Gheimeh

The potatoes are fried separately into crisp straws and go on at the table.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 700 g mutton or lamb shoulder, in 1.5 cm dice
• 150 g yellow split peas
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons tomato purée
• 4 dried limes, pierced twice each
• 1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 500 g potatoes, cut into fine matchsticks
• oil for deep frying the potatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, ground and steeped in 3 tablespoons hot water

Method

1. THE POTATOES ARE FRIED SEPARATELY INTO CRISP STRAWS AND GO ON AT THE TABLE. Its article describes the stew as garnished with golden, thinly sliced crispy potatoes, and that garnish is how you recognise the dish. Cut them into matchsticks, rinse off the surface starch, dry them completely and deep-fry in two goes until pale gold and rigid. They go on each plate at the last moment. Stirred into the stew they soften within a minute and the dish loses the one textural contrast it has.
2. THE SPLIT PEAS GO IN LATE AND ARE WATCHED. Yellow split peas added for the last thirty-five to forty minutes only. They collapse into mush quickly, and a gheimeh whose peas have disintegrated is a thick yellow sauce rather than a stew with peas in it. They should hold their shape and give at the centre.
3. THE MEAT IS DICED SMALL, NOT CUBED. A centimetre and a half. The name points at minced or finely cut meat, and the small dice is what lets the pieces, the peas and the potato straws all be about the same size on the spoon.
4. THE ONION IS COOKED DOWN FIRST AND THE TURMERIC FOLLOWS. Fifteen minutes on a medium-low heat until soft and gold, then the turmeric for half a minute, then the meat to brown.
5. THE TOMATO PURÉE IS FRIED BEFORE ANY LIQUID GOES IN. Two minutes with the browned meat, stirred, until it darkens from scarlet to brick. Added with the water it stays raw and sour.
6. THE DRIED LIMES ARE PIERCED, NOT BROKEN. Two holes each, in after the first twenty minutes. They give a sourness nothing else gives; broken open they release the bitter pith and seeds.
7. AN HOUR AND A HALF AT A BARE SIMMER, AND IT WANTS TO BE THICK. Enough water to cover, lid on, until the meat pulls apart under a spoon. Then the lid off for the last ten minutes with the saffron water, to reduce to a spoonable sauce rather than a soup.
8. THE VARIANTS ARE DEFINED BY WHAT REPLACES THE POTATO OR THE PEAS. Its article lists ten, and they are a good guide to how the dish flexes: with thin-cut fried potatoes, with pan-fried aubergine, with almonds and fried onions, with sour pomegranate paste and verjuice, with chickpeas instead of split peas, and with squash, quince or okra. The split-pea-and-dried-lime base stays.

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