just night shifted and got real sick overnight. i had to tough it out but i'll be calling in sick today and tomorrow. please forgive me if i'm slower to respond. i was gonna try making borscht this weekend but now idk.
quincie, you're right. the amount of beans in my recipe was way too much. i normally just eyeball everything, so when i made it last week i measured everything out. figured i'd come back and make corrections, but i totally forgot. the 4-5 cups of water was exactly right (i don't believe it tbh). but the amount of beans i use is just a little more than a cup (dry). about a cup and a quarter. also, i use way less than a tablespoon of salt. closer to half a teaspoon! i added four "punches" of salt, if you know what a punch of salt is. tbf there's a chance it's something my uncle made up.
also quincie, you could totally try it with lamb or beef cubes, i'm pretty sure you just sautee the onion in a separate shallow pan with a pinch of turmeric and back pepper , then brown the meat and add it to the stew to braise together with the beans and limoo. as i recall from my childhood the meat adds a whole other dimension.
outdoor miner, you may be interested to know that i've used leftover ghormeh sabzi as a veggie-hot dog topping and it totally works. i figured if kimchee and chili are valid veggie dog toppings, why not?
about tahdig rice, there are a couple of special kitchen items that i don't use for anything else. one is a towel which i wrap around the lid of the pot. it creates a tighter seal and absorbs some of the moisture from the rice when you steam it, so you end up with a fluffier, lighter, less dense & sticky rice.
the other is a wooden stick that belonged to my grandmother. i think it's some kind of rolling pin, but i'm not real sure. it's very thin for a rolling pin and has a strange contour. i'm gonna say you could use a narrow rolling pin. i use it first to pulverize a pinch of saffron in a measuring cup, kinda like a mortar/pestle action, to which i then add 1/4-1/3 cup of boiling water. and set that aside.
later on, i use the rolling pin-esque thing to poke holes in my mound of rice, which allows steam to rise. i'll have to take a picture of this next time i do it, or perhaps there are youtubers who do something similar and have a visual aid.
you really need to use grapeseed oil for this. it takes 15-20 mins for the tahdig to form on high heat. the heat has to be pretty high (not maxed out, but slightly higher than medium-high, i'd say). if you use another oil, the tahdig will char and burn from the sustained high heat. if you cook it on lower-medium heat, the rice won't crisp and you'll end up with a soft, greasy layer of rice on the bottom.
i'll measure out 2 cups of basmati rice, or 3 depending on the preparation. for baghali polow, which is tahdig rice with dill & fava beans, i use 3. likewise for shirin polow, "bejewelled rice" which is tahdig rice with candied orange peel, carrots and nuts. but for ordinary tahdig rice with saffron and most other preparations, it's 2 cups.
to remove excess starch from the rice, you must rinse it. this is really important, and pretty standard for cooking basmati rice. basically you swirl it around in a pot of water with your hand, then dump out the water when it gets cloudy and add new water. repeat a few-several times. you'll know when it's done because the texture of the rice feels different to the touch.
typically after that, you'll soak it for 30 mins in a large pot or bowl of warm water. this is not as crucial and can be skipped if you're in a hurry.
once the rice is ready to cook, add it to a large pot and fill it with water. think about cooking pasta, it's just like that. when the rice is almost-but-not-quite cooked ("al dente" kinda, but really more like slightly undercooked), strain out the water. sometimes i'll give it a quick rinse with cool water to stop it cooking more.
i find that with the very tall pot i use for this, if it's almost full with water, if i strain it out just before it reaches a rolling boil it's the perfect consistency.
at this point you take your nonstick crockpot or stock pot and coat the bottom very generously with grapeseed oil. use plenty. add half of the reserved saffron water to that and shake the pot back and forth vigorously (think of a gold panning motion) to distribute the saffron water.
with the remaining saffron water in the measuring cup, slowly stir in a portion of the undercooked rice (as much as you can coat with the saffron water). set this aside.
at this stage, salt the rice to taste (1 teaspoon salt per cup of dry rice is my 'rule'... so if you started with 2 cups, add 2 teaspoons). if you are adding other flavors to the rice, such as minced dill and fava beans for baghali polow, this is when to mix it into the rice. note that this is not the same as "toppings", which should be added at the end.
take a third of your rice (about 2 cups cooked) and add it to the stock pot with grapeseed oil. pack it down pretty firmly with a large spoon, so that it makes a dense & uniform bottom layer of rice that's completely saturated in oil. this will be your tahdig.
with the remaining rice, build it into a pyramid shape, layer by layer, adding one spoonful at a time. whereas the tahdig layer is densely packed, this should be very loose. i usually shake the spoon a little to make it looser. with each layer you build, the circumference should be slightly smaller. so we're building a very loose, vaguely pyramid shaped mound of rice. when you run out of rice, dump the cup of rice soaked in saffron water over the top and 'crush' it into the mound with a spoon, or spoon it out over the top as another layer.
now you take your rolling pin thingy. insert it into the center of the mound to create a hollow. you wanna push it all the down to the bottom of the loosely packed rice pyramid without piercing the tahdig. the different densities make this very easy. as long as you're gentle the resistance will stop it when you get to the bottom tahdig layer.
then make 4 more holes like this, for each compass point. think of a pentagram, or like the connect the dots version.
finally, drizzle some grapeseed oil over the top of the rice mound.
while it's not nearly as involved as making ghormeh sabzi, i feel visual aids would be more helpful here. i'll try to take pics next time.
try to secure your towel around the lid of the pot. to keep it from catching fire!!!
now the rice is ready to be steamed. cover the pot and cook it over high heat for about 15 minutes. it can take up to 20 minutes sometimes. DON'T WALK AWAY!! keep an eye on it to make sure the towel doesn't catch fire (this has happened to me maybe twice? it just got a little singed. no erupting into flames or anything. but we gotta be cautious). **if you smell the rice burning, remove it from the heat immediately** we wanna crisp the rice, not char it.
this sounds more involved than it probably is! it takes like 40 mins?
― No, 𝘐'𝘮 Breathless! (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 27 April 2023 13:02 (one year ago) link
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