Ash-e Reshteh

Ash-e reshteh is a thick noodle soup of herbs, kidney beans and chickpeas, finished with a drizzle of kashk and fried mint. It carries real symbolic weight around Nowruz, the Persian New Year: the long, tangled noodles are said to represent the tangled threads of a person's life, and eating them is meant to wish for a long, fortunate path ahead.

What it really is

Kidney beans and chickpeas simmer until tender in a broth thick with fresh herbs — parsley, spinach and coriander are common — and once everything is soft, long wheat or rice noodles go in and cook right in that same pot, thickening the whole soup considerably as they release starch. It ladles into a bowl and finishes with a generous drizzle of kashk, a tangy dried whey product, along with mint and onion fried separately until deeply browned and crisp, scattered over the top just before serving.

The noodles are meant to be long and unbroken, not cut short. Breaking the reshteh into short pieces before cooking undercuts the symbolism the dish is built around — the length of the noodle is doing real cultural work here, not just providing texture.

How it's served

• Hot, in a deep bowl, with kashk and fried mint-onion garnish added at the table or just before.
• As a main course, especially prominent around Nowruz celebrations.
• Thick enough to eat with a spoon standing nearly upright in it.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the wheat in the noodles and the dairy in the kashk.
• Say if it's a seasonal Nowruz item or available year-round.
• Note that a vegetarian version is the standard recipe as written; no meat is typically added.