Curious About Iranian Food? Don’t Miss these Top 10 Dishes: Baghali polo

Baghali polo — or lima bean rice — is a mouthwatering, classic Persian dish served with meat. It is often made with young, fresh fava or lima beans and dry or fresh dill. On occasion, Iranians use butter or ghee when cooking the rice, which goes great with well-cooked lamb shank.

Baghali polo recipe, adapted from the Unmanly Chef

Ingredients

1 cup basmati rice

1/2 cup fava beans, peeled

4 lamb shanks

onion

garlic

1 tsp. tumeric

2 tsp. cumin

1 tbsp. salt

1 tomato

1 tbsp. butter

2 cups chicken or beef broth

fresh dill, cilantro/coriander, curly leaf parsley (or dried Sadaf Sabzi-Polow herb mixture)

Method

First prepare the lamb shanks. Saute onions, garlic, tomato, and spices with butter in a pot. Once the they are browned, add shanks. Brown on all sides, then add stock, and cook on low for a few hours. When done, the meat will fall off the bone.

Soak rice in water for about an hour. Strain out the liquid a couple of times and rinse rice in a fine mesh colander. Boil two cups of water in a large pot. When the water begins to boil, add rice. As soon as the rice grains begin to elongate, remove it from the heat and strain again in the colander.

As soon as the rice is strained, add butter or cooking oil. Run water through rice to wash away some excess starch. Carefully layer rice, herbs, and fava beans (starting with your rice first). Add a 1/4 cup of beef stock from the lamb shanks into the rice, wrap a towel around the lid, cover the pot and  cook on low to medium heat for 30-45 minutes. During this time, gently stir the rice once or twice, especially at the beginning of the process, in order to let some of the excess steam out. Be careful not to stir it too much.

After about 30 minutes on low, a tahdig — the crisp rice cooked at the bottom of the pot — should begin to form. “You are better having the heat low,” writes the Unmanly Chef, “because once you burn your tahdig your day is ruined.”

Serve the lamb shanks alongside the rice, or stack the rice on top of the shanks. 

Curious About Iranian Food? Don’t Miss these Top 10 Dishes