How do you know if you are Iranian??

If you are eating this 8 out of 7 days in the week

There is really no such thing as a proper Iranian dish without the Polo (Rice). When people ask me, “What is Iranian food like?”, the first thing that comes to my mind is rice. It is almost always rice with some type of Khoresht (Stew) or type of meat next to it. Ah, pure heaven.

So, maybe Rice seems like a simple and easy thing to make, but it really isn’t. Sure, there are rice cookers and other things out there, but that is not how we make our rice.

Our way = more complicated = more tasty.

Without this talent… are you really even Iranian?! And so, here is the recipe for making true Iranian Polo. And this includes the Tadiq part too!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups rice (usually 1 cup less than the number of people you have but this is more up to you AND not just any rice, you want Basmati rice!)
• 9 cups cold water (3 x # of cups of rice)
• 2 tsps salt

Procedure:

1. Clean out the rice for any darker/brown pieces
2. Pour rice into a pot
3. Wash the rice 3 times with cold water (pour water in, let it sit a bit, pour water out… 3 times)
4. Fill it then with the 9 cups of water
5. Put under med/high heat on stove
6. Add the salt
7. Place the cover loosely on pot
8. Keep on stove
9. While rice is cooking, put some pita bread in the microwave to soften
10. When rice starts to stick up more vertically (water is boiling) take the pot off from stove
11. Empty the rice into a sifter
12. Pour some olive oil to cover the bottom of the pot
13. Place pita bread on the bottom of pot to oil both sides of bread. Then cover the bottom of the pot, top of bread facing bottom. (oil on both sides)
14. Pour rice back into pot, push rice a bit towards center of pot
15. Add saffron to one corner of rice (this goes on top of rice later when serving and is how the rice becomes yellow)
16. Place paper towel on top, cover tightly
17. Put on low heat for 30-45 min then it should be ready

Enjoy the delicious carbs!