Baghali Polo

The beans are boiled in the rice water and the dill is layered in dry.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 500 g long-grain white rice
• 3 tablespoons salt, for the soaking and parboiling water
• 400 g podded fava beans, fresh or frozen, skins slipped
• 60 g dill, fronds picked and chopped, or 25 g dried
• 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, ground and steeped in 3 tablespoons hot water
• 80 ml sunflower oil
• 4 lamb shanks, to serve
• 1 onion, quartered, for the shanks
• 1 teaspoon turmeric, for the shanks

Method

1. THE BEANS ARE BOILED IN THE RICE WATER AND THE DILL IS LAYERED IN DRY. Its own article is specific about both halves: the rice and the broad beans are cooked together in boiling water, and the dill is added when the rice and beans are layered in the pan. So the beans go into the parboiling pot with the rice for the last four minutes, and the dill never meets boiling water at all -- it is scattered between the layers raw and cooks only in the steam. Boiled, dill turns olive-grey and tastes of hay; steamed, it stays green and keeps its anise edge, which is most of the flavour of the dish.
2. THE SKINS COME OFF THE BEANS. Fresh or frozen, podded and then the grey-green skin slipped off each bean -- pinch and squeeze and it pops out. It is twenty minutes' work for four hundred grams and it is the difference between a tender bean and a tough jacket in every mouthful.
3. THE RICE IS SOAKED IN SALTED WATER AND PARBOILED TO A FIRM CORE. Rinse until clear, two hours in cold salted water, drain. Then a hard boil with the remaining salt for six to eight minutes, adding the beans for the last four, until a rice grain gives outside and stays chalky at the centre. Drain together and rinse briefly with lukewarm water.
4. IT IS BUILT IN LAYERS AND HEAPED INTO A CONE. Oil in the pot, then rice, beans and dill in three rounds, each layer of rice heaped a little towards the centre. Saffron water over the top.
5. THE LID IS CLOTH-WRAPPED AND IT STEAMS FOR FIFTY MINUTES. Five on medium, then the lowest heat for fifty. This one takes slightly longer than a plain polo because the beans hold water and the pot is denser.
6. THE LAMB SHANKS ARE COOKED SEPARATELY AND FOR A LONG TIME. Its article names braised lamb shank, mahiche, as the usual companion. Brown the shanks, then three hours at a bare simmer with the onion and turmeric and water to cover, until the meat is coming off the bone. They cannot share the rice pot: fifty minutes of steam will not soften a shank and three hours would destroy the rice.
7. IT IS A WEDDING AND NOWRUZ DISH AND IT IS MADE TO BE TURNED OUT. Stand the pot in cold water for a minute, then invert onto a platter in one movement. Its article records it at Persian weddings and at the New Year, and a dish that arrives as a green-flecked dome is doing work that a spooned bowl of rice does not.
8. SIMILAR DISHES NEXT DOOR ARE NOT THIS ONE. The same combination appears across the region under other names, and one variation lines the pot with a fresh egg dough to make a crisp base rather than using fat alone. Worth knowing that the base is a choice; this page assumes oil.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes