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Persia and the Caucasus · Volume 60, The Palaw, the Dumpling and the Winter Meat

Haft mewa

Afghanistan, at Nowruz

Haft mewa, seven dried fruits and nuts soaked two days into their own syrup for Nowruz: a glass bowl of dried apricots, green and black raisins, jujubes, blanched almonds, walnuts and pistachios suspended in a clear amber syrup made from their soaking water.

Illustration

Time
48 hours

Haft mewa, the seven fruits, is dried fruit and nuts soaked for two days until the water has turned to syrup, and it is put out at Nowruz. The Iranian magazine Kojaro lists jujube, pistachio, hazelnut, dried apricot, walnut, almond and other dried fruits, and says Afghans keep it in place of Iran's haft sin; an Afghan government page's title keeps haft sin beside samanak. No source ties haft mewa to Mazar, where Nowruz is the Gul-e Surkh; it is the whole country's dish.

As tradition built it

Two days to soak. Serves whoever comes for Nowruz.

Ingredients

  • 240ml dried apricots
  • 120ml green raisins
  • 240ml black (red) raisins
  • as available dried jujube
  • as available senjed
  • 180ml walnuts, shelled
  • 120ml almonds, blanched
  • 120ml pistachios, shelled
  • as available hazelnuts, or dried plums
  • 1.2 litres water

Method

  1. Wash the fruit and nuts: the apricots, the green and black raisins, the jujube, the senjed, the walnuts, almonds, pistachios, and hazelnuts or plums. Skin the almonds and walnuts if the house does.
  2. Put them in a bowl with water to cover generously, and leave them two days in a cool place, stirring now and then.
  3. Serve in bowls with the water, which the fruit has made into its own syrup.

Notes

The fruit, nuts and water are Humaira Ghilzai's, from Afghan Culture Unveiled (2014). She uses dried cherries; the senjed and the hazelnuts or plums go in as available, since the seven vary with the pantry.

What a modern chef changes

The soak controlled

Rung 2

Method

  1. Soak the nuts and the fruit separately for the first day, so the almonds and walnuts can be skinned clean and the fruit's sugar does not dull the nuts.
  2. Combine them on the second day in the fruit water alone.
  3. Keep the bowl at 4 degrees Celsius; the soak is slower and the syrup clearer.
  4. A strip of orange peel in the water for the last hours, which is not the tradition and is the one addition the dish can take.
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