Lubia Polo Recipe

• Basmati rice: Like any other Persian rice recipe, you need long grain rice for this recipe as well. I used Royal Chef’s Secret Basmati Rice.

• Vegetable oil: To cook the rice, tahdig and also the green bean and meat filling.

• Onion: A large onion sauteed in oil is the base of many Iranian dishes.

• Ground beef: You can also use ground lamb or a mix of beef and lamb. I use chicken here.

• Spices: Use a combination of turmeric, cayenne pepper, curry powder and cinnamon.

• Tomato paste: Adds flavor and color to the dish.

• Green beans: Ideally, you need fresh green beans to make loobia polo. Frozen could work too.

• Potatoes: To make our signature potato tahdig. 

• Saffron: You need just a little bit of ground saffron to make bloomed Saffron.

Directions

1. Bring some water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the green beans to the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and saute the onion until golden brown. Then add the ground beef and brown it. Add in the spices and cook for a few minutes until they start releasing their aroma. Finally, add the tomato paste, green beans and water. Bring to a low simmer and let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Turn the heat off and set the mixture aside.

3. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add salt. Wash the basmati rice to get rid of the excess starch. Boil the rice for 6 minutes until it's par cooked. You'll know the rice is ready when you're able to break a rice grain into two pieces using your thumb and index finger, but the rice is still hard in the middle. Al dente rice where the outer layer is soft but the grain is still hard in the middle. Turn the heat off and place a colander in the sink. Lift the pot and pour the rice into the colander and rinse it using cold water to make it stop cooking.

4. Place the pot back on the burner and turn the heat on to medium high. Once the bottom of the pot is dry, pour some oil into the pot and arrange the potato slices so they cover the bottom of the pot. Scoop one third of the rice into the pot over the potatoes. Layer with some bloomed saffron and one third of the green bean mixture. Repeat until you're out of rice and filling, making sure that there's more rice in the middle than around the edge, shaping like a mountain.

5. Pour ⅓ cup water around the edges, wrap the lid in a clean kitchen cloth and place it on the pot. Make sure the heat is on medium high (but not too high) and cook the rice for about 15 minutes. Lift the lid to see the steam escape and then pour some vegetable oil on the rice. Cover again and cook for another 30 minutes until the rice is fully cooked and the flavors are fully combined. Once ready, fluff the rice a bit to combine the filling and rice mix.

Shirazi Salad Recipe

• Cucumbers, it's important to use Persian cucumbers (or Lebanese) as they are crisper, full of flavor and are less watery.
  If you cant access these, you can use regular or English cucumbers. I would suggest to remove the seeds as they are usually quite large and can be watery.

• Tomatoes, make sure they are medium firmness, as too hard will have no flavor and too soft will be mushy when diced. Roma or regular tomatoes will do fine.

• Lemon or lime- traditionally Ab Ghooreh (unripe sour grape juice) is used for the dressing. It is sometimes harder to find, so I’ve used lemon juice here. 

• Mint: This is what truly distinguishes Salad-e Shirazi. Traditionally, dried, crushed mint is what's used here. I often use both dry mint and fresh mint, if available. 

• Tip: if dry mint is not available to you, you can use about ½ cup chopped fresh mint.

For seasoning, salt, pepper, and dried mint. And for the citrus, we use sour grape extract or juice, also called ab-e-ghooreh. Because ab-e-ghooreh (sour grape juice), which is traditionally used, is not easily available, I used juice of 4 limes with 2 lemon in this recipe. 

Directions

1. It's best to dress the salad 15 minutes before serving. This allows the salad to absorb the beautiful sour flavours and still say crunchy and fresh

2. To avoid the salad becoming watery, you can de-seed the tomatoes. You can always add the seeds to a soup or another dish.