Zereshk Polo with Chicken

Ingredients

Makes 4 servings

• Iranian rice 4 cups
• chicken, breast or leg pieces 4 pieces
• barberries 1 cup
• onion 1 medium
• garlic 2 cloves
• tomato paste 2 tbsp
• butter 25 g
• brewed saffron 2 tsp
• lime juice 1 tbsp
• sugar 1 tsp
• salt 1 tbsp
• turmeric 0.5 tsp
• black pepper 0.5 tsp
• oil 4 tbsp

Method

1. Rub the chicken pieces with some of the salt, the turmeric and the pepper, and rest them in a covered dish in the refrigerator for about two hours. This step is optional but most cooks do it: it seasons the meat through and takes away any raw poultry smell.

2. Put the rice in a bowl of lukewarm water with a spoon of salt and let it soak from thirty minutes up to three hours, depending on the rice. The longer it soaks, the sturdier the grains stand up to cooking.

3. Pick over the barberries and pull off any stalks, then drop them into a bowl of water: the good berries float and the spoiled ones sink. Skim off the floaters, discard the rest, and soak the good ones in lukewarm water for twenty to thirty minutes.

4. Chop the onion finely and mince the garlic. Fry them in a few spoonfuls of oil in a heavy pot until soft and lightly coloured, then set the chicken pieces in and brown them well on both sides.

5. Push everything to one side, fry the tomato paste in the oil for a minute or two until it darkens and loses its raw smell, then stir it through. Add the remaining salt and pepper and pour in three glasses of hot water. Cover and simmer gently for about an hour and a half, until the chicken is tender, the sauce has reduced, and the oil has risen to the surface — that separation, not the clock, is the sign it is ready.

6. In the last ten to fifteen minutes, stir half of the brewed saffron and the lime juice into the sauce.

7. Meanwhile cook the rice. Bring eight glasses of water to a rolling boil with a good spoon of salt, drain the soaked rice and tip it in. Stir once, let it return to the boil, and after four or five minutes start testing: bite a grain, and when the outside is soft but the centre still firm, it is ready. Drain it in a colander.

8. Dry the pot, warm a few spoonfuls of oil in it, and lay in a tahdig of lavash bread or sliced potato — lavash is the classic choice under zereshk polo. Mound the rice loosely on top with a skimmer, poke a few holes to the bottom with the handle, and splash a little water and oil over. Cover, raise the heat until steam builds, then turn it right down and let the rice steam for about thirty minutes.

9. Just before serving, drain the barberries. Melt the butter in a small pan over low heat, add the barberries and the sugar and fry them gently for a minute or two until they puff and turn glossy. Add the rest of the brewed saffron and fry thirty seconds more — no longer, or the barberries turn bitter — then take the pan off the heat.

10. Mix a skimmer of the cooked rice with the barberries in a small bowl. Heap the white rice on a platter, scatter the barberry rice over the top, and serve the chicken and its reduced sauce alongside.

Cook's notes

Background

Zereshk Polo with Chicken is widely served at celebrations, weddings, communal offerings, and formal hospitality across Iran. Barberries and saffron—two emblematic products of the Iranian plateau—define much of its color and aroma.

Nutrition

Diet

• Gluten free
• Lactose free
• No walnut, almond or pistachio

Where this comes from

Official documentation strongly supports the dish or geographic attribution, but all recipe fields are not traceable to one dish-specific official recipe page.

Record: IR0004 · Evidence: B (Officially supported)

Open the source page https://visitiran.ir/fa/type/persian-foods