Kate's Global Kitchen: Dishes with Oranges & Persian Flavors

Dishes with Oranges
and Persian Flavors

Portable Thanksgiving Side Dishes, Part II

With their fruits, nuts and citrus flavors, Middle East cuisines meld beautifully with the Thanksgiving table. In this week's installment of Portable Thanksgiving Side Dishes, the Global Gourmet borrows the aromatic flavor-prints of kitchens dating from ancient Persia to modern Saudi Arabia.

The very word "gourmet" actually derives from the Farsi word "ghormeh," meaning stew. French Crusaders, no doubt impressed with the lavish banquets of Muslim life, brought the word and its adapted interpretation back to the western world. Later, the Venetian spice trade introduced such Middle Eastern delicacies as sugary dates, citrus fruits, and aromatic seasonings—ingredients still widespread from Egypt to India.

Dates

To demonstrate how well Middle Eastern flavors can accent the traditional Thanksgiving table, I've dressed some common American foods in Middle Eastern clothes, so to speak. The first, a moist semi-sweet bread typical of Western holidays, combines the Persian ingredients of oranges, pistachio nuts and dates. Fall's friend the spaghetti-squash loses its usually bland and boring demeanor to sport a subtly exotic coat of more warm Middle Eastern flavors: cardamom, coriander, orange zest and toasted almonds.

Recent & upcoming Thanksgiving articles are listed below, and for those of you looking to create the entire meal, take a look at the Thanksgiving No-Brainer and the Perfect Turkey Handbook links.

This week:

Orange, Pistachio & Date Bread

Persian-Inspired Spaghetti Squash

November 7:
Portable Thanksgiving Side Dishes, Part I
Breads of the Americas

Kate's Chevre-Stuffed Green Chile Corn Muffins

from our archives...

Skillet Pinon Cornbread, by Mark Miller
Zuni Pepita Bread by Mark Miller

November 14:
Portable Thanksgiving Side Dishes, Part II
Dishes with Oranges & Persian Flavors

Orange, Pistachio & Date Bread

Persian-Inspired Spaghetti Squash

November 21:
Portable Thanksgiving Side Dishes, Part III
Asian Medley

November 28:
Exotic Encores with
Luscious Thanksgiving Leftovers