Coriander Baby

As I was wandering through the baby food aisle at the grocery store the other day, staring at colourful boxes of rice cereal and jars of strained squash, I began to wonder how people on the other side of the world do things. So I emailed my sister in Iran to ask her help in finding out what Iranian mothers feed their children.

In my experience, I know that Iranian women are naturals in the kitchen. They cook three large meals a day completely from scratch. The recipes are all memorized, passed down to their daughters and perfected generation after generation. They don't own any measuring cups or cookbooks and all the ingredients are bought fresh, organic, free range, local, and in season. The result is, of course, nutritious and mouthwatering meals that quickly become addicting. (I'm getting hungry just writing this!)

So do Iranian mothers use dehydrated rice cereal? Well, my sister asked her own mom and here are the recipes she sent me. Notice the same nutrients (iron, vitamins, etc.) that we fortify our baby food with is all naturally derived. And they use spices!

1- Can you buy bone of sheep there? If you can, two bones that are 10cm is enough, first put the bone in the pot with three or four glasses of water, then add a little salt and turmeric, and let it cook with a very very small flame around 7-8 hours (you can make it from night till morning but be careful that it doesn't burn.) The bone broth is very delicious for baby especially when their teeth are coming in and it makes their bones strong.

2- Barbecue lamb tenderloin for two minutes, then push it in a glass till the water comes out. Then put it on the fire again for one minute and again push it in the glass, do this work till the meet doesn't have any water left inside. This lamb broth is very energetic.

3- First soak around 15 raw almonds in water till you can peel them. Then grate the almonds. Grind uncooked rice till it becomes a powder and then put the powder of rice and peeled almonds with one glass of water in a pot and let it cook. You have to stir it while it's cooking because it may burn. When this becomes thickened you can put a small amount of sugar in just to make it more delicious. This is a good first food for baby.

4- Put one small potato, one small carrot, one small tomato, with a little rice, coriander and lentils with water and cook it. Then blend it. But for the first time only give one or two spoonfuls to the baby and the second time make more and more, because this type of food has many different ingredients and it may bother her stomach if she has too much at first.