Esfanaj-o-porteqal — or, orange you hungry?

As you might expect, after the preceding adventure into the land of "bonus meats" (an old term describing the nonstandard bits of the animal; look down the left side of this 1943 newspaper page), I was in the mood for something a little less, let's say, intense. I love to eat those unusual dishes, but the preparation can be a bit of a burden. And when I think about making comfort food, it's as much about the cooking as the eating.

Few things say "comfort food" to me the way stew does. Thick, chunky, steaming with aroma: I start eating with a fork, and then I lift the bowl to drink the luscious gravy. And making a stew is hardly any effort; cut up a bunch of stuff, gently precook it in the right order, throw everything into a pot, add some liquid, and leave it for an hour or four. No sweat.

In Persian food, stew is called khoresh. There are lots of different kinds, just as in the West. And the process for making them? Browsing through the Khoresh chapter, they all look easy peasy, same as their American cousins. There's a couple of small Iranian twists, of course, but overall, the khoresh seems like a straightforward adaptation of a very familiar approach. Cut, prep, dump, stew. Eat.

Comfort food, here we come.