Khoresht Ghormeh Sabzi and Lima Bean with Dill Tah Dig II: This Time, It’s Personal

Ghormeh Sabzi

Last week, I tried to make tahdig, and it didn’t go so well.

I was determined NOT to burn the shit out of the tah dig this time. If I didn’t accomplish anything else, just not burning it would have been a win. I watched videos of Iranian women making it, read multiple blogs about other people’s experiences, and decided to try again today. There’s always next week, right?

I started with the pestle and mortar:

Who knew this could be used for something other than weed?

Used it to grind up the saffron:

Poured 3 T of hot water, stirred, and let it sit while I started the rice:

I just wanted to show you how pretty it is. 🙂 This is my favorite color of anything ever.

While the saffron was brewing, I gathered the vegetables for the ghormeh sabzi. I used this recipe, except I marinated the beef in lime juice, olive oil, ginger, garlic, turmeric and cinnamon for about 5 hours before cooking.

The smaller you can get these greens, the better. I put them all into a food processor.

You’ll want to put the greens into a pot and steam them on medium high for about 5 minutes, or until they stop giving off steam. Then add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and sauté until they are dark green and turning brown. You’ll want to stir them continuously for about 15 minutes, or else they will burn…and no one wants that.

In a different pot, saute the onions until they are brown. Add the beef and all of the juice it is marinating in, and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add two cups of water to the beef and onions, and cook covered on medium for 15 minutes.

Add the vegetables to the beef, turn down to medium low, and cook for half an hour. Add the kidney beans, and cook for another half an hour.

Looks a little like this at the half an hour mark, right after putting the kidney beans in.

And that’s pretty much it. Serve with rice.

Speaking of rice…I tried following this method this time, and I ended up not scorching the tah dig (whew!), but also ended up overcooking the crap out of the rice. Part of the problem is that I picked up some extra long grain rice when I thought I was picking up extra long grain basmati rice. Big difference.

D likes dill and lima bean rice, so I found a recipe for Baghli Polo and went at it.

At about this time, I was on my second glass of wine, so the photos are less in focus and somewhat less frequent.

A little mushy, a little overcooked, but gobbled up nonetheless.

Oh, tah dig…why do you mock me so?