I love when I am able to merge my husband’s Persian culture with my Jewish one. This was a perfect to do so with both Norooz (Persian New Year) and Purim just days apart. I decided to merge the two holidays in one treat – pistachio, cardamom, chocolate chip rugelach.

Rugelach is a traditional Jewish rolled cookie, most often filled with raisins or chocolate and walnuts, as in my Aunt Gussie’s Rugelach.

Many Persian desserts and pastries have pistachios and/or cardamom in them.

So, I coated pistachios with cinnamon-sugar mixtures and cardamom-sugar mixtures to see what we preferred; both were good.  But when I added the chocolate chips, the pistachios, chocolate and cardamom just blended perfectly together.  So we ended up with our “Persian” Rugelach. Which happens to also be even extra fitting since the story of Purim took place in ancient Persia.

Pistachio Rugelach (“Persian Rugelach”)

3 eggs (from Farmer Kim)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup canola oil

1/4 cup orange juice

2 Tbsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

3 1/2 cups flour

1/3 cup mixture of cardamom & sugar

1/2 cup pistachio, chopped

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, oil, orange juice and vanilla.

Mix in the salt, baking powder and 3 cups of flour. Knead in an additional 1/2 cup flour until the dough is dry enough to roll.

Roll the dough out to 1/8″ thickness.

Sprinkle heavily with cinnamon sugar. Sprinkle with nuts & chips. Cut it into triangles or diamonds (today I did triangles).

Roll into crescents, pressing in the end point, and place on cookie sheets. Bake in batches for 12-15 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Enjoy!

Makes 30 – 40 rugelach, depending upon the size you make them.