The season of the fava beans is in the mid spring – early summer. In Iran, people buy kilos and after peeling, they store them in freezer to enjoy various dishes made of it for whole year.

Ingredients | 4 servings

• 530g/12oz minced Meat (with 30% fat)
• 350g/12oz Rice (basmati, Thai or similar)
• 120g/4oz Dill (finely chopped)
• 4 Onions
• 350g/12oz Fava Beans (cut in half)
• 1 tsp Turmeric
• 1/2 tsp Cumin
• Salt and Pepper
• Cinnamon (to taste)

Preparations

– Wash the rice until the water is clear.

– Grate 1 medium onion and squeeze to discard excessive water.

– In a big bowl add rice, grate onion, meat, dill, turmeric, cumin, salt and pepper.

– Smash them with a meat mallet and make a sticky paste. The meat’s fat acts as a glue.

– Shape the paste into balls (smaller than tennis balls) and put them aside.

The final pot

– In a casseruole, stir fry 3 chopped onions, until translucent.

– Add a bit of turmeric, salt and pepper and stir.

– Pour hot boiling water to almost half of the pot and stir.

– Place the koofteh/meatballs one by one, gently in the pot. Make sure the meatballs shape is intact.

– Only the the tips of koofteh should remain out of water.

➡️ Important: each meatballs should have 1 inch/2cm of distance from the others. Because when the rice cooks their volume will grow.

– ⏳Put the lid on, cook on low heat untill the juice is reduced to 1/4th.

Last touch: 10 minutes before serving add a bit of cinnamon on the top of each meatball.

Serve koofteh with pickles, plain greek yogurt and salad.

Noosh e jan (Buon appetite) ☺️

The post Koofteh baghali, fava bean meatballs with dill appeared first on Foodcraftz.

• Traditional/Formal style (this recipe): it’s more laborious because we drain the rice. This type of preparation is common for celebrations and formal occasions, or when there are guests at home.
• Kateh style: rice cookes in the pot in 1 hour. It’s easier to cook since we don’t drain anything. The rice will be slightly sticky.

Important: you’ll need a thick bottom nonstick pot to distributes the heat evenly. If the bottom is thin the rice will burn.

Ingredients | 4-5 servings

• 500g/17.6oz Basmati rice
• 2 tbsp Salt
• 2-3 tbsp Ghee/clarified butter
• 2 knobs of Butter

video recipe:

Preparation

– Wash rice until the color of water, is no longer opaque.

– In a big pot boil water and add salt. (just like pasta water).

– Add rice to the pot and wait till it grows in size and floats on water.

– Save 1 cup of rice’s starchy-water, and add a knob of butter to melt (set aside for later).

– Drain the rice, don’t rinse! (to maintain the taste and salt).

– In a nonstick pot, on low heat, add 2-3 tbsp of ghee or oil, followed by 2 knobs of butter. (a greasy bottom helps to have a thicker tahdig and avoids burnings).

– Sprinkle all the rice, and at the end create some holes in it, which helps the humidity to come out more easily.

– Pour in the mix of butter and starchy water (that we saved before).

– Cover the lid with a clean kitchen cloth (in persian it called “Damkoni” دمکنی). It absorbs the humidity, preventing water to return on rice and helps the tahdig becomes crunchy.

– Cook on low heat for at least⏳ 1 hour. If you like a thicker and darker tahdig cook for 2-3 hours.

When the basmati rice comes off the edges, and its color turns to a golden brown, that’s when the Tahdig is ready!

➡️ Grip both pot and serving plate together and overturn. The tahdig falls on the plate and it’s ready to be served.

Notes

• It’s important to save a bit of starchy water from rice to have a beautiful compact tahdig
• The tahdig takes around 1 hour to cook but its color will be pale. Longer cookings makes tahdig more colorful.
• Long-grain rice is usually used for tahdig like: Jasmin, Thai, Basmati, etc.
• It is more authentic, if you serve the rice with saffron.
• People serve tahdig with stews (ghormeh sabzi, khoresh gheimeh, baghali ghatogh, zereshkpolo etc.) but it tastes good even with a fried egg! 🙂

noosh-e-jan ☺️

The post Traditional Tahdig – Persian rice crust appeared first on Foodcraftz.

