Zereshk Polo

The barberries are warmed for under a minute with sugar and saffron water, because they scorch.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken.

Ingredients

• 500 g basmati rice
• 3 tablespoons salt, for the soaking and parboiling water
• 100 g dried barberries
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon saffron threads, ground and steeped in 4 tablespoons hot water
• 40 g butter
• 6 chicken thighs, bone in
• 2 onions, sliced
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 tablespoon tomato purée
• 80 ml sunflower oil
• 30 g slivered almonds and pistachios, to finish

Method

1. THE BARBERRIES ARE WARMED FOR UNDER A MINUTE WITH SUGAR AND SAFFRON WATER, BECAUSE THEY SCORCH. Its own article says they are briefly sautéed with a little sugar and saffron water to soften them and mellow the tartness, and brief is the operative word. Butter in a small pan, the rinsed barberries in, two tablespoons of sugar and a spoonful of the saffron water, and thirty to forty-five seconds of gentle heat -- they swell, turn glossy and go a brighter red. At ninety seconds they are dark brown and bitter, and there is no recovering them. Off the heat the moment they plump.
2. THEY ARE RINSED AND PICKED OVER FIRST. Dried barberries arrive with grit and the odd stalk in them. Into a bowl of cold water, swirled, lifted out with the fingers rather than drained, so the grit stays at the bottom.
3. THE SUGAR IS NOT OPTIONAL AND IT IS NOT MUCH. Two tablespoons for a hundred grams. Barberries are aggressively sour and the sugar is there to make them edible in quantity, not to make the dish sweet; its article notes some cooks use more and others keep the natural tartness.
4. THE RICE IS SOAKED IN SALTED WATER AND PARBOILED TO A FIRM CORE. Basmati for this one. Rinse until clear, two hours in cold salted water, drain, then six to eight minutes at a hard boil with the rest of the salt until a grain gives outside and stays chalky inside. Drain and rinse briefly with lukewarm water.
5. THE CHICKEN IS BRAISED SEPARATELY WITH SAFFRON AND ONION. Brown the thighs, lift them out, soften the onions, add the turmeric and tomato purée, return the chicken with half the saffron water and 200 ml of water, and simmer covered for forty minutes. Its article allows the chicken either under the rice during the steaming or served alongside; alongside keeps the skin from going slack.
6. THE RICE IS STEAMED PLAIN AND THE BARBERRIES GO ON AFTER. Oil in the pot, rice heaped into a cone, the rest of the saffron water over the top, cloth-wrapped lid, five minutes medium then forty-five on the lowest heat. Barberries steamed in with the rice lose their colour into it and the dish goes a uniform dull pink instead of white with crimson through it -- and the colour is what the dish is prized for.
7. IT IS TURNED OUT, THEN LAYERED AND SCATTERED. Inverted onto a platter to show the base, then the barberries layered or scattered over, then the almonds and pistachios. Its article is explicit that the finished dish is inverted to display the crust and garnished with extra barberries and nuts.
8. IT IS A CEREMONIAL DISH AND IT IS NOT THE SAME AS A SWEET RICE. Its article calls it majlesi -- festive -- and traces the barberry-and-rice pairing to the Safavid period, with the meat accompaniment standardised later under the Qajars. The balance is sweet-tart against saffron, not sweet; a rice topped with dried fruit and nuts is a different dish with its own page.

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