Recipe: Gnocchi sabzi with lamb kofta and this week’s news nibbles

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Spring has officially arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, and we have many ways to celebrate the return of life, some of which date back as far as the invention of the wheel. Rites of spring are woven into our humanity.

First arising out of Zoroastrianism in the 6th century B.C., Nowruz (Persian New Year) is still celebrated today much as it was at its inception, though it has spread along the western half of the Silk Road, everywhere Turko-Persian culture historically flourished: the Middle East; South Asia; the Caucasus and the Balkans. The holiday likely sprang even earlier from ancient Vedic springtime rites like the brightly colored fertility festival Holi, which dates to about a century before Nowruz, and also happens to fall in March (it was last week).

As seen in various Pagan celebrations, the ancient Zoroastrian Chaharshanbeh Suri begins the spring equinox festivities with lighting and dancing around a large bonfire. There’s also the official Japanese holiday Shunbun no Hi (Vernal Equinox Day), with its origins in older Shinto practices honoring ancestors, and Roman festivals celebrating the rebirth of the vegetation deity Attis, the spouse to the ancient mother goddess Cybele. And around a thousand years ago at Chichen Itza, El Castillo was specifically designed to light up in the shape of the Yucatec serpent god of water (Kukulcán) when the sun hits the stairway leading to the top of the temple on the Maya equinox.

Made of eggs and gobs of fresh herbs and greens, the classic Nowruz dish, kuku sabzi is as springtimey as they come, rivaling any of the sansai of Japanese seasonal wild foods, Irish colcannon or the verdant and creamy Grüne Soße of central Germany. Though gnocchi might seem an odd dish for an Iranian holiday, soft dumplings have long been part of Middle Eastern and Levantine cuisine. So have kofta — in this case, tiny, juicy lamb meatballs spiced with cumin, coriander and dill. The herb sauce is as green as an Irish pasture, made with handfuls of my garden herbs, a mix that could only be at home in Turko-Persian cooking traditions along the west half of the Silk Road, and all together we have a dish that could sit comfortably at the center of the Venn diagram of Irish and Iranian cooking. Serves 4.

Ingredients

Kofta

1 pound ground lamb

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon dried dill

1 egg

3 tablespoons fine bread crumbs

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper or paprika

Sabzi

4 cups arugula, baby spinach, or a mix

2 cups fresh mixed herbs (I used a combo of stuff from the garden: parsley, dill, mint, cilantro, garlic chives, chervil and lovage)

2 cloves garlic

¼ cup olive oil or sunflower seed oil

A few pinches of salt and pepper

1 pound package of gnocchi

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F and lightly oil a rimmed sheet pan.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine the kofta/meatball ingredients until fully combined, then form into small meatballs. Arrange them evenly on the prepared sheet pan and roast for 20 minutes.
3. While the meatballs are cooking, blend the sabzi in a blender or food processor until a fairly smooth pesto forms. Taste and add salt as needed.
4. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the gnocchi according to the directions on the package. Strain, toss in the greens/herb sauce, gently stir in the meatballs and serve.