Today is The Sous Chef’s birthday. Yap, he is a Taurus and Gemini cusp baby and represents both signs rather well!
Since today is his birthday, I am going to tell you yet anther humorous West meets East story within our relationship. This one involves one of the most beloved Persian stews, Ghormeh Sabzi. If you thought the one I shared on the Sabzi post was funny, this one by far tops them all! I think after you read this one you will agree with me that he is super lucky that I continued to date him back in the day!
When I first met him, one fine day we made our way to Westwood to go Shaherzad Restaurant for what was to be his first Persian meal. Of course I was super excited to introduce him to our cuisine. I love going to Shaherzad because they bake their own bread in the oven in the back corner of their dining room.
We parked our car in one of the side streets and let our noses lead us to the source of the delicious smell of Persian food that lingered in the air. We were seated at our table for two and a basket of fresh out of the oven bread was placed immediately on our table along with some butter, and a whole white onion with the skin removed. The Sous Chef’s reaction to the onion was the first comical event of our dining experience. I explained to him that traditionally in Persian restaurants, and households, layers of onion are eaten along with the food.
We opened our menus and I offered some suggestions on possible dishes that he might find appetizing. I should add that during that time The Sous Chef was on his favorite diet where he avoids carbs and sugar because he has a sensitive stomach. Needless to say that he only took a small piece of the bread just to try it. I suggested trying a Kabob dish and ordering all salad on the side instead of rice. He went through all the dishes and finally settled on Ghormeh Sabzi. I was a bit concerned about his choice because this stew can be sometimes a hit or miss with non-Persians; some people simply love it and others simply hate it! But he was absolutely sure he wanted to try it because it sounded so good. I reminded him that the stew comes with rice.
“I am not going to order rice with it.”
“But you can’t have Ghormeh Sabzi without rice.”
“Why? Says whom? It is a stew, you don’t always eat a stew with rice.”
“But… but you eat “Persian” stew over rice, always. You can’t have khoresht without rice,” I replied horrified.
“Says whom?” said he with a mischievous smile.
“Listen to me, you can’t have Ghormeh Sabzi without rice. It’s too strong of a stew.”
Just then the young waiter approached our table to take our drink and food order. I asked for the usual: Dough for drink; The Sous Chef asked for a soft drink. When time came to order our food I went ahead and ordered Jujeh Kabob and The Sous Chef did the unthinkable. He ordered Ghormeh Sabzi with salad….no rice.
The waiter’s expression of disbelief was priceless!
“You want Ghormeh Sabzi without rice??” asked the waiter bewildered glancing back and forth between me and The Sous Chef. He clearly recognized the fact that I was Iranian and I know it in my heart of hearts that he was waiting for me to jump in and put a stop to this insanity.
In the mean time I just wanted to roll down my chair and hide under the table, or better yet for the ground to open and for me to melt away. I just kept my head down and completely avoided making eye contact with the waiter. Seriously, how dare he insult my people’s food like this?!!
The food came and The Sous Chef ate the first spoonful of Ghormeh Sabzi and his eyes widened in delight. He ate the entire bowl spoonful after spoonful along with onion layers with much gusto. I just watched him eat and shook my head in disbelief. And to top it all off he even ordered a glass of Dough for himself after having tasted mine. Oh my what an experience that was! He should seriously consider himself lucky that I continued going out with him after his shenanigans!
Now onto our recipe! Let me begin by saying that this recipe is the first of a few as far as Ghormeh Sabzi is concerned. There are a variety of recipes for this dish. Some people only use herbs, some people use leeks, and others use spinach in this dish. Today’s recipe is made in the most simplistic form of it: with herbs only.
Ingredients
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp turmeric
1 lb stewing meat
4 dried Persian limes
1/3 cup kidney beans, dried
4 cups fresh parsley, packed
2 cups fresh cilantro,packed
1 cup fresh feenigreek
2 cups fresh chives
salt & pepper
oil
Please note that for this recipe you will need to soak your beans for a few hours.
Small dice onion and mince garlic. Sauté in oil until translucent. Add turmeric and stir well.
Cut meat in cubes and add to onion. Season with salt and pepper and allow to brown on all sides.
Make a couple of small holes in each of the dried limes. Add to the meat along with the beans. Add 4 cups of water, cover, and cook on medium for 1 hour.
In the mean time fine chop herbs.
Sauté herbs in oil for a few minutes until you smell the aroma of the herbs. This is a very important step in making this recipe. I highly recommend that you don’t skip it because it really does make a difference in the taste.
Add herbs to the meat and beans. Cook covered on medium low for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Make sure to stir the pot every so often and also taste and adjust seasoning.
Note that some people either add lemon juice or ground dried limes to Ghormeh Sabzi along with the whole dried limes. Personally, I find that the four dried limes add enough tang to this stew.
Serve over chelow, white rice.
