Mash Polo – Persian Rice with Mung Beans

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cooking, eating, food, health, persia, photography, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

Posts have gotten rare and the reason for this is that in a few months time, the three magical letters B E and D, also known as BEd., or Bachelor of education, will (hopefully) attach themselves to my name. I am very well aware that Austria is a country whose people are very proud of their academic titles and I earnestly hope to not become one of them. Because what can three letters possibly reveal about you, your attitudes, beliefs and expertise? Not much, I believe.

I wish I could say that I am only busy with my bachelor thesis and find myself in a flow all the time, but as a matter of fact, I am still trying to figure out what direction I will be going in. Sometimes you feel a little stuck and thankfully you have professors who make this clear to you: you won’t find the right way unless you make a step forward. The wind won’t be able to push you if you put down roots. It took me quite a while to understand, but I think that I can say that I’ve learnt a life lesson. Make a step, and the next steps will be so much easier.

Also, if you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed that I’m trying to reduce my waste a lot. One step towards this aim, which can sometimes seem impossible, was to buy big quantities of ingredients we use a lot and sharing it with friends and family. I’m deeply in love with how beautiful things look in glass jars.

Apart from the fact that I am highly annoyed because I should be in Stockholm right now, (but my flight was cancelled, I found out less than 12 hours before it should have taken off due to my father telling me and not understanding how I could possibly not have heard anything about it – sometimes, a radio would be a nice thing to have on hand), I am very happy to finally post another recipe for a Persian main dish – thanks mum for the recipe and for making it!

Serves 4

• 200 g mung beans
• 350 g basmati rice (2 1/2 cups)
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 small onions
• 25 g dried dill (1/3 cup)
• oil
• salt and pepper

Rinse the mung beans and soak overnight in a bowl or pot (make sure to use enough water!).

On the next day, wash the rice and soak it for an hour. For a detailed how-to watch my video (don’t go past the soaking step!).

Drain the mung beans and put them into a pot with enough water (the water should be about 1 inch above the beans).

Before it comes to a boil, a foam forms. Remove the foam until the water stays almost clear.

When it boils, reduce to middle heat and add the turmeric and 1/2 tbsp salt.

Let cook for about 15 minutes. The beans should be on the al-dente side and certainly not overcooked. Drain and keep about one cup of the water. Set aside.

In a small pan, heat some oil and squeeze the garlic clove. Fry for a minute, until the garlic has a golden colour.

In a big non-stick pot, bring some water to a boil. Add salt (the water should be saltier than the rice should be). Drain the rice and add to the water (mum’s special trick: rinse the rice with warm water so it doesn’t take ages until the water comes to a boil again). Let cook for about 7 minutes and drain. Set aside. Again, if you need a more detailed idea of how to do this, watch the video.

Slice the potatoes and the onions into thick rings.

Dry the potatoes and add some salt and pepper.

In the same pot you cooked the rice, heat some oil (bottom of the pot should be covered). Place the potato slices on the bottom of the pan.

Add a layer of rice on top, put the onions on the rice, a layer of mungo beans, half of the dill, garlic, rice, mungo, dill, rice.

Add the cooking water of the beans, make three holes and cover. Cook on middle heat (caution: the needed heat depends on your pot! The thicker it is, the higher the heat must be to get a nice rice crust, known as tah-deeg.)

When steam starts to come out, place a dish towel around the lid and cover again.

Cook for about 50 minutes and flip on a tray or serve directly on plates.

Enjoy. 

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Sholeh Zard – A Persian Rice Pudding

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cooking, eating, graz, homemade, persia, photography, recipes, vegan, zero waste

I get excited when my phone tells me I received a new e-mail. In the case that it is not highly annoying advertisement from some company which somehow thinks it’s a good idea to keep spamming their customers even after they UNSUBSCRIBED from their mailing list, very often it’s cool stuff I really want to read. In some cases too cool for school. Like the mail I received from Das Gramm, the first package-free store in Graz, announcing they wanted to have some blogger over in their kitchen to cook their lunch menu and if I was interested. Ummm, yes?!

I have to admit I have no experience when it comes to cooking for more than 20 people, but to be honest, I couldn’t care less, because in two day’s time I will do. Boy, am I excited.

I just came back from there as I prepared the stew in advance to avoid unpleasant surprises. Boy, am I tired and exhausted, and boy, am I EXCITED FOR TOMORROW.

Because I believe Persian (next to Indian, Ethiopian and Italian) food is above-average superior to any other kind of food, I decided to go for a Persian stew with rice. And because a menu isn’t a menu without dessert, I decided to give the traditional Persian rice pudding which turns out to be ridiculously easy to make a try. And because it was so easy and so good, it will be my extra for the first guests to be there. Starts at 12. Be there.

