We spent a week with Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour

Sabrina Ghayour is an Iranian-born, London-based chef and author. Persiana is her debut cookbook — the first of now six books that she’s written.

She got her start in the kitchen as a young child and began teaching herself to cook Persian food as a teen, but since Sabrina was raised in England, all of her dishes have a distinctly British style.

She intentionally encourages readers to make the recipes their own — adding, removing, and replacing ingredients to make them fit your preferences.

Ultimately, Sabrina’s goal with this book was to encourage more people to make Persian food at home and show the rest of the world that Middle Eastern cuisines are both accessible and uncomplicated.

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📖 Written Review
https://cultflav.com/products/sabrina-ghayour-persiana

🎬 Chapters
00:00 About Sabrina
00:53 Day 1 (Mezze Dinner)
07:53 Day 2 (Persian Saffron Chicken Fennel & Barberry Stew)
14:14 Day 3 (Mechouia-Style Lamb Leg w/ Cumin Dipping Salt)
18:53 Day 4 (Turkish Adana Köfte Kabab)
23:59 Day 5 (Cod in Tamarind Cilantro & Fenugreek Sauce)
29:11 Scoring

✍️ I did my best to research, practice and say the specific names of each dish, but I apologize for any and all missed pronunciations.

Thanks for watching!

This week we made 16 of the 100 recipes out of persiana by Sabrina gor four Mains 10 sides and two dependencies each dish took about 2 hours to make from start to finish and typically served six people at about $4.50 per serving sabrinaa guar is an Iranian born london-based chef and

Author and persiana is her debut cookbook the first of five books that she’s now written she got her start in the kitchen teaching herself how to cook as a young child but really dove into Persian food around her teens but since Sabrina was raised in England all of her

Dishes have a very distinct British style she intentionally encourages readers to make these recipes their own adding removing and replacing ingredients to fit your personal preferences ultimately Sabrina’s goal with this book is to encourage more people to make Persian food and show the rest of the world that Middle Eastern

Cuisine is uncomplicated and accessible persiana kicks things off with a MZ and sharing plate section and if there’s one thing that Bren and I love it’s an all starters dinner as a meal naturally this was the place for us to begin and if I ever see a faka recipe you better

Believe I’m going to try it Sabrina even made pairing decisions easier for us by suggesting multiple dishes to serve with it roll day one it’s day one cooking out of persiana we’re going to do a MZ day to kick off the week it’s just a bunch of little plates we’ve got the marinated

Feta eggplant croma Persian herb frittata or cucko subsy and Eastern style faka I think bren’s going to join me later but let’s get cooking successful 20 G of this or hold on I have to check 2 * 34 Oz or 20 G packets

Of 2 * 20 g pack is 4 40 G of great decent that’s fine here we go 12 pieces like she said how much is it 125 exactly three tpoon of oh we are we going to be out of ala huh yeah i o just shy by a quarter I’ll run out

And get some olive oil for it so far this is going super well for us swimming L my eyes are watering I think this was a misread based on the photo it says a shallow bowl or an airtight container this baking pan is neither of

Those but it does appear to be what the author used for their photo there we go now I can get more of the marinade up more of the cheese let it sit for 10 minutes in a warm place some extremely dense dough there we go all right 1

Hour we going to do this the subc next this just all goes in with pour the olive oil andall out of the turmeric three to four heaped tablespoons um some eggs are just stubborn I think I’m going to need a whisk this is also like the least

Efficient way to get smooth really you only want a couple eggs in here at first and then add in the rest once everything is already Smooth barberries the salt when does that go in was that like a confirmed amount it said salt to taste 2 tablespoons crushed sea salt wow all right that’s so much yeah it’ll be well seasoned 35 to 40 minutes they PLS are a little green are these

Night sh Shades let’s let’s go to Google real quick not meant to be entirely green it’s not green what’s a normal amount of green M the most disgusting way you could get that tomato out of there you pervert I don’t know how else to

Get tomatoes out of this type of you cut the other end so it’s don’t vacuum oh that’s a good idea we got our bread all ready to go 25 to 30 minutes I’ve been so hungry me Too the bread’s excellent mhm the eggplant I think could use more salt she did give a loud direction of just like season it as you go but it’s hard to taste it when it’s that hot I don’t know I always forget get to taste it when I’m

Like sautéing stuff for some reason so I think that could use a little bit more salt that’s on me not on the writing I was a feda with the bread this is a very dense feta it’s like the Whole Foods brand which is not my favorite very

Salty very dense it’s not chewy at all M the stand out to me is not only do you have olive oil that’s contributing a lot of flavor and then you’ve got some grated garlic in there cuz we didn’t want to buy garlic oil I just kind of

Made my own right uh we should talk about why we didn’t want to buy garlic oil oh it’s maybe the most likely candidate for botel item not saying that people who make garlic oil are doing it wrong it just makes us nervous cuz it is so easy oh it’s just like what’s the

Point in potentially storing botulism versus just making it on your own like who cares it’s so easy to do uh the shallot is pretty neutral as shallot tends to be but the pickle chili phenomenal and I love all the herbs in it and everything like this is a very

Good simple crowd pleaser mhm with the bread too yeah so good M Just Hits mhm I think these dishes in general they pack a lot of flavor but the nice thing is that everything is very well balanced like this can be a very intense dish I

Think just on its own but you mix this with the bread and it’s just like the harmony of it is beautiful very strong start I think the caram is a little bit sweet for my taste but it’s also like bitter Bittersweet yeah mhm is it uric

Acid that eggplant tends to have M would you like a subsy I would like a subsy it’s a frittata egg lots of herbs that’s why it’s green so many herbs Walnut it’s basically just egg herbs walnut walnut and Zares Barberry it is so salty it is

Overs salted it is really good though I think the salt wears on you over time mhm she called for two tablespoons of salt which is I was like that’s so much two tablespoons crushed sea salt wow all right the salt is it’s overwhelming but

If I made it I would just cut that in half and be perfectly happy cuz this is delicious I think on the first bite it wasn’t a problem I think it’s like just like over time it’s like a starting to wear down it’s so good though mhm oh

When I get a barberry I know barberries are so good in it MH and I like the crunch of the Walnut otherwise everything would be really spongy and samsy but it’s a nice textural mhm um change still significantly different from the rest of it I did that thing

Where I’m really hungry so I eat really fast and now I’m like I’m so full the bread being a star of like multiple dishes really works well too smash together I think the bread is smash regardless light light pass I think on this one yeah light smash but

Only because there’s just a little bit too much salt if there was less salt that’s a hard smash right or maybe if there’s like yogurt or something to balance it out that first day was a lot of work so for the second we wanted to make things a little bit easier but I

Just couldn’t say no to that recipe for cello a Persian basmati rice dish in the hopes that I could get a nice crispy Tedy like the first day Sabrina offers pairing suggestions and in this situation she suggests to pair her chicken with basmati rice so winner winner chicken dinner I guess here’s day

Two day two cooking out of persiana today we are making Persian saffron chicken fennel and Barberry stew with Persian basmati rice or cello think of it like a Ted Saffron Chicken in yes all of the those are completely flat it feels so good when you get the right size pot out I can’t describe that feeling it’s such a great feeling 30 minutes preheat a large sauce pan over medium heat fill the pan with boiling

Water they don’t have a photo of this on the other one but they do have a photo of something similar on another page so I think I’m going to go for something kind of like that generous drizzle of oil I think you use all of the butter it

Says a couple of generous Pats of butter but she also measures out the amount of butter and she doesn’t talk about serving it with butter at any other point so I’m just going to assume that all the butter goes goes in on the bottom based on her

Writing my scattered rice wrap the pan lid in a dish towel like this I think this is what they want so that’s 45 minutes in the rice ready yep 1 2 3 yep okay I feel like this is just going to fall out everywhere let’s go for it we got this

Oh that’s steamy oh my god there was so much steam under there I did not expect that oh we got a little bit of color a tiny bit of Teddy we got a little bit of Color what’s already broken up oh no I feel like we should have gotten a like blate for this like a little bit little higher this can’t be a two blate D little higher Edge this cannot be a two blate dinner it’s very crunchy the rice buttery salty and that’s it we eat so

Many stews with rice and we couldn’t figure out what to serve the rice in so we just put it in our like usual rice bowls and so I’m like really tempted to just like hold my rice bowl the whole meal and like scoop stew into it yeah

She doesn’t give a lot of Direction on how to eat these things together she just has served with batti rice so okay tell me what you think of the chicken the the broth is quite neutral chicken’s pretty unseasoned with the barberries it actually kind of reminds me of some gong

Korean soup right yeah mhm it’s got like a medicinal thing going on I wonder if the saffron is giving you that I think maybe a slight bitterness from the fennel too it’s very delicate flavors mhm I think it could use a little bit of seasoning but chicken do yeah I do think

It could use a little bit of extra salt but this really gives me song Vibes I bet if we let the sauce reduce in the stew the soup um it would develop a bit more Flav you’d get a little more flavor it doesn’t I hate when you do that so much

I’m sorry I was really hoping we would get a little bit more of the cumin flavor coming through or that cinnamon flavor there’s cumin in here and cinnamon yeah but I would never know not getting much of either of those things MH a lot of chicken flavor it seems like

A lot of the flavor is diluted so I think maybe that’s why I was saying I wonder if it’s supposed to be a bit thicker than this do they have you using chicken stock mm-m what’s the base just saffron do they have you using a specific amount of water that might be

The problem then yeah it just said to fill the pot cover the chicken so it’s really depending on the size of the pot then too mhm the meat on the chicken just completely falls off mhm just fully I can just scoop it off with a spoon yeah

Everything Cuts with a spoon I don’t even need the fork it’s a it’s just a very mild vegetable soup it’s very mild mild as always love the little pops of acidity from the barberries yep the barberries are clutch it needs quite a bit of salt honestly once it’s salted

It’s much better but it’s still like pretty neutral mhm snow day or like sick day kind of meal sick day snow day yes perfect wonderful I think the hardest part of cooking the chicken though was um she tries to get you to get color on the chicken after you’ve already kind of

Like not caramelized but started to uh get your onions translucent so it’s quite wet so you have to throw the chicken in with the onions mhm and then also you wanted those to brown but you but I had a hard time not burning my

Onions I feel like we see that a lot in cookbooks that’re really trying to avoid complexity they just skip steps so you get like worse outcomes to have a step less when you get a hit of that Barberry though it’s so nice it’s like a little

Pop of acid it’s very tasty both of these things together are very tasty she says that you can make this just with plain BOS MTI I do think that that really levels it up chillo called smash on the combination light smash individually especially if you have extra salt for

The stew we went through an entire salt container in the last two days when I was planning out my menu I stumbled on her leg of lamb recipe took one look at that crust and decided that’s absolutely something that I’m making for this review but while I dreamed of going

Hands on and really digging into that leg of lamb like an absolute cavewoman we could only find boneless Cuts unfortunately if I do this recipe again and I’m absolutely going to I’m going to try to do it when I can find a bone in

Leg of lamb so I can give it the full flam Stones treatment enjoy day three it’s day three cooking out of persiana today we’re making the mouya style lamb leg with cumin dipping salt and turmeric and cumin roasted Potatoes I’m assuming that the salt and the pepper both go in here seems like a paste so this has to go in the oven 5 hours 1 hour down hour two hour number three this is the end of the fourth hour we’re going on they stay every 30 minutes going on to hour

Five I’m also going to get the potatoes Going here we Go I was trying so hard not to touch the the potatoes because there’s turmeric on them and then one of them fell off putting them in this bowl and I just like grabbed it and threw it in and now my fingers are yellow so that’s been

Fun it’s dry 5 hours huh 5 hours she didn’t give any other signal either it was just like 5 hours should be falling off the bone but because we don’t have a bone in this it’s hard to tell that’s not bad it is dry yeah but not terrible

I’ve had dryer okay I tried like my best to base it with a brush I tried to use a spoon like halfway through but it wasn’t releasing enough juice so I couldn’t gather enough to make the spoon effective you know I would expect this to cook in about 2 hours

Max so this is an interesting one yeah either way like I do think it tastes good yeah the flavor is great it’s just the uh moisture problem that easily easily can be fixed an hour per pound is crazy watching attemp would be a good move I would say that’s the best move in

General but you know the potatoes with it are excellent it’s a great choice mhm they’re so Punchy so Punchy I think this is really like a perfect example of where signals would save the recipe full stop yes I don’t think this is bad I still think this is actually a smash

It’s quite good it’s just the texture right I mean I’d be happy to try this again mhm with the potatoes too I think I would have something fresh on the side because it is it’s a very heavy dish like some sort of salad or like a yogurt

Thing on something to brighten it up something to give it a little bit more brightness cuz it’s very very like warming spices it’s rich though it’s nice for me saying just like cart blanch cook something that is not a braze for 5 hours is very high risk the flavors of

The crust there’s cumin in there so like salty cumin it’s almost all cumin yeah oh man those potatoes hit they’re spicy there’s cayenne pepper on them it’s great yeah very tasty we can easily resolve the timing issues I think overall this is a smash even if this one didn’t turn out

Perfectly I would definitely make this again what our lips are all yellow now most of the recipes featured in this book look elegant and beautiful the cop to Kebab on the other hand with its store-bought tortillas and simple dressing of yogurt onions and parsley was a little bit underwhelming however

Sabrina suggests pairing this with judic a siki like cucumber and yogurt sauce and it’s hard for us to say no to that it’s day four cooking out of persiana today we’re making the Turkish Adana kafta kebabs with shirazi salad and jaik that’s yogurt with cucumber garlic and

