Iran - Slow Cooker Ghormeh Sabzi
My boyfriend (I'm actually a housegirlfriend but that sounds weird as a title) was born in Iran and moved here when he was 8. His favorite Iranian dish is Ghormeh Sabzi, a green leafy stew with lamb meat served over rice. Considering what a personal fan and public advocate I was for green leafy stews in Senegal (see later posts for more on this), I figured this would be a good dish to try to make.
There he is, as a little troublemaker.
One collossal difference between Iranian green leafy stew and Senegalese green leafy stew, and perhaps the key ingredient is dried Persian limes. Don't be confused by key limes (sold in Arash, the Persian grocery in Denver, 2720 S Parker Rd, Aurora, CO 80014), or/and regular Persian limes (I am not even sure if key limes are the same as Persian limes -both are small). You need DRIED Persian limes -which S kindly told me after I finally made the trip to Denver to procure the two ingredients you cannot find in the Springs -fenugreek and the current object of discussion. S told me the whole thing would be messed up without dried Persian limes. BUT -he gave me a key piece of information I would have never known on my own -you can probably get Persian limes at any sort of "international" grocery -especially an Indian one. There happens to be one in the Springs -Taste of India (4836 Flintridge Dr, Colorado Springs, CO 80918). I went there and found the holy grail of Ghormeh Sabzi, right here at home in the Springs!
Here they are -Persian dried limes, or limu omani in Persian.
Another unique ingredient to this dish is fenugreek, a type of herb/green that I hadn't seen before this recipe but have seen in other recipes since. I don't think there is anyplace that sells it in the Springs, but that could be because of my limited knowledge of the green. There sure looked to be a lot of variations of leafy greens I didn't know existed at Asia Pacific Market in the Springs but I didn't take the time to look. Anyway, when I got to Arash I didn't see any fenugreek in the produce section. So I attempted to ask the cashier, who spoke Persian and not much more than cursory English. It worked out fine though, I said something like "ghormeh sabzi" and "boyfriend" and she showed me a melange in the frozen section of all the greens you need for it. She suggested I mix the frozen thing with some fresh herbs, so here I deviated from the recipe. But S said it tasted fine, though it was a little more sour than it was supposed to be. I used the amount of dried limes called for in the recipe, so maybe you want to experiment with this.
Here are the fresh greens/herbs I used -chives, parsley, cilantro, and spinach.
Here is the frozen melange of parsley, chive, and fenugreek. Also pictured is gaz, an Iranian desert sort of similar to Turkish delight, but with a not-overly-sweet nougat and pistachios! And then, another holy grail of Persian cuizine -it is S's favorite -rosewater saffron pistachio ice cream. Not only is this flavor delicious (though some people haven't liked it and said it tastes too much like flowers. I think -just like IPA, that eating flowers makes me feel like a princess, and is also delicious), but it is sticky and creamy in a delicious way all its own. You should try it.
So, I got the recipe for ghormeh sabzi here, http://www.mypersiankitchen.com/slow-cooker-ghormeh-sabzi-persian-herb-stew/. I intend to return to My Persian Kitchen in the future for some more cool Iranian dishes to impress S, and one day his mother. I will reprint it here. Below the recipe are some photos of my own experiments -they are in reverse order because that's how they loaded on the blog and my computer is too old and slow for me to make the effort to rearrange them. You'll get the point. Mostly they are just here for artistic value anyway.
Ingredients (serves 4 to 6)
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp turmeric
1 lb stewing meat
4 dried Persian limes
1/3 cup kidney beans, dried – soaked over night
2 cups leeks, chopped
5 cups fresh parsley, packed
3 cups fresh cilantro,packed
1 cup fresh feenigreek
1 cups fresh chives
salt & pepper
oil
Directions
(1) Small dice onion and mince garlic. Sauté in oil until translucent. Add turmeric and stir well.
(2) Cut meat in cubes and add to onion. Season with salt and pepper and allow to brown on all sides.
(3) Place meat in the slow cooker’s pot.
(4) Add soaked beans. Make a couple of holes in dried limes with a fork, then add to the pot.
(5) Add some oil to the same pot that the meat and onion was cooked in and sauté leeks for a couple of minutes. I highly suggest not skipping the herb sautéing part.
(6) Chop all the herbs and add to the leeks. Season with salt and sauté for another 5 minutes.
(7) Add herbs to the pot.
(8) Add two cups of water to the pot where the herbs were sautéd in and scrape the bottom of the pot.
(9) Add the water to the slow cooker pot, cover and cook on high for 8 hours. Adjust seasoning as needed before serving.
(10) Of course, you need to make rice to serve this dish over. (I think I remember reading one article about ghormeh sabzi where a Persian guy took his non-Persian girlfriend to a Perian restaurant and she ordered ghormeh sabzi without rice and both the boyfriend and the water were thrown for a loop -and then more so when she liked it). If you want to get real fancy, make saffron rice. And see my post about spices, of which saffron is the most prized gem!
Rosewater saffron pistachio ice cream sandwhich, available at Arash international grocery in Denver and delicious!