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Fesenjān (; also called Fesenjoon in Tehrani accent) is a sweet and sour Iranian cuisine stew (a khoresh). The roots of this Persian delicacy trace back to the Sassanid Persia's golden age. It is typically served over rice in the Iranian manner. In Iran, it is made with minced meat (lamb, sheep or beef), meatballs, chicken or duck. Like other khoresh stews served over rice, fesenjan is common also to Iraqi cuisine through Iranian pilgrims visiting Shia sites such as Imam Husayn shrine. As a festive dish for special occasions, it has become part of Jewish Rosh Hashannah celebrations, even though the typology of Jewish cuisine is imprecise. The Oxford Handbook of the Jewish Diaspora, Oxford University Press, 2021, p. 683 In Azerbaijan, where it is called fisincan plov, the stew is made with lamb meatballs instead of poultry.
If the pomegranate sauce comes out too sour, sugar and fried onions may be added to sweeten it. Sometimes, a hot iron is applied to cause oxidation and darken the sauce's color.
It is a dish that is part of the dinner table on Yaldā Night celebrations.
In the traditional Iranian system of garm and sard foods (i.e. "hot" and "cold", respectively), fesenjān is considered "hot" because it uses walnuts, which are also considered a "hot" food. In order to balance out this hotness, sometimes people will add coriander (a "cold" plant) to it; peeled pumpkin is also added for the same reason, as well as to act as a sugar substitute.
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