Nan-e Berenji

Nan-e berenji is the signature rice-flour cookie of Kermanshah in western Iran, and its tradition there is generally traced back roughly a century and a half to the Qajar era. The usual account ties it to travelers and pilgrims passing through Kermanshah on the old caravan routes, who needed a sweet that kept well and traveled without spoiling; bakers answered with cookies built on rice, a staple that stored and carried easily. From a road provision it grew into the city's celebrated souvenir and a fixture of the Nowruz sweet table, where seven sweet things are set out to welcome the new year.

Dry and tender, the cookie collapses into fine, sandy crumbs the instant teeth meet it, melting on the tongue rather than holding a chew. Gently sweet, with cardamom warm in the foreground and rosewater floral behind it. Poppy seeds add tiny nutty pops and a faint crunch against the powdery body. Pale gold, never browned. It is fragile to the point that the cookies are handled and stored with care, and crumble if pressed.

Rice flour is the whole point: with no wheat there is no gluten, so nothing binds the dough into a chew, and the cookie sets as a tender, short crumb instead. Fat from oil or butter coats the rice starch and keeps it from cohering, while egg yolk and a little binding hold the disc together just enough to bake. The dough is rested cold so it firms and the cookies keep their shape, then baked gently and pulled pale — browning would coarsen the delicate texture and dull the rosewater. They finish setting and crisping as they cool.