Week 9 Cooking Blog

This week I decided to make a traditional Persian called Carrot Rice (or in Farsi referred to as Polo Havig) . This is a dish very important to Persian culture as it is a very old and traditional dish passed down for generations. It consists of carrots, onions, ground beef, and basmati rice all which originate from Iran, the Middle east or countries close to the middle east that were conquered back in the days of the Persian empire.

Ingredients:

1/2 a white onion
1-2 cups shredded carrots
3-4 cups basmati rice
2 tablespoons salt
1/2 cup ground beef
1/4 cup olive oil or butter (preferably olive or canola oil)

Procedure:

The first step here is to clean the rice. You put your rice in a bowl and then run it under cold water and constantly stir the rice with your hands to get all the dirt out and to get as much of the starch out as well. You then dump the water out, repeat this process 3-4 times or until the water is clear. When you do your last rinse of the rice you add water again to the rice and then add in the salt to the water. Allow the rice to sit over night. I decided them to get my other ingredients ready as well to be fully prepared tomorrow. I started by shredding the carrots into thin small slices. I then cut up the onions into very small bit sized pieces because the onions while present in the dish should not have a very potent flavor on the dish. I then took my beef chucks and put them in the grinder for ground beef (I did buy prepackaged ground beef as I like to control the fat to meat ratio). I then add a bit of the oil to a pan and put the beef and onion in and allowed them to cook. After the beef was nearly done cooking I added the carrots and cooked them for 3-4 minutes more and set it too the side. The next day I then took my rice and put it through a colander to get rid of all the water. I then added the rice to a pot and added about 1/2-1 cup water to the pan. I then covered the pan making sure it is sealed tight so the rice can fully cook. I put it on low heat for about 3-4 hours to allow it to slowly steam cook. After that I simply added my meat, carrot, and onion mix and mixed it in with the rice, added my olive oil (mixed it around again), and let it cook for another 20 minutes and it was ready to serve. 

Final Thoughts: 

Overall I was very satisfied with my results. I was aiming to make a dish similar to what my mom makes for me whenever I visit. Though it is not my favorite Persian dish I do very much enjoy it, especially with sour Persian Yogurt (fresh made at home). There was ingredient I did not use in the dish that is typically in all Persian food, especially our rice and that is liquid saffron. I didn't include it for 1 as I really didn't know how to find some or how to make some and secondly because saffron is a bit pricey so I assumed the same would be for liquid saffron. Though personally for me it didn't make that big of a affect on the flavor as a whole (though there was a difference from when my mom cooked it, it also could be that she used canola oil and NOT olive oil but I wanted to be a bit healthier. Another thing I altered in the recipe was that I included less carrots into the dish. Many Persians add a lot of carrot to this recipe (my mom included) and I feel the flavor of the carrot became too overwhelming and decided to cut back on it a little, which I think worked very well as it the ingredients were more even and ergo meshed better together. All in all I was very satisfied with the results of my dish.