Sholezard is one of the easiest homemade sweets of Persian cuisine. Traditionally, this yellow pudding is cooked for funerals, and the biggest occasion of consumption prevalently is in the mourning period of Ashura, which is distributed as a Nazri dish (Free food during religious events).
Sholezard has two main ingredients: rice & saffron. No Basmati rice for this recipe. Because it should release starch during long hours of cooking. The Thai rice can be a good option, it has perfume and a considerable amount of starch.
Ingredients | 4-5 servings
- 100g/3.5oz rice (i.e. Thai)
- 1.2 liter Water
- 250g/8.8oz Sugar
- 1/2 cups Rose water
- 1 tsp Saffron
- 3tbsp slivered Almonds or/and Pistachios
- Cinnamon for decoration
Preparations
– A night before wash the rice and soak it in the water.
Next day: add water and sugar to rice in a big pot.
– Simmer for ⏳ 4-5 hours. Stir occasionally to avoid the rice stick to the bottom.
➡️ While waiting, mix the rose water with saffron. Cover it and let it rest for an intenser taste.
– Back to rice pot: after long hours of cooking, rice has soften and we have a creamy, shiny and dense cream.
– Add the mix of saffron and rose water.
– Continue to simmer for last ⏳ 5 minutes until the consistency and color becomes like the following:
– Turn off the heat and add half of the almonds. We save the other half for decorations.
– Mix all together and Sholezard is ready. While it’s warm pour it on the serving bowl because it tends to solidify when cools down.
– Wait another 1 hour to cool down
Decorate with cinnamon, almonds, and pistachios and serve 🙂
Notes
- The rose water is a distilled liquid from rose flowers and it absorbs more than any other liquid the color of saffron.
- Usually, Sholezard is poured into small serving dishes or one big bowl. It’s served cold or at room temperature.
- Mix the rice and sugar during the cooking time, it’s very tricky if you add sugar at the end, even for “adjust” the sweetness you will risk the creamy consistency into runny liquid :-/ (it happened to me!)
- The cold Sholezard tends to feel less sweet, that’s why the amount of sugar for Sholezard seems excessive.
Noosh e jan (buon appetite)