What other logical thing would there be than to share this recipe with you? None.

Khoreshte Gheymeh-Bademjan (Persian Split Pea Stew)

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cooking, eating, food, health, persia, photography, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

I’ll be living in Italy in less than a month. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am. Unlike the majority of Erasmus students, whose semester abroad consists of big parties, lots of free time and chillin’ and very little studying, I am mentally preparing myself to hours and hours of studying and reading. And not only reading, but reading in Italian only. I never learnt reading Italian, I never learnt writing Italian, and all of the courses (except for a B2 Englisch course for which we will get 2 of 30 ECTS credits) and lectures are held in Italian, and Italian only. Who doesn’t love a challenge?

Of course, there are not 1359 things to do for Uni (no exams or seminar papers to write, no pressure on picking a topic for my bachelor thesis and no weird dreams about it) and this is why the fever, cold and headache chose the perfect time to appear in my immune system. Well done, peeps, I appreciate your cooperation!

Also, a thing that’s keeping my mind pretty busy is how some people get along with others and others don’t. This sounds so so trivial, but does anyone have an answer to that? Chances are high I will soon find a TED Talk about this topic, because this has been my latest obsession.

Some of my favourites from the past months:

• Empowering Junior Youth
• The Danger of a Single Story
• Why Architects need to use their Ears

The recipe for this khoresh (persian stew) has been long due (and whoa, this rhymes!) and I am very very excited to share it with you.

How to cook Persian Rice

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cooking, eating, food, health, persia, photography, recipes, video, YouTube

Apart from preparing gluten-free granola bars from Green Kitchen Stories, trying to figure out how to handle the heat in Austria which is becoming unbearable and thinking about what I will need/can leave behind with a clear conscience for our road trip through Denmark and Sweden in two days time (!!), I’ve been having rice on my mind for more than a month. Not only rice, but Persian rice. Now what is so special about Persian rice, you may ask? Persians will cringe at this question. Persian rice is probably the way of preparing rice. Let me explain.

Rice is considered as side dish in many cultures, in Persia there is no such thing as rice as a side dish. Rice stars almost every Persian dish.

The first thing that makes Persian rice special is that it’s Persian.

Just kidding. Before cooking the rice, the rice is rinsed to remove the starch and prevent it from sticking together after cooking (like sushi rice or risotto).

Another difference is that it is cooked like pasta for a few minutes, and then steamed.

The best part is undoubtedly the “tahdig” (pronounced ‘tah-deeg’, literally meaning ‘bottom of the pan’), the crunchy crust that causes fights at the table and is always the first thing gone at buffets.

Because I believe Persian rice to be one of the best things, I decided that pictures weren’t enough.

Here is my video (+ a German version below!!).

Khoreshte Fessenjoon – Persian Walnut and Pomegranate Stew

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cooking, life, persia, personality, photography, recipes, vegan, vegetarian, YouTube

Something great happened. I passed the test you have to take to study primary school education.

As an established fact, when it comes to decisions, I suck elusively. I am literally not able to take a decision (which will mould my life to some extent) without having a guilty conscience. Even if everything turns out great, I will still go through what it would have been like if I had done it the other way. Always always always.

For a long time, I was sure that language is my thing. And in fact, it still is. I wanted to study English until about a month ago. As I did under no circumstances want to go into interpreting or translating, I saw my only way out in teaching. And it was not a bad way out, I thought it was a good decision. I feel so deeply grateful for some teachers I had in school, because they shaped parts of me. They shaped who I am today. And I wanted to achieve this same thing. I wanted to give students hope, a reason to learn in life, and I wanted to be there, in case they did not have somebody who was there for them at home. This time they go through is not fun. You go through so many changes, start to investigate the world around you a bit more, start realising that what is going on in this world is not sound, and you want to change something. And you don’t know how. You need someone who understands you, who accepts you and gives you hope that at some point, things will change. And you want to feel that with some support of this someone, you will be a tiny part of this change.

I wanted to be this someone.

I wanted to be this someone because I thought that there were too little of those someones. Yes. There are too little someones. The little issue there was was that I felt like this someone could be more effective if it was surrounded by small children who are shapeable. Who still need to learn so much. Having a someone during those years might be more important and crucial than after. Might. I actually don’t know, because when I compare my primary and secondary school time, I suppose I learnt more during the latter. (See, the doubts come in again) But I still think that primary school teachers have such a great responsibility. And though I am not a huge fan of having big responsibilities, I am absolutely willing to shoulder responsibility for those cuties instead of some rowdy not-so-cuties (It’s not about the cuties, by the way, it’s about their age). I still think that secondary school teacher is one of the most important jobs on this planet, but I feel like there are people who are more appropriate for this job.

