Leaving Italy, let’s turn our fun food ‘tour bus’ a bit toward the east. That part of the world produces so many culinary delights. As I’ve said before, we lived in Teheran for two years when I was just a wee lass of 10-12. Sometimes we would take a 4pm hike on 6-lane Shimran Boulevard to go buy our daily fix of fresh-baked Iranian flatbread called ‘noon‘. It was so good, some of the bread didn’t make it all the way home most trips. 🙂
On our walk, we passed a number of merchant shops where turban-wearing shopkeepers were crouched down cooking their dinner on portable Aladdin kerosene heaters they used as grills. I still own our old Aladdin in fact. They might be cooking a lamb grill or curry; perhaps kubideh meat rolls, or this popular grilled chicken. It was fascinating to watch and the aromas on our ventures were indescribable! Fatimeh, our maid and ‘translator’, would often stop & chat with the ‘cooks’. They offered my brother and I a bite of their goodies more than once. We knew just a few words of Farsi, so we would just soak it all up, mesmerized. This yogurt sauce with onions was about the sum total of what went on the chicken.
This is a dish we attempted to copy, with pointers from Fatimeh and our motor pool driver, Reza. Just talking about this evokes those olfactory memories. I understand they renamed many streets after the Iranian Revolution so Shimran Blvd. may even be called something else now. Not sure which aroma was more intense on our walks to get ‘noon’, the chicken or the fresh wheat bread sheets cooking in the kiln-like open-front pebble ovens. At my age, it was always fun picking off the remaining pebbles when we got home, as some typically burned right into the bread surface.
My changes to the traditional method on this dish: subbed butter in for some of the yogurt to cut carbs; added the Spanish paprika. They used ALL yogurt in their marinates. They used all sumac & turmeric for the spices, which can be obtained in better spice stores, ordered on-line from places like Penzey’s Spices. Sumac is the ground, dried berries/fruit of the sumac bush. It is slightly acidic, lemony tasting and is used in many Iranian, Israeli and other Gulf State dishes. The yogurt and onions are in the flavor driver’s seat. This recipe is Atkins Induction friendly and Paleo-Primal acceptable as well. Because it is impossible to calculate the total nutritional info per serving on a portion of this meal, I will just provide the information for each of 10 servings of the marinade. You will have to add in the values for the meat pieces eaten.
INGREDIENTS:
1 stick butter + ½ c. yogurt (or 1c. yogurt & no butter to stay traditional)
Juice of 2 lemons
Dash each salt and black pepper
1 tsp. sumac
1 tsp. Smoked paprika
½ tsp. turmeric
1 onion (either minced fine or sliver extremely thin)
1 whole chicken, cut in 10 pieces ( cut breasts in half)
DIRECTIONS: Melt the butter in a small pot. Remove from heat. Stir in yogurt and add all other marinade ingredients. Stir again well. Cut up the chicken into 10 pieces (I reserve the back for making stock). Place chicken into gallon Ziploc bag. Pour 1/2 of the marinade over the chicken. Zip bag and manipulate it to coat each piece of chicken well with marinade. Set rest of marinade aside for basting meat during grilling. Allow the chicken to marinate in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours. This is important as the yogurt tenderizes the meat.
Although this chicken is OK baked in a regular oven (I have tried it) it is worlds better done on your grill. Prepare charcoal fire. When the coals are hot and white, place chicken on the grill and cook on each side until done (about 20 minutes per side). Baste with the remaining marinade mix as it cooks. Allow the last application of yogurt sauce to brown on both sides of meat before taking off fire. You don’t want to have uncooked onions/sauce in the end. Enjoy a true Iranian feast! Typically served with butter basted grilled vegetables like long slices of summer squash, tomatoes, eggplant or bell peppers. If we don’t grill veggies, I serve with my sour cream cucumber mint salad.
NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes ample sauce for 10 pieces of chicken. Each serving of the marinade only contains:
95 cals, 9.2g fat, 2.87g carbs, 1.2g fiber, 2.67g NET CARBS, 1.8g protein, 17.9 mg sodium
Buttoni's Low-Carb Recipes 
Your description of the smells is really getting to me! Brings back memories of smells and tastes when I was in Kosovo. Very difficult to find the same kind of yogurt to recreate the dishes. Also they had a fresh white cheese that was a cross between feta and the mexican white cheese.
Iranians make their yogurt from goat and sheep milk, so it’s definitely an acquired taste. I didn’t like their yogurt as a consequence. But I have, over the years back in the States, learned to like drained or Greek yogurt. Yes, many of my memories of Iran are olfactory……..especially the unrefrigerated meat markets. That one was never a pleasant aroma for me, and one I’ve never forgotten.