Culinary dream come true

chanjar (gundelia)

On dogh oti (mountain greens) hunt with the Yazdandoost sisters: Minoo, Shamsi & Farideh Khanum.

One of my culinary wishes came true, not only did I make chanjar khurishi, but I picked it too. For years, I’d missed the chanjar season. Similar to our asparagus, it comes and goes quickly. Mum would always keep some in the freezer to make it for me when I visited.

At the special mountain herb market, held this time of year in the old bus depot. Parvaneh Khanum (second from the left) drove us there. She has an artisanal workshop where she makes distillations and seasonal preserves. I'll be back to see her make grape molasses or doshab as we say in the autumn.

I’d heard that preparing chanjar was hard, time-consuming, and painful. The plant is very prickly; moreover, it discolours your fingers and nails. Nowadays, you can buy commercially grown chanjar with fewer spikes, or already cleaned, at greengrocers, but only in season.

At the beginning of the season they are low to the ground and haven’t flowered yet. Later they have flowers and are past their best.

Photo on the left is fresh chanjar which we dig out. On the right is later in the season when it is in flower - photo from Kew Gardens website : https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:210758-1

On the left at the front of the photo there are long thin modern chanjar they have less prickles more white bit which is the part we eat and are easier to clean. Needless to say they don't taste of much. On the right the gentleman has picked wild mountain chanjar also known as old style. This is what I love and remember from my childhood. We were lucky enough to visit a market specially laid for seasonal wild greens in Maragheh

Dearest Pari Khanum was here a couple of days ago, so we trimmed it together. It took us an hour to clean a kilo of chanjar. We also had a brief chat with her daughter Sarvenaz in Ankara, showing her what we were up to.

It wasn’t as difficult or painful as I’d expected, partly because they had wilted somewhat (we’d bought some and picked some two days earlier on our visit to Margheh), which made them less prickly. As you can see, there isn’t a lot left after trimming. We only eat the white part.

We cut them into 5 cm strips. After a thorough wash, I fried them in sori yogh (ghee).

We used some to prepare chanjar gatukh and some into chanjar khurushi. I LOVE chanjar khurushi with danna gora (unripe grapes) . Yeruz bosh (“your place was empty”), as we say, I wish you were all here to taste it.