Persian food?

Question

At work the other day someone offered me a taste of homemade Persian food, it was a barbequed meat dish with rice...the rice is what I am curious about, it was so aromatic and pretty! There were little yellow threads and fuschia dots in it that stained the paper plate bright pink after we microwaved it. Does anyone know what this is and how to make this rice? It was delicious!

Answer 1

The kind of rice you'd want to use is long grain basmati rice. If you go to a Persian store you can buy the "Royal" or "Pari" brands. These days regular grocery stores (even Costco) carries Royal Rice.
The yellow stuff, is Saffron, but if you want to get it make sure you get your Saffron from a Middle Eastern or even better a Persian store. There are different kinds of Saffron, some are not that good because they dye them red, so even though it gives you the color, it doesn't have the flavor (Mexican or Spanish saffron).
You should boil 1/4 cup water and add a pinch of your saffron. A little bit goes a long way. Oh yea, you should grind your saffron strands to powder so it looks like paprika. They have the little grinders in any middle eastern store... just tell them you're looking for saffron grinder. The Persian word for it is "Havang".

3 cups long grain white rice
1/2 cup melted butter for bottom rice
1/2 cup melted butter for top rice
1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
2 quarts water
1 cup water


1. Start the 2 quarts water and salt boiling in large stock pot or dutch oven.
2. Rinse rice until water runs clear (or as close to clear as you can get it).
3. Add rice to boiling water, boil about 10 minutes or until rice is about half cooked.
4. Drain rice in colander, reserve.
5. In stock pot or dutch oven, pour about 1/4 cup melted butter on bottom, tilt to cover 2 inches up sides.
6. Pour the half-cooked rice into the pot, try to make a nice mound in the middle, and avoid the sides as much as possible. (create a cone shape)
7. With the end of a wooden spoon, make holes in the mound of rice (5 or 6 places) evenly around.
8. Pour the remaining melted butter onto the rice, and drizzle 1/4 Cup of the extra water into the holes you made. Cover pot with kitchen towel to absorb the steam, place pot lid on towel.
9. Cook on very low heat, checking after about 15 minutes. If the rice is browning too fast, add the remaining extra water a little bit at a time.
10. Cook rice until it's done, about 30-40 minutes.
11. Try not to check it too often, as it needs to steam.

PS: You can substitute any veggie oil (not olive oil) for the bottom rice to be on the healthier side, but the butter you pour over rice gives it a lot of flavor.

So after your rice is cooked, in a separate bowl, mix your saffron water and enough rice to absorbs all the liquid. Serve all the white rice in a large oval or round platter, creating a mound.Then you place all your yellow rice on top of your white rice!

You'll have some crunchy rice (Tah-dig) at the bottom of your pot, this is a delicacy and it tastes really good.




Also as for the fuschia color dots, do you mean the little sour stuff? That's the only fuschia color dots (little berries) we have. They are called Barberry (zereshk) or they were sumaq. If it's not, you can email me and give me more details and I'll tell you what they were.

Hope this helped. I have tons of Persian recipes if you're ever interested.

:)

Answer 2

The rice is called Saffron Rice. Saffron is an red spice that goes in a lot of middle eastern dishes. You can get the Saffron at any Oriental/Indian/Middle Eastern grocery store. It's suppose to be a the most expensive spice. So you won't get a whole lot, but it will go a long ways.
All you do is take some of the spices and put it in water for a while and let it soak. Then you add that when you cook the rice. It will make the rice yellowish and flavorfull. :)

Answer 3

Hi, I eat persian food atleast once a week as I too love it.

The barbequed meat is called Kubideh (usually like a Kabob)

The rice is long grain Basmati rice and they often use saffron to flavor it as well as give it the yellow color. You can just boil it like ordinary rice but to get each grains separate, drain out the rice water (which is the starch and make the rice sticky). I often throw out the water once midway and replace it with hot water to make the rice less sticky.

In our house saffron is usually soaked in a tea spoon of milk and added to the rice to give color and flavor. Ask your Persian friend how she/ he did it. You can get saffrom from an Indian store, since it is native to India and cultivated there.

The fuschia dots is 'Sumac' - a berry powder often added to the meat to give it a slight tangy flavor. It can be got in any Persian store.

Sumac I was told also has a cholesterol lowering property since Persians eat a lot of meat, but I am not sure about that.

http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/sumac.html

Answer 4

I love it and cook it all the time. In fact, I'm going to make tah-chin-e for Christmas dinner. I love tah-dig, ab gusht, and ghorme sabzi. About once a month, we do a koobedeh kabab. Another thing I make is khorest with celery (karafs?) I'm going to attempt to make feseanjan soon. Persian food is the best! It's better than Indian and Mexican- the flavors are so rich, you know it took alot of time and spices! I live in Los Angeles, so we have a number of Persian restaurants and markets. Ok -there's 1 thing I don't like and that's sholeh zard.

Answer 5

Basmati Rice with saffron.

You can get saffron from Penzeys. The directions will be on the bottle. A little goes a long way, keep that in mind.

Answer 6

the yellow 'threads' were saffron.