This recipe for cooking delicious peach stew with Iranian saffron combines tender chicken, late-summer peaches and tart Bukhara plums in a lightly thickened sweet-and-sour sauce.
The timing matters more than the sweetness. Cook the chicken first, balance the sauce, and add the peaches near the end so they soften without disappearing into the stew.
Peach stew ingredients
- Fresh peaches: 5
- Chicken thighs: 2
- Chicken breast: 1, cut into 2 large pieces
- Cooking oil: the original recipe allows up to 1 cup; use only as much as the pan needs
- Salt: as needed
- Chopped onion: 1/2 cup
- Fresh lemon juice: 4 tablespoons, plus more only after tasting
- Plain flour: 1 tablespoon
- Cold water: 3 tablespoons for the flour slurry
- Brewed saffron: 1 tablespoon
- Pitted Bukhara plums: 5 to 6
- Sugar: 1 tablespoon, adjusted to the fruit
- Warm water: enough to come close to the top of the chicken
Prepare and season the chicken
Pat the chicken dry; do not rinse raw poultry in the sink. Remove the skin if you want a lighter sauce, trim excess fat, and cut the breast into 2 pieces of roughly the same thickness.
Rub the pieces with 2 tablespoons of oil and a modest amount of salt. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Keep the chicken cold until the onion is ready, then wash the board, knife and your hands before handling the fruit.
Brown the onion and chicken
Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wide, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the 1/2 cup of chopped onion and cook until soft and golden at the edges.
Add the chicken pieces in a single layer. Brown them lightly on both sides, then pour in enough warm water to come close to their surface without flooding the pot. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover partly and cook until the chicken is nearly tender.
Build the saffron, lemon and plum sauce
Stir the 4 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of brewed saffron into the pot. For a concentrated infusion that will not thin the stew, see the best way to brew saffron.
Put the pitted Bukhara plums in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave for 15 minutes. Drain them, check once more for fragments of stone, then add them to the simmering chicken.
Mix the 1 tablespoon of flour with 3 tablespoons of cold water until completely smooth. Stir a spoonful of hot stew liquid into the slurry, then pour it slowly into the pot while stirring. Let the sauce simmer gently until it begins to coat a spoon.
Prepare the peaches
Peel the 5 peaches, remove their stones and cut each fruit into thick wedges. This is the step obscured by the earlier instruction to “peel a squash”; the ingredient and surrounding method clearly call for peaches.
Warm up to 3 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan. Sear the peach wedges briefly, turning once, until their cut sides are lightly golden. They do not need to cook through in the pan.
Finish the peach stew
Slide the peaches into the stew after the chicken is tender and the sauce has begun to thicken. Keep the heat low and cook just until the wedges yield slightly to a spoon but still hold their shape.
Check the thickest chicken piece with a food thermometer; poultry should reach 165°F (74°C). The CDC food-safety guidance gives that temperature for all poultry.
Taste the sauce before making the last adjustment. Add a little more lemon if the peaches are very sweet, or a small pinch of sugar if the plums are unusually tart. Make one change at a time so the saffron is not buried under sweetness or acidity.
Serve without breaking the fruit
Lift the chicken onto a warm serving dish, spoon the sauce around it, and place the peach wedges and plums on top. Serve with plain steamed rice, which gives the fruit-rich sauce somewhere to settle.
If the sauce is thinner than you want, remove the chicken and fruit first and reduce the liquid for a few minutes. Do not boil the assembled stew hard; the peaches will collapse and the flour may make the sauce heavy.
Using peach compote instead of fresh peaches
Peach compote can replace fresh fruit when peaches are out of season. Drain the pieces carefully and add them only for the final few minutes because they are already soft.
The earlier recipe suggests using some compote liquid to cook the chicken. If you do, choose a lightly sweetened product, replace only part of the warm water, and omit the tablespoon of sugar at first. Balance lemon and sweetness after the plums have simmered.
Keep the flavours balanced
- Use firm-ripe peaches that can survive a brief sear and simmer.
- Add the 5 to 6 Bukhara plums before the peaches so they have time to soften.
- Temper the flour slurry with hot liquid to reduce lumps.
- Add the peach wedges only after the chicken and sauce are nearly ready.
- Adjust lemon and sugar at the end, when the fruit’s true balance is clear.
A good peach stew has tender chicken, intact pieces of fruit and a sauce that moves between tart and gently sweet. Saffron should remain distinct in the aroma rather than being used to cover an over-sweetened sauce.