So friends, in three years I will hopefully stand in front of a mob of children who want to learn something about the world. I am so excited about that.

The test was partly on the ridiculous side, because you had to do things like this or hopping and dribbling to the beat of this, sing two songs in front of a commission consisting of two people, remember random faces with random names and their telephone numbers, hobbies, relationship statuses and birthdays, and after 45 minutes answer questions like “What hobbies does the person who was born on October 22nd have?” I failed so much at this one.

But well, I guess I am in no way entitled to complain about anything, because I passed the test.

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As you might have heard or experienced, Persian food is not necessarily the best-looking food. I am talking about this dish. Let’s face it. It does not look nice. But to be honest, I couldn’t care less about it, because it just tastes so good. 

Fessenjoon (or fessenjan) is one of my absolute favourites. I just forget about it all the time as my mum is not a huge fan of it and as a consequence never cooks it and my (Austrian!!) grandma doesn’t cook it that often. But when she does, I’m in heaven.

The recipe is hers (apart from little amendments), so all tribute goes to my amazing grandmother.

Adas Polo – Persian Lentil Rice

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cooking, eating, food, health, persia, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

I’ve just realised how long it has been since my last post. I was in Nice and had a great time, celebrated my 17th birthday with crepes, macarons and the beautiful sea and enjoyed some sunshine. When I came back, school began and my daily schedule was a bit different than in the holidays which meant that I didn’t have a lot of time for other things than school. That doesn’t mean that I’ve not been busy in the kitchen, just that I didn’t have the time to be that creative and to take pictures and make the food I’ve been preparing look good and taste good at the same time. But I finally made it (I have to admit that I made this before I was in Nice).

Khoreshteh Bademjan – Persian Tomato Aubergine Stew

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aubergines, cooking, eating, food, life, persia, photography, tomato, traveling, vegan, vegetarian

London’s been treating me quite well so far. I find it so exciting to be living here for three weeks. Just the fact that London’s population is as big as whole Austria’s may be a bit off-putting. Think about that. Tiny Austria compared to London. Hilarious.

There are quite some things I have noticed and realised they seem to be pretty British. (Correct me if I’m wrong, please.)

Numero 1: The English weather. Ok, this is topic of a long discussion, but seriously, the weather is making me crazy. I always was aware of the fact that English weather is a bit eccentric, and probably 356 out of 357 people will associate England with “tremendous weather” when you ask them about one typical English thing.

But it’s not what you think it is when you hear “bad weather”. It’s not rain all day long. It’s not grey sky all day long. It’s not cold. Imagine it like this: You look out of the window and think about what you should wear. Bright sunshine, hot weather, blue sky. Looks like perfect conditions for wearing a dress with some sandals, doesn’t it? Ok. Alright. In 89 % of the cases the rain will start as soon as you leave the house, in 11 % it will start about 10 minutes after you left the house so that you can’t even go back and change your clothes. Or like that: The sun is shining, you take off your cardigan and think, “ohh, it’s so hot here, what a nice weather, I thought it’s always foul weather in England!” and you don’t have to wait long – here comes the raaaain – too-toooo!

Number 2: Unless you don’t pronounce your words very clear and with a British accent, you’re very likely to be misunderstood.

So this one day I was buying some food at the supermarket and asked for lemon grass. Doesn’t sound like a difficult thing, does it? “Excuse me, do you have lemon grass?” “Hmm, let me check. I’ll be right back.” The guy walks away, I follow him, listen to a short conversation between him and another staff member and realise he understood that I was looking for lemon cress. “Do you mean lemon cress or lemon graaaaaaaahhhs?” I couldn’t help it but reply, with the best British accent I could, “Oh, lemon graaaaaahs of course!” (they didn’t have any.)

Numéro 3: Why has there to be a glass wall in the post office between the customer and the person behind the counter?

I don’t bite, seriously. What’s that? A glass wall when you want to send a big package? Very impractical. This post office story was one of those embarrassing things you find funny afterwards.

I had something to send to Austria. Nothing special. A package of tea and some other small things. I went to the post office and the first thing I had a problem with was to find the right packaging. That took me about 15 minutes (and I’m not exaggerating!) The first package I wanted to go for was a cardboard box.

