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Persia and the Caucasus · Volume 10, Rice, Reduction and the Country Beyond the Kebab House

Khoresh mast

Isfahan

Khoresh mast: a set, pale gold saffron yoghurt in a shallow dish, decorated with barberries, slivered pistachio and rose petals.

Illustration

Khoresh mast is Isfahan's cold yoghurt khoresh: lamb neck cooked until it falls apart, pounded by hand to a pale paste, stirred into strained yoghurt warmed with saffron, rosewater and sugar, and left to set overnight. It was a court main course, Hamshahri says, and is eaten now as a dessert. Its preparation was registered nationally in 2018, which Kayhan reported as a Qajar dish; Hamshahri calls it the main dish of Safavid guesthouses. In late 2024 Iranian press reported a WIPO geographical indication for it.

Isfahanis kaf-mal the meat, as Hamshahri describes it: drag it across a board with the heel of the hand until it is crushed to a paste and its colour turns pale. The quantities are Hamshahri's, in Khadijeh Nowruzi's recipe of January 2025, and IMNA, Isfahan's municipal news agency, prints the same proportions for four. Hamshahri's second piece says most places now make it too sweet and do not pound the meat properly.

As tradition built it

Serves 4. It sets in the fridge until fully cold.

Ingredients

  • 250g lamb neck, on the bone
  • 1 onion
  • ¼ tsp turmeric
  • to cover boiling water
  • 3 cups full fat strained yoghurt
  • 1 tbsp rosewater
  • 2 tbsp brewed saffron
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 3 tbsp walnuts, chopped
  • 2 tbsp barberries
  • 2 tbsp pistachios, slivered
  • for garnish damask rose petals

Method

  1. Cook the lamb neck with the onion, the turmeric and boiling water to cover until the meat falls apart: IMNA gives 3 hours in an open pot; Hamshahri uses a pressure cooker.
  2. Take out the bones and shred the meat.
  3. Kaf-mal the meat: drag it across a meat board with the heel of the hand until it is fully crushed to a paste and its colour turns quite pale.
  4. Warm the strained yoghurt over low heat with the rosewater and the brewed saffron, stirring constantly so it does not split. After a few minutes add the sugar, and wait until the yoghurt bubbles finely.
  5. Stir in the walnuts, then the meat. After 2 minutes take the pot off the heat.
  6. Chill it 12 hours until it is fully cold and set. Serve it scattered with the barberries, the slivered pistachio and damask rose petals.

Notes

Hamshahri's second recipe, which it calls the authentic one, uses 400g of lamb neck to 6 glasses of yoghurt with less than half a glass of sugar, and makes the 12 hours compulsory. Hami Sharafi, an Iranian chef in Britain, sets his with 2 egg yolks and says plainly that it is not the traditional method; no Iranian press recipe read uses egg.

What a modern chef changes

The meat pounded to the colour, the yoghurt held below the split

Rung 2

Method

  1. Pound the meat until it turns pale and stretchy, not for a time. Rung 2 again: the bind is mechanical, the fibres broken until the meat holds the yoghurt the way a kneaded koobideh holds the skewer.
  2. Hold the yoghurt just under the boil with a probe and stabilise it first with a spoon of the meat's cooking liquor, so it thickens without splitting.
  3. Cut the sugar to Hamshahri's authentic ratio, under half a glass to six of yoghurt, and let the saffron and rose carry it.
  4. Set it in a shallow dish, not a deep bowl, so it cools through evenly and slices clean, and make it the day before.
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