5 ingredientsQuick and easy Persian food is possible. By sparing yourself the trouble of using tens of ingredients, you can achieve great results while keeping things simple. All the recipes in this book have 5 major ingredients, carefully chosen to respect the original dishes on which they are based. This doesn't mean the intricacies of the dishes containing indigenous Iranian ingredients aren't achievable, nor would I ever discourage you from making them. By adapting the recipes I have cooked, eaten and enjoyed hundreds of times, I hope to pass them on to you so that you can cherish them too. These recipes have been perfected through many repeated attempts, cooked at home and in the test kitchen dozens of times. I can guarantee that they will bring you neither disappointment nor discomfort and that not a single ingredient will be wasted. As fond as I am of my mother and grandmother, when I moved to Holland, I realised that given how expensive energy is and how little time I could spend cooking on any given day, I would have to stray to tradition, or else I would be forced to kiss Persian cuisine goodbye. The methods I developed made cooking a fast and simple process requiring few ingredients. I came to realise that there is nothing wrong with replacing the ingredients I couldn't buy outside of Iran (or specialist supermarkets) and that there is simply no need to waste time soaking beans and chickpeas overnight and cooking them myself. Using tinned ingredients was highly frowned upon in our household, considered lazy and testifying a lack of taste. But doing two masters degrees and working full time as a teacher taught me that there is much more to life than spending hours in the kitchen to prepare a single meal. I reached a turning point in life and began breaking the rules of Persian cuisine. For the past seven years, I have been experimenting, tweaking and developing recipes which reflect the simple Dutch approach to food, applied to the traditional Persian meals I ate growing up in Iran. For me, cooking Iranian food isn't just about making the people I cook for happy, it is about enjoying the process, too. As I have learnt, this isn't possible without taking a relaxed approach.