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Zereshk Polo Bah Morgh
I am on a mission to find the greatest version of chicken and rice, if such even exists. We now travel to Iran, where we experience Zereshk Polo Bah Morgh. The name of the game today is saffron and it’s gonna be incorporated everywhere. Our chicken gets seasoned then we sear for color, but my heat might’ve been a taaadd bit high here as you can see. Almost all these dishes around the world in this series are connected by the humble onion cooking with spices and I think that’s pretty cool. Cinnamon, cardamom, turmeric, coriander, and paprika join with tomato paste, orange, and rosewater. We drown everything in water, lay the chicken in and add some saffron before letting it go low and slow. Now for everyone’s favorite part, making the tahdig. We combine oil and saffron before adding our partially boiled rice. Holes allow steam to escape then we put it over the heat to tahdigify. Zereshk, or barberries, is the star of the show. It’s super tart so we balance that out by cooking it in ghee with pistachios, sugar and rosewater. The rest of the saffron joins and when the rice is ready we add some of it to the mix. We pray to the tahdig gods and flip to reveal that perfectly golden deliciousness and build our plate. Persian food is an experience of the nose and the combination of aromas from the cinnamon, cardamom, rosewater and saffron combines beautifully with the sweet and sour present in the dish. This was the first dish that put a smile on my face and it’s deserving of the lead with a 9.5 out of 10
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