Apron Strings

This dish is not only deli­cious it’s beau­ti­ful. Zahra grids her Saffron in a cof­fee grinder before mix­ing it with water and pour­ing over the chicken. This makes the whole dish vibrant orange. When topped with the rice, dec­o­rated with pis­ta­chios and dried bar­ber­ries, the Zereshk Polo looks like a work of art. While it feels like a shame to dig in, the taste is worth it. When Zahra served it to us, the del­i­cately flavoured chicken was falling off the bone. Yum.

Ingredients:

• 500 grams of Basmati or long-grain rice
• 1/2 of a chicken
• 75 grams of cook­ing oil
• 50 grams of butter
• 50 grams of dried bar­ber­ries (zereshk) (Other dried red berries like cran­ber­ries would work as well)
• 1 tbsp of sugar
• 1 medium onion
*
• 1/2 tea­spoon of Saffron
• Salt
• Black pep­per

Directions:

Chicken:

Wash the rice and soak it in a bowl with warm water and salt (2 hand­fuls) for 2 hours.

Wash the chicken and boil it in a pot with 1 cup of water, chopped onions, and some salt.

Cook the ingre­di­ents until there is half a cup of liq­uid left in the pot (Make sure to not overcook).

Take the chicken out and let it cool. Remove the bones and divide the chicken into 4 pieces.

Drain the remain­ing chicken juice in the pot with a strainer and place it in a bowl.

Add the saf­fron to very lit­tle hot water and stir gen­tly in order for the colour to change.

Add half of the saf­fron water, and 35 grams of oil to the chicken juice and bring to a boil in a small pot.

Once the juice has come to a boil, imme­di­ately remove from heat.

Barberries

Soak the bar­ber­ries in cold water for 5 min­utes. Then wash the bar­ber­ries care­fully and drain the water. Add 1 table­spoon of oil to the fry­ing pan under low heat.

Then add the bar­ber­ries to the oil, and stir occa­sion­ally. While stir­ring, add sugar. Once the bar­ber­ries become slightly larger, remove ingre­di­ents from the heat (Barberries will not taste good if they are over­cooked or burnt).

Rice:

After the rice has soaked, add it to a big pot of boil­ing water. Once the rice is half cooked, drain it into a strainer. Add the remain­ing oil, half a glass of water, and a lit­tle bit of saf­fron to the bot­tom of the pot. Make sure the stove is at medium heat. Slowly begin to add the rice to the pot, and sprin­kle cumin between the rice. Steam the rice for 5 min­utes on medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and let the rice steam for half an hour.

Serve the rice in a large shal­low dish. Crush a tiny bit of saf­fron with 2–3 table­spoons of warm water in a small bowl. Add some rice to the bowl and mix until it turns yellow.

Add the saf­fron rice and the cooked bar­ber­ries to the top of the shal­low dish. Serve the chicken sep­a­rately in another dish or on top of the rice.