Dill one fat garlic clove what if I do two not so fat squeeze out some of this excess moisture start it on the salad I’m going to get a bigger bowl all right we got our salad time to make the kebab she says really need this part like

Bread everything everywhere all at once you know the hot dog fingers that’s how I feel right now because these gloves are coming off and so my fingers are all like long and saggy all right yeah we’re going to do the patties for these uh I want them to

Be a little bit smaller size she doesn’t give a lot of Direction on like weighing it or anything like that it’s just a handful but they’re going to be in wraps so I kind of want them to be like a little bit smaller I need another Tray I’m thinking that much oil for these I don’t think they need a lot probably not I’m saying like pretty wet they’re sticky over medium Heat it doesn’t look as pretty I was trying to copy the thing that she did Buto this smells very good good hopefully it tastes good I was a little bit concerned about the amount of time that these the straight up flow tortillas is yeah not something I’ve seen before yeah she said you could use whatever bread you wanted she wasn’t specific she said tortillas she uses tortillas

Yeah cof got a little bit cold but yeah red bell pepper yeah in the meatball mhm takes over honestly I’m getting a lot of red bell pepper as like a core flavor the meat’s much more neutral compared to it huh Theo I got the Aleppo next I’m

Getting a lot of onion there’s a lot of sweet components M there’s a half a red bell pepper it’s pretty good though the J kicks ass dude what a great combo it’s lamb and mint there’s no mint it’s still really yeah I just got like a little

Corner of it and I was like immediately like refreshing compared to everything else I really like this this is good mhm the cofa is not overcooked it looks like it is and it worried me when it was on the skillet and getting that dark very charred on the outside but like moist on

The inside mhm basically the opposite of last night’s land I thought the tortilla would be more distracting honestly but it’s pretty decent heating the tortillas before you put everything in is really helpful too so nice and malleable mhm there are not going to be many leftovers

Tonight yeah these are great I do think that the Judi that is very very helpful for this mhm necessary yeah she does say you can just use Greek yogurt and it looks like she does in her photo but I think that really like the herbs are

Takes it up but not yeah but yeah it’s nice and balanced good textures good flavors I would happily make these again this is delicious mhm oh salad yeah it’s like kachumber or kachumbari M but with h pomegranate M which is a nice addition it’s sharp it’s spicy you go to GAO with

Fuess but very very oniony there is yes there’s quite a bit of onion in this too mhm I would say the onion should be the last thing to go in cuz this is uh oh just a little too oniony mhm okay you had a chance to spread out ah I see so

It’s just everything if you’re doing this ahead have time throw the onion in at the end mhm this onion really got in there and said this is our place now I want another one of these very badly go get it all in all heart’s smack my final day was all planned around

Making her sabzi Polo recipe Sabrina suggests pairing this rice dish with fish so her cotton Tamarind was a no-brainer Herby rice plus Herby fish plus a dill based dessert sign me up okay it’s day five the final day working out of persana before the review today

We’re going to be making the cod in Tamarind cilantro and fenu Greek sauce also known as Galia Mahi we’re serving that with Persian herb rice or sazi Polo and Lacy sapron fritters with pistachio and Dill sugar or zulia Cod is all prepped we can start prepping the rice three oh 500 G of

Basmati rinsed and we’ll soak that Rice finally slice the herbs and scallions what other herbs do we need picking the leaves off of cilantro M te off some parsley Leaves last thing Fritter is prepped up Okay literally just finished prepping hey everything perfect timing at I think the first thing that has to get started is the rice got to get this butter distributed didn’t it say cook it for 8 minutes and then reduce it definitely didn’t say that M so it’s time for 8

Minutes cut each codlin into 2 in pieces and lay them on top of the sauce spinning just enough of the sauce over them to barely cover each piece of fish one two three a little charred first attempt I don’t know I see a little man or a woman somebody running

Second attempt I think that’s it yeah you can start with dessert if you’d like to me they kind of taste like like crispy sugar donuts they’re sweet Cheetos sweet Cheetos yeah that’s a great way to describe them it’s one of of the better cods I’ve had you really get that Fen Greek yeah

The F Greek would come through love that and the garlic mhm um the cilantro a bit it’s like chill background cilantro it’s spicy the fish has cooked perfectly yeah the fish cook really so tend this was another one I think where she just gave you time right she didn’t gave you like

An so she’s really nailed down the timing on this one at least well I think because it’s such a gentle cooking method mhm like it’s not going to get like rubbery right so I think I think it has a lot of um safeties built in it’s a

Wet cook raise simple I think like my temp got away from what the recipe intended and it’s still just fine The Tamarind is interesting that like acidity hits I don’t taste a Tamarind as much it’s very sour to me it’s very light flavors though it’s not really

Like intense one way or the other I think all those it’s like it’s just Herby I think it could have been reduced more simmered a little bit uncovered just to get the wheat starch to hydrate that’s in there mhm all the flavors are concentrated in the onions when you get

A bite of onion it’s intense everything else is like very neutral yeah so that’s like the challenge and part of why I would like it to be a bit more consistent I think in general everything here could use a little more salt but I’m really glad that we did this fish

With this rice cuz I think the extra herbiness is just it’s nice it’s not too much it’s not overpowering either way they complement each other really well some Herby rice some Herby fish I think the sweetness of the sauce really works well with the slightly overcooked Ted and that is

Like it just adds some roastiness that is like really nice what the fish he also says that you can just do plain rice with it I think plain rice would be just fine it would soak up all the sauce and the juice and be really nice I do

Think going the extra mile and making the polo was it very cozy actually I want to give these a little more Su they’re way better this way I mean it’s a funnel cake but the the pistachio and the dill tweak it just enough that it’s like a unique

Experience have you make the donuts use a little squeezy bottle yeah now I’m really enjoying these it’ll work I don’t usually like a lot of sugar but this really needs it oh they’re just little yeasty fritters yep I could eat like a pile of these now so after a week with

Persiana how’ we feel this book is quite accessible the only special tool I was asked to use all week was a food processor and even that was only suggested to speed up the process of chopping a bunch of herbs Sabrina does her best to make the ingredient list

Easy to find at your local grocery store but if you plan to make her cotton Cameron and I suggest you do you might want to order some fenu Greek leaves ahead of time depending on where you live overall Sabrina really goes the extra mile to get you in and out of the

Kitchen with some great food as fast as you can alternatively you can just use plain rice for this alternatively you can just use plain yogurt for the she really leaves a lot of open doors I noticed that so we’re giving accessibility an eight the design of

This book is a little bit above average the photos are elegant and looked undeniably like our final outcomes the recipe layout may be focused too heavily on keeping everything on a single page which left some of the instructions feeling a little bit cramped but other than having to backtrack every once in a

While to figure out where we left off it was pretty easy to follow herbs andall the turmeric design gets a seven the flavors were mostly great on their own but the real magic was in the pairings so like the fish by itself light smash rice by itself light smash

When you put them together smash the only big issues we ran into were in the quality of our ingredients especially with the shirazi salad the Tomato quality that we had is a little bit mey and that long roast time on the Lamb made it pretty dry for me saying just

Like cart blanch cook something that is not a braze for 5 hours is very high risk the combination of textures across the week was a real standout and something that we rarely get in cookbooks but we saw a lot of crunchy lot of crunch we saw some light and

Crisp we saw some like bouncy meatballs we saw like most of the textures are are excellent this like nice tender fish everything was either balanced itself or had a suggested pairing that balanced it out perfectly so flavor gets a eight cookbook writing is hard and because Sabrina is looking to find those

Shortcuts to make it easier for home Cooks to get started with Persian food she’s made her job even harder overall we ran into very few hiccups with the writing but there were a couple of times that we got confused cut in half and thinly sliced into wait a half a large

Onion cut in half and thinly sliced into half Moons or wish that she’d given us some signals along with the cook times an hour per pound is crazy watching attempt would be a good move I would say that’s the best move in general but you

Know but on the other hand we had cases where the timings were spoton and we were pleasantly surprised the cofta is not overcooked it looks like it is and it worried me when it was on the skillet and getting that dark very charred on the outside but like moist on the inside

The issues we ran into were minor and anyone who’s cooked longer than a year could work around those pretty easily but we do like to account for beginners too so writing is going to get us straight down the- middle five out of the 16 dishes we made from persiana nine

Of them were smashes and many of them we plan to revisit when you inevitably come back to this cookbook what’s the first thing you’re going to make probably the cfta those are good ones I’ll probably come back to a lot of the Rices too it might be helpful to have two people in

The kitchen if you plan on doing a MZ dinner like we did but overall the dishes were easy to make and taste it incredible there are not going to be many leftovers tonight the barberries are clutch the long roast like the lamb and the chicken were so simple that I

Was actually able to get most of the editing done for this video while they were cooking value is going to get a nine and that brings our initial cult score for persiana to 7.4 not every recipe was a smash on its own but persiana is a masterclass in pairings

And Sabrina really drives home how an extra bunch of herbs or textural contrast can make a meal excellent let’s eat some food I’m I’m hungry