Nokhodchi is the traditional Persian chickpea cookie often served during Nowruz.
The fuller name is nan-e nokhodchi or shirini-e nokhodchi, meaning chickpea bread or chickpea sweet. The cookies are especially associated with Qazvin and are made primarily from chickpea flour, sugar, fat such as clarified butter or oil, and aromatic cardamom. Pistachios are often used as a garnish.
Nokhodchi has a delicate, crumbly texture and is commonly shaped into small clovers, flowers, rounds, or other decorative forms. Families serve it with tea and include it among the sweets offered to guests during Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
It is easy to confuse nokhodchi with other Persian confections such as sohan, a brittle sweet, or koluche, a filled or molded regional pastry. Nokhodchi’s defining ingredient is chickpea flour. It also sometimes appears in lists of seven Nowruz sweets, a tradition linked in folklore with Jamshid’s discovery of sugar.