jack fruit from Trader Joe’s. Yeah, that is very popular. I know quite a few people who get their jack fruit from Trader Joe’s, and yes, jack Fruit is a great meat substitute and horashe. I think it’s, you know, kind of takes on the flavors that it’s cooked with. It has a meaty texture. It resembles kind of like shredded chicken. I will say though that jackfruit has very little protein as a meat substitute
Beata: Oh. OK.
Elham: That can you have there, Bita joon. What is it, like 3 grams of protein? Does it say on there?
Beata: It just says 0 grams of protein. I didn’t even know they sat.
Elham: There you go. I think the one I get might say like two or three grams, but it’s it does not have a high protein content.
Beata: Oh, OK, good to know.
Elham: As someone who you know has been a vegan 10 years, I am mindful that if I’m what I’m substituting meat is low in protein content. So, whether it’s jackfruit, whether it’s mushrooms, whether it’s artichoke, you want to add a protein into your food. So, for example we make Hora Sakaraff and we make it with jack Fruit instead of meat. But we add beans into the Hora Sakaraff, which traditionally is not Hora Sakaraff so.
Bita: For our non-Persian speaking listeners, karaffs is celery and khoresh is stew. And the stew is the Persian Stew that you often serve and eat with rice. But I was wondering, when you do put beans in your celery stew. What type of bean would you use? Beata joon and I really like the taste of black eyed peas. But I’m wondering if maybe like chickpeas or something else would be better for not changing what it’s supposed to taste like.
Elham: So it’s great that you asked that, because my mom much prefers using kidney beans. And if she were to cook it, she always uses kidney beans. The only reason I kind of prefer Black Eyed beans is just to add a little bit of variety because we use kidney beans. And or misab stew, which is the herb stew, the herb horesh. And so, I just try to diversify it, but I will say my mom’s preference is to use kidney beans for horashe karaff to add a, add a legume in there.
Bita: Gotcha. And then there’s also like the white beans, cannellini beans, you know, Italian beans and what not. Not that I have a very mild flavor that might work.
Elham: Yeah, that’s a great idea. Like the northern white beans. Any of those could probably work if you wanted to try that as well. My recommendation is that if you’re going to swap meat for, you know, something that doesn’t have a high protein content to add legumes. I will say that my family, we use a lot of tofu in our Persian cooking. Seeing and it’s funny because yesterday I was driving home with my daughter and my son and they were talking about how much they love tofu and I’m thinking, you know, it’s because that’s how they were raised. That’s what they’re used to. And you know, tofu will really take on the flavors that it’s cooked with. And so, I, for horesh, for example, I actually have a horashe shikaras recipe with tofu as well, instead of jack fruit, and I do use different tofu depending on what I’m making. So, for horesh, where I’m going to fry the tofu and add it into the horashe. I like to use high protein tofu, which actually is a lot firmer, that tofu is incredibly firm and of course has a water protein. I mean one package of high protein tofu has about 70 to 80 grams of protein.
Beata: I didn’t actually know there was a differentiation in terms of protein content or I didn’t pay attention to that. So that’s interesting, I’ve definitely know that there’s firm versus soft and crumbling and whatnot, and then you know.
Elham: It’s OK. Yeah.
Beata: And do you know, like the grams versus typical? I mean it’s OK if you don’t. I’m asking you on the spot.
Elham: So a typical extra firm tofu which I like, but it’s not as firm for frying. Extra firm tofu package is 40 grams and then a high protein tofu package is about 70 to 80 grams. So, it’s almost double.
Bita: Wow.
Beata: OK. So just because it’s firm, does it necessarily equate that it means high protein?
Elham: Actually, that’s a great question. I actually do think it does contain more protein. The firmer the tofu is, yeah.
Beata: Ohh okay, that’s great to know, yeah.
Elham: So, the only time I use silken tofu and I don’t use it very often, but if I do use it, it’s more for a dessert. Like if I make a cheesecake. But otherwise I always stick to, you know, extra firm for crumbles. I do a lot of crumbles for Persian rice. I love, you know, seasoning it, baking it. And then adding it, layering it in when you’re going to make the Persian rice, whether it’s addas polo or kalam polo or lubia polo. But for horesh, what I like to do is I buy that high protein tofu, you marinate it, and then you fry it. This is all separate. And then you add it at the end to the horesh. So, it’s kind of cooked separately. It becomes crispy, flavorful, and then you add it maybe in the last 20 minutes of your horesh cooking.
Beata: This is great. I think we do a whole episode on tofu. OK, so if you haven’t tried tofu and you’re listening. It kind of doesn’t really taste like anything. It has very little flavor. And so, the marinating and the seasoning and the spices are going to elevate your tofu to whatever dish you’re creating. So, when you say you marinate it, what are you marinating it in?
Elham: Yeah. So I like to do a little bit of yogurt. It’s made from almonds. It’s an almond based yogurt and it’s my absolute favorite. I use it kind of as the dairy free alternative in all my Persian cooking, so I’ll take a little bit of that. Add some lemon juice, add some saffron, maybe some garlic powder, things like that, and marinate it a few hours and then fry it and then add to the horashe.
Beata: Good to know.
Bita: Yum. Good to know. It sounds great. Can we go back to jack fruit for a second if you guys don’t mind. I’m really anxious to use it and I really want to experiment with it. So, jack fruit really adding it to a food dish. It’s really more just for the mouth feel. It’s not necessarily like bringing the protein or substituting the meat kind of for that aspect of.
Elham: Yeah, I mean it’s more for like the texture and I mean, I mean it has nutritional value. I mean it’s not like jackfruit has no nutritional value but as far as protein content, it’s not going to give you much protein
Beata: Right.
Elham: And so that’s why I always say like add lentils and or add legumes or something to add that protein. But you know another thing I use jackfruit in is fesenjoon. If fesenjoon already has like the walnuts. So, I kind of tell myself, OK, there’s some protein there. But I love fesenjoon with jackfruit because it has kind of that shredded chicken texture to it and yeah. And so that’s like another great way to use jackfruit.
Beata: Yeah. And fesenjoon is a walnut with a pomegranate molasses. Really beautiful, almost Molay, type of horashe that we serve over rice. So, jackfruit. I have a canned version here, but the Jack fruit itself is a little intimidating if you look at like a fresh one. It’s like huge. And I mean it looks like a big watermelon that has like a textured outside. So, like, have you ever used fresh jackfruit?
Elham: I’ve never used fresh jackfruit and from what I’ve read, fresh jackfruit’s actually sweet, like a fruit. And so, the canned jack fruit, and I think the canned that you have there says like either green or young jack fruit.
Beata: Yeah, green. Uh-huh. In brine.
Elham: So the young green jackfruit doesn’t have that sweet flavor. And so that’s the kind you want to use. So, I’ve never used fresh jackfruit, and I think that’s not really the kind you’re supposed to use for cooking, especially something savory. I’ve always used a canned jack fruit as far as how to use it. Because when you open it, it’s kind of an interesting looking fruit. What you want to do is you will really want to squeeze it and you’ll be surprised you squeeze it in like a cheese cloth or a kitchen cloth. You’ll be surprised how much liquid will actually come out of it. And then when you open it back up, it just like shredded. It looks like shredded chicken or pulled pork. You know, some people call it. It looks like pulled pork and you rinse it too to kind of get rid of that, like tart, briny flavor.
Beata: Brian Ennis, OK. Well, then, do you just cook it like how you would cook chicken or pork? Or would you just sauté it?
Elham: When you are cooking the onions and garlic and adding the seasoning, that’s when you would add the jackfruit to that.
Beata: OK. Great. Gotcha. And then one more question on like cooking and preparing, if we go back to tofu, do you have an air fryer, you mentioned sometimes baking? And I don’t know with the young family it whether it’s a time saver or not. But when you say baking, do you do it in the oven? Do you have an air fryer?
Elham: I do it in the oven, although an air fryer probably would be a good time saving trick. So, I put in the oven, usually about like 350, 375. Kind of lay it out on parchment paper or you know, and then bake it and then kind of mix it. So, you kind of get both sides baked halfway through. So, you bake it about 20 minutes in the oven, so they become, you know you remove even more of that liquid and they become really kind of dry, flavorful crumbles that you can add to your rice dish.
Beata: For the crumbles, but for the marinated, for the horesh and so forth, you are frying it in a pan.
Elham: I’m frying it, although I think maybe trying an air fryer is actually a great idea. You could probably definitely do that, but yeah, I usually fry it in a little bit of oil.
Beata: Delicious.
Elham: Especially in oil free, if you, you know, are really trying to do whole Foods, which you know if you’re doing a whole foods plant-based diet, you really don’t use oil. So that’s actually a great way to kind of remove the oil is to maybe try it in an air fryer instead of frying it in some oil.
Beata: Yeah, well, we can’t ignore ancient greens and legumes and beans. If you wanted to boost your protein. I heard you say lentils. I think it’s one of the Super Foods. Lentils are so absolutely good for you, high in protein and folic acid and I saw you recently did an addas polo recipe.
Elham: I did. I know I love lentils. I love addas polo. You know, one thing that we do is we sometimes we’ll combine Iranian dishes. So, for example, you have sabzi polo which is like an herb rice and then you have bapali polo which is with like fava bean. So, you know what we do is we make Sabzi bapali polos.
Bita: I do to that too. I do that too, yeah.
Elham: Yeah. So you just combine and then you’ve got the sabzi flavor and you’ve got the fava beans, you know, or one thing we do a lot. And my daughter says this is her favorite is we combine horashe heyme which is, you know, the yellow split pea with horse forenjoon with the eggplant. So that you’re kind of getting, you know, the split peas, you’re getting, the eggplant. We’ll do it with, like, mushroom. Or artichoke, but kind of just combining dishes is a great way.
Beata: Absolutely. We love that on our modern Persian food and we have karaffs with artichoke.
Elham: Yeah.
Beata: And those are classic pairings like the game. And the Bapala palo. Man, I want some right now.
Bita: Do you ever, Arjun, miss kebab or did you ever eat kebab before becoming vegetarian and vegan and that’s a big part of Persian restaurant cuisine. And in some families grilling it.
Elham: It is. Yes, grilling is definitely a big part of Persian cooking. You know, I had not eaten red meat since I was 12. And so, the first time I had, you know, the kabab, other than juju kabab like red meat kabab, was when I tried it with beyond beef, which is, you know, that vegan meat alternative. So, and that was probably about two years ago or maybe three years ago and that was the first time I had kabob again. And I was like, wow, this is delicious, but I didn’t really remember what it tasted like. But, you know, having that kabob experience again was great. And juji kabob. I did eat that even like, I mean, I’ve been a vegetarian. I stopped eating all meat 14 years ago. But, you know, from the time I stopped eating red meat to becoming full vegetarian. I was having juju kabob up once in a while and that is something that I have not been able to fully recreate as a vegan, they’re just, you know, I’ve tried it with tofu. There are some vegan chicken alternatives out there, so I have tried it with those, but it’s not exactly the same. I think that’s definitely an area of, you know, more companies are trying to make that chicken alternative, but definitely kabob like the red meat kabob the beyond. You know, I think is quite delicious. And from the meat-eating family that I’ve had over that I’ve prepared for, they’ve all said it’s very good and very similar. There’s also the impossible meat too that some people use.
Beata: Yeah. And I think that the Persian kabob, really the char that it takes from the fire, the skewering on the metal skewers, really it’s the whole experience having it with some charred tomatoes and some steamed rice with a little sprinkling of sumac really is kind of like the whole experience. So if you’re, you know, compromising the flavor a little bit, I think you could still really get that experience with these meat alternatives that you were just talking about.
Elham: Definitely. The roasted tomatoes, the sumac. Like all of that. Like you just really kind of can recreate those flavors for sure. It’s delicious.
Beata: Spices become super important. I’ve seen you try to make broths with some additions to veggie broth with nutritional yeast and getting some umami flavors. And I found that to be interesting. You really have to use just spices.
Elham: You know, it’s interesting cause I feel like I see people say, ohh Iranian food. You can’t have it, be vegan or you know plant based. But I really feel like Iranian food really is about the cooking methods and you know, the spices. And like the herbs and you know the saffron. So, I really feel like, sure, it’s not me, but I really feel like you can really recreate a lot of that. The flavor and taste of Persian cooking by how you prepare it and the spices that you use definitely.
Bita: Elham joon. And this has been a really inspiring and compelling conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. And so, as you know, there’s a segment of our show called ask the Beats where we ask listeners and, in this case, here, since we have you here today, if you have a question for Beata and I.
Elham: So, as you know, Persian cooking is definitely a labor of love. It’s not something that you can whip up in in 20 minutes. And so, I was wondering if you have any tips, tricks to, you know, make Persian cooking a little faster, a little easier, especially you know, for working parents who want us to continue to do Persian cooking.
Beata: Is that a challenge to pull together a Persian dish under 20 minutes.
Bita: We love that question. That’s what we’re all about. We’re all about the shortcuts to make it happen, and you have young family or just busy on a weeknight. So, I have so many. Do you have one that comes right to mind, Beata joon?
Beata: You know, one of the tenants of our show was how can we kind of bring those flavors and make it work when we are pressed for time, or we don’t, you know, have the luxury of, you know, having a stew simmer all day. How can we bring those flavors and for me personally, honestly? It’s just making use of store bought ingredients that can help accelerate getting it all together, you know. I will use, you know like from the grocery section. Items that are already washed and prepped and cut. I’ll use those you know if I’m trying to pull together something, you know, if it’s like already, like diced onions and I don’t have to, like, cut it. I could just throw that in a pan and start simmering that. So, I think making use of kind of like some of the ingredients that are already prepped is one of my main go tos.
Bita: You specifically talked about readymade lentils that you sometimes buy. You sometimes buy already, ready to go beets. Yeah, you know, specific to Persian food. So, beyond onions.
Beata: So, beyond onions. That’s right. I like to use a lot of the items in the grocery store that are already kind of like prepped already and ready to go.
Beata: Yeah, I think absolutely. Take away the stigma of having to make it from start to finish on your own. I am okay, if you want to buy canned beans, if you want to buy a can of soup. As a starter, or if you’re lucky like me to have a Persian market, a jar of the herbs and beans, the flourish. And then I’ll add my favorite things to it like the black-eyed Peas and my own spices and extra things that it’s partially homemade. It’s OK. No one’s going to know. Buy a roast chicken if you eat meat, buy the tofu. That’s already, you know, just needs a little bit of flavor, and then take it from there. And then also the gadgets I use like a chopper. If I’m trying to make a big solid chi racy. I don’t want to spend all day chopping my tomatoes and onions. And cucumbers. So, there’s a chopper that you can use a rice cooker that can make your toddy egg. There’s lots of tips and tricks. And I would say to go through this in all of our episodes because you can order pre-dissolved saffron or spray saffron from some brands, there’s all kinds of shortcuts for Persian food.
Bita: Yeah. Also another thing I like to do is if there’s any way that I can like a batch make something like the whole like piaz doc if I could make like a batch of piaz doc. And have that in the fridge for like a week, the piaz doc office, like the caramelized onions that we use as a base of almost all of our Persian dishes. If I can make a big batch of that and then just have a few scoops of it every time I want to make something, then that cuts out 15 minutes at least of my time.
Elham: I love that.
Bita: So kind of that’s fitting is another way that I try to cut down on time in the kitchen.
Elham: That is a great idea. I mean the one thing that I try to do on the weekends is to, like, cut all my onions so they’re ready to go. But I might as well, fry them too, and have that ready to go.
Bita: Fry them, you add your turmeric if you’re going to use it, and then you just cover it in oil. Keep it in the jar in the fridge and it’ll last for at least a week.
Elham: Wow, that’s great.
Bita: So great. Thank you so much, Elham joom. Thank you, Beata. As always, hope everyone had a great time listening to this episode and please, if you did like the episode, please feel free to forward along to a friend or cousin and we’d love to hear your thoughts. And where can our listeners find you?
Elham: So my blog is plantbasedpersian.com. So pretty easy. Just the name of the food plantbasedpersian.com. And I’m also on Instagram. It’s plant_ basedpersian. It’s my Instagram handle.
Beata: We’ll go ahead and link to all of that in our show notes as well for listeners looking to find out more.
Bita: Thank you, Elham joon.
Elham: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1
Beata: Of course. Thank you for coming. Until next time. Bye.
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