Ingredients
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp turmeric
1 lb stewing meat
4 dried Persian limes
1/3 cup kidney beans, dried
4 cups fresh parsley, packed
2 cups fresh cilantro,packed
1 cup fresh feenigreek
2 cups fresh chives
salt & pepper
oil
Soak beans for a few hours. Small dice onion and mince garlic. Saute in oil until translucent. Add turmeric and stir well. Cut meat in cubes and add to onion. Season with salt and pepper and allow to brown on all sides. Make a couple of small holes each of the dried limes. Add to the meat along with the beans. Add 4 cups of water, cover, and cook on medium for 1 hour.
In the mean time fine chop herbs. Sauté herbs in oil for a few minutes until you smell the aroma of the herbs. This is a very important step in making this recipe. I highly recommend that you don’t skip it because it really does make a difference in the taste.
Add herbs to the meat and beans. Cook covered on medium low for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Make sure to stir the pot every so often and also taste and adjust seasoning.
Serve over chelow, white rice.
{ 64 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, this seems delicious!!
I can’t find cilantro leaves, feenigreek leaves and chives so can I substitute them with the spinach and the leek you mention above?
I’d like to try this with just beans…I know it’s not traditional, but it seems yummy…I already tried dred limes in stew (sliced ones brought from an indian online shop, so I don’t know if they are the same as persian lime) and they are very strong and bitter…I still don’t know if I like the taste they give to dishes or not…
This is one of the best Stews ever.
I don’t add Cilantro, but as you said there are many recipes for this dish. When it comes to beans I soak it in cold water like you but before adding it to stew I boil it for few minutes /drain the water and do this process for few times this way the beans do not make the stew color darker and it prevents blowing ( per my Grandmom).
Happy B-Day to Sous Chef.
that is a darling story! and a beautiful recipe to boot. x shayma
@ Mika, you can use dried herbs for this stew as well. But I can’t see why you could not make it with leeks and spinach like you mentioned. This stew can easily be converted to vegetarian as well by leaving out the meat.
@ Maryam, great tip! I had never heard of this before!
@ Shayma, thank you love!
That was such a funny story, I just read it out loud and my husband and I laughed so hard. The recipe is lovely, I’ll try it for sure BUT to my embarrassment I must add that I hardly ever make ghormeh sabzi from scratch. Usually when I visit Toronto I often buy cannes of sabzi (prepared specifically for ghormeh sabzi) from the Iranian stores, it’s called “shayesteh” and all I add is beans and beef and I must say it comes out really really really good… and as we say very “ja oftadeh”
But it’s time I brave up and make the real version with your recipe:)
Have a lovely weekend…and btw love the blog’s NEW look.
Birdette- Abu Dhabi
What is feenigreek and chive in french or in arabic?
Eva
I love Shaherzad! Their gormeh sabzi is excellent, I have never made it myself but am going to have to try your recipe. Is it traditionally made with lamb? or do you use beef? I have some pre-chopped herbs in the freezer that I bought at the Persian market but I should still fry them before adding to the stew right? Thanks!
@ Birdette, glad you enjoyed the story! I have seen the cans that you refer to, there are also jars with pre-made ghormeh sabzi as well as frozen herbs for it. It seems like there are good enough options for shortcuts!
@ Eva, fenugreek is fenugrec and chives is ciboulette
@ Meg, you can make this dish with lamb or beef. Yes, you should definitely still fry the herbs!
Happy Bday Sous Chef… my husband and I went on one of our first dates to Shamshiri in Los Angeles where he too ordered gormeh sabzi for the first persian food taste. He loved it and I’ve been making it for him ever since. I use the frozen herb pack at Hawthorne Market, also fry them, add the meat and use dried lime powder instead of the whole limes. Your way sounds good, I’ll try it that way next time.
love ghormeh sabzi for breakfast, lunch and dinner! like the new template/layout and what a pretty banner!
@ Suzie, I have been meaning to try those frozen herbs…one of these days!
@ Azita, Ghormeh Sabzi simply rocks! Thanks for the design complements!!
I love ghormeh sabzi! i can’t believe some people who buy the mix; what do you think of that?
Your story was touching; imagine what would have happened if he had refused to eat it past the first mouthful an ordered a burger instead~
Love the recipe and the story. I do a similar recipe, but we always used the “shortcut” dried sabzi herbs, at least most of the time. I find grinding fenugreek seeds or using pre-ground fenugreek powder helps in a pinch when fresh fenugreek can’t be found. Agree with your above comment that this dish is easily vegetarianized.
Loved the story. I am not sure I had this dish before but I can say I never cooked it for myself, and I intend to fix that soon!
One time I had dinner with my Persian friend, and I tried putting too much emphasis on my pronunciation of dough, and it came out sounding like “douche” Needless to say the waiter sucked in his cheeks to keep from laughing. My friend had no such control and when the waiter returned, he asked if I wanted soap with it! To this day, I always hesitate before asking for it.
have you tried making pizza ghormeh sabzi ? i make it with left over stew homemade pizza dough and mozzarella cheese! ( ps. i cook my best pizza’s on a stone on the grill.)
@ Tasteofbeirut, I personally like to cook with fresh ingredients and seldom use stuff out of