Name: Bastani (Persian Ice Cream)
Prep time: 30 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: Persian
Ingredients: 1.5 quarts high quality Vanilla Ice Cream (we use Tillamook); 1/4 cup rose water (recipe below, or buy here); 1/2 teaspoon saffron (you can buy it here); 3/4 cup chopped pistachios; More chopped pistachios and dried rose petals to garnish (buy rose petals here); 1 cups fresh garden rose petals (store bought roses may have preservatives); 2 1/2 cups water

This Persian saffron and rose water ice cream flecked with pistachios is fragrant, vibrantly colored and EASY with store bought ice cream!

You may recall that I have a huge love for Persian food thanks to our many wonderful Persian friends from back when we lived in Berlin. My favorite food they would make was this Persian Saffron Chicken and Rice.

Well, another food they always talked about from back home in Iran was Bastani. Trying this saffron and rose flavored ice cream has always been a dream of mine. I don't know why it has taken me FOUR years of having an enormous rose bush in my garden to finally make a light go on in my head.

I can make bastani.

I would probably be a little nervous about what pesticides they would put on store bought roses, but technically all roses are edible!

For this recipe, I made a simple rose water. If you can pick flowers and boil water, you can make rose water. It's that easy.

I made more than I needed for this recipe, so I froze it in ice cube trays and am planning on possibly adding it to some homemade soap sometime soon (another recipe I need to post for you!). I might even just toss an ice cube in with my bubble bath some night. Supposedly roses have all kinds of great benefits for you skin and body (plus, they smell amazing).

The other important ingredient in this recipe is SAFFRON. Saffron actually comes from a certain type of crocus flower. Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world because it's so labor intensive to harvest. Each thread has to be handpicked from the middle of a flower. You will grind these red threads into a powder and when you add liquid to it it becomes a very rich gold color. The flavor is hard to describe. It's kind of earthy and grassy, very delicate and aromatic.

I was planning to make ice cream from scratch for this recipe, but then I thought, "What am I doing? I don't have time to make ice cream from scratch between taking care of all four of my little kids! Plus, I happen to have an unopened container of Tillamook ice cream in my fridge!"

Let's be real, if you're going to be enjoying this for dessert at a dinner party where you serve my Persian Saffron Chicken as the main course, you are not going to feel like making ice cream from scratch. And that is the best way to enjoy it.

Or... a dish can also be enjoyed while you sit on your couch while your kids are napping... while you type up a post for you blog... or something.