After managing to find out how to “construct” the box, I realised that it was way too big. I could have put three times as much in there. So let’s put the box back and go for an envelope with bubble wrap then. Oh, too small. Ok, so the card board box is the only option. I put the things in there, close the box and realise that I’m a bit stupid. Newspaper. I would have needed to put some newspaper in it. Everything would fly around otherways. Too late. I finally am ready to go to the counter to send it. I tell the guy behind the counter that I was a bit concerned about the content flying around. “You should have chosen the small envelope!”, he said. “Well, I thought it’s too small.” “Haven’t you put some newspaper inside? “No, I forgot…”, I admitted, ashamed. He suggested opening the package and putting some inside. Puhh. The package ended up looking like some kids played around with it, but at least the content was safe.

Then this glass wall was really beginning to bother me. The guy kept on giving me some stickers to stick on the package and I always held the package to the wall, thinking that he would stick them on it through the slot. When the procedure was finished, he looked at me, and said, with a big grin on his face: “Have you never been to a post office before?”

Being creative and drawing postcards! I’m not a drawing talent at all, but I have to say that I fell in love with my postcards. Can I please keep them?

Nummer 4: Online Shopping is as popular as wearing skinny jeans.

I was sitting with my aunt and having a chat, late in the evening, when we somehow came to the topic of going to the supermarket. I told her that I absolutely wanted to go and do some proper grocery shopping while I’m here. (I love English supermarkets, don’t ask me why.) She then told me that lately she buys her groceries on the internet most of the time. Pardon? You’re buying your groceries on the internet? You’re not an old lady that can’t go out of the house and needs someone to deliver the shopping right into the house, are you? Her answer was that it’s so practical. Alright, alright.

When I then was visiting a friend of mine in Cambridge last day, he told me with enthusiasm about this online grocery shopping thing. I broke out in thunderous laughter. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Did a young person in their mid-twenties just tell me that they bought food online? Apparently they did. With the explanation that when you haven’t got a car, it’s much easier to let someone bring you the food right into your flat. Sounds reasonable. But still, I find it utterly amusing. It reminds me of an old lady. I can’t help it.

After our delivery we finally have some food in our fridge again.

And so tonight I decided I’m going to cook for my family. As this recipe has been on my blog waiting list (in my brain) for quite a while, I thought that now was the time to share it with you. I didn’t take my camera with me (which was a very big mistake), so I had to use my phone.

This is one of the disadvantages of online food shopping. We ordered small aubergines and they were really really really small. Baby aubergines, in fact.

Serves 4

for the rice

• 300 g basmati rice (*Reyhani)
• salt
• 1 pinch of saffron

for the khoresh

• 2 onions
• 2 – 3 aubergines
• olive oil
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 handful cherry tomatoes
• 800 g canned, chopped tomatoes (26 oz)
• juice of half a lemon
• salt

Rinse the rice in a sieve until the water is clear. Soak it in a bowl with cold water.

Chop the onions. Depending on their size, halve or quarter the aubergines and cut the green part away. In a large pan, heat some oil and fry the aubergines until the start to colour and get soft. Take out of the pan and set aside.

In the same pan, fry the onions and add some oil if necessary. Add turmeric and cinnamon and fry for about 5 minutes, until the onions start to colour. Now add the cherry tomatoes and fry for another 5 minutes. Add the canned tomatoes, lemon juice, some more cinnamon and some salt. Turn to medium-low heat and cook for about an hour.

Meanwhile prepare the rice. Place a pot with water on the fire and bring to a boil. Put the rice and 2 tbsp. of salt in it and cook for 6 minutes on medium-high heat. In a mortar, grind the saffron and add some warm water to dissolve it. Drain the rice and put some olive oil in the pan, so that the bottom of the pan is covered with oil. Add the rice, pour the saffron water over it, cover and cook on low heat for about 30 minutes.

Serve with Mast o chiar or Borani (recipe to be published soon!)

Enjoy.

“Mast o chiar” – Persian yoghurt with cucumber

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cooking, food, health, persia, photography, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

This yoghurt is about what Tzaziki is in Greece and Raita is in India. It is served with almost every rice dish and a real good thing.

Makes 1 Cup

• 150 g soy yoghurt
• 1/4 cucumber, grated
• 1 tsp. dried mint, pulverised
• 1 garlic clove, pressed
• salt

Mix all the ingredients together and serve with Persian Rice dishes.

Enjoy. 

Loobya Polo – Persian Rice with Green Beans

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cooking, food, green beans, health, persia, photography, recipes, soy, tomato, vegan, vegetarian

Loobya Polo (pronounced “loobyaw polow”, from Persian: green bean rice) used to be my favourite Persian dish, but I realized that the Persian cuisine has too many good recipes to tie oneself down to one favourite dish.

It will take a bit of your time to prepare this amazing dish, so plan ahead. The best part of it is probably the potato tahdig (pronounced “tah-deeg”, from persian: bottom of the pan), the crunchy potatoes every Persian would be willing to die for.