This recipe shows how to make reshteh for the soup. Make sure you have a wide working space for the dough. You’ll need a rolling pin, durum and/or rice flour to prevent the sheets of dough stick to each other while we are cutting the reshteh.

Ingredients | 5 servings

• 300g/10.5oz Flour
• 100g/3.5oz Water
• 6g/0.2oz of Salt

Preparation

– In a bowl mix flour and salt.

– Pour a bit of water, incorporating a little at a time, until everything is combined.

– Knead the pieces of dough together.

⏳ Let it rest for 10 mins. This helps the dough to relax.

– Knead it again. This time working the dough becomes slightly easier.

– Repeat this for other 2 times, with the intervals of 10mins. Then cover the dough with a foil and let it rest for 1 hour.

Making Reshteh

– On a wide working board, sprinkle flour and with a rolling pin flatten the dough and create a circle.

– The thickness should be around 2-3mm/0.11inch.

– Cut the dough in half (horizontally) the noodles should be short (12 cm / 5.1inch approximately)

– Sprinkle flour (better use durum or rice flour) on the surface and fold the dough on itself and cut it, (circa 3mm/0.11inch of width), with a very sharp knife.

The reshteh is done!

The result:

How to use Reshteh

The freshly made reshteh, cooks in 10 minutes. Unlike Italian pasta they shouldn’t be “al dente” but overcooked.

Notes

• Having the rice flour or durum flour comes handy. When we are cutting reshteh, they helps to separate the sheets of dough because of their very dry nature.
• You can store reshteh up to 3 days in fridge.

With this noodles you can cook Ash reshteh one of the famous Iranian soups:

Good luck ☺️

The post Reshteh recipe – Persian noodles appeared first on Foodcraftz.

What is Zereshk? It’s Barberry.

It is a type of berry that grows in arid mountain areas up to 2000m/6561f of height. A vitamin-C-rich fruit which is sour, that’s why it’s a great match with greasy food because it balances the flavors and in general Persian food has a penchant for sourness.

In case you don’t have Zereshk, replace it with one of these berries:

• Ribes/currant
• Raspberries

Ingredients | 2-3 servings

• 3-4 Chicken thighs & legs
• 1tbsp Tomato paste
• A handful of dried Zereshk/Barberries
• 1 teaspoon Turmeric
• 1 white Onion
• Salt and Black Pepper
• Clarified butter
• Slices of Almonds (optional)
• 1 spring of Rosemary (optional)

While cooking the chicken, start cooking the Persian rice. Here is the recipe of white rice.

Preparation

– In a big pot add clarified butter (or the oil of your choice), followed by chicken tights.

– Stir fry the chicken until browning.

– Add onion, turmeric, salt, pepper.

– Add 1 cup of boiling water and set the heat to low.

– Cover with the lid and cook for ⏳ 40 mins.

– In a small pan stir fry tomato paste to have a more vivid red color (Optional).

– Add the tomato paste to chickens.

– Cook for another ⏳ 30 minutes.

Preparation of Zereshk/Berries:

– Wash the Zereshk using a sieve.

– In a pan add: oil + Zereshk + 1tsp sugar + a bit of ground saffron and salt. Stir fry for ⏳ 1 minute.

– Add 2-3 tbsp of cooked rice and almonds (optional), mix them well.

– The topping for the rice is ready.

Back to the chicken pot:

After cooking zeresh polo for an hour, the chicken becomes tender and gains the red color of tomato paste, that is when it is ready, check the seasoning before serving.

Notes

• Some people like to eat this dish with sides like white greek yogurt, raw onions & fresh herbs (سبزی خوردن).
• If you like less red chicken feel free to add less tomato paste, in many restaurants, this dish doesn’t have an intense red color and it’s less sour.

Serve it with basmati rice, zereshk & saffron rice on top and the chickens aside.

Noosh-e-jan (buon appetito) ☺️

The post Zereshk Polo Morgh or Barberry Rice Chicken appeared first on Foodcraftz.