Khoresh Fesenjan — Chicken in Walnut & Pomegranate

Name: Khoresh Fesenjan — Chicken in Walnut & Pomegranate
Total time: 2 h 20 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Persian
Ingredients: 300 g Walnut halves; 1 kg Chicken thighs and drumsticks, skin off; 6 tbsp Pomegranate molasses; 1 large Onion, grated; 1 tbsp Sugar; 0.5 tsp Ground cinnamon; 2 tbsp Bloomed saffron; 3 tbsp Oil; 1 tsp Salt

A dark, velvety khoresh built on finely ground walnuts and pomegranate molasses, simmered slow until the nut oil breaks out and the sauce turns almost black. Sweet, sour and rich all at once — a special-occasion dish with roots said to reach back to ancient Persia.

المصدر

الوصفة من Persian home kitchens · 🏺 تقليدي · Everyday and festive cooking of Iranian households — the shared repertoire behind sofreh (the spread) that no single person owns

Persian · traditional dish — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article (Wikipedia's canonical title is 'Fesenjān', to which 'Fesenjan' redirects) describes fesenjān as a sweet-and-sour Iranian khoresh whose roots are traced to Sassanid Persia, typically served over rice, and made with minced meat, meatballs, chicken or duck — the chicken version being the one written out here. The ground-walnut and pomegranate base is the dish's standard, widely documented form. Quantities and method here are this book's own.

خلفية على ويكيبيديا ↗

شاهد طريقة التحضير

Persian Maman

⏱ 140 دقيقة🍽 6 حصة🔥 560 سعرة🇮🇷 إيران

حلالخالٍ من الألبانخالٍ من الغلوتين

الخطوات

Grind the walnuts to a fine, damp meal in a food processor. Toast them dry in a wide pot over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring constantly, just until they smell warm and nutty — do not let them colour past pale gold.
💡 Low heat and constant stirring — ground walnuts scorch in seconds, and burnt walnut is bitter all the way through.
Pour in about 1 litre of hot water, stir smooth, and bring to a gentle simmer. Let the walnuts cook, half-covered, for 30 minutes, stirring often so nothing catches on the base.
Meanwhile, fry the grated onion in the oil until soft, then brown the chicken pieces with it. Slide the chicken into the walnut pot along with the cinnamon and saffron.
Stir in the pomegranate molasses, sugar and salt. Simmer very gently, half-covered, for 1 hour, stirring every 10 minutes or so.
💡 It will look thin and grey-brown at first and slowly darken. Stir regularly — the walnut settles and burns easily, and a scorched base taints the whole pot.
When the sauce is thick, glossy and dark, with walnut oil pooling on the surface, taste it. Adjust with more molasses for sourness or sugar for sweetness until it sits in a rich sweet-sour balance.
Rest for 10 minutes, then serve over plain saffron rice. The colour should be almost mahogany — that darkness is where the deepest flavour lives.

💡 نصائح

Not nut-free, and there is no way around it: ground walnuts are the sauce, not a garnish. This is the one dish in the Persian book a nut-allergic reader must skip.
The classic version outside chicken is fesenjan with meatballs (koofteh), and in the Caspian north it is famously made with duck. All three are correct — the walnut-and-pomegranate base does not change.
If your stew turns out too sour, do not keep adding sugar to chase it — a spoon of sugar plus a splash more water and another 15 minutes of simmering rounds it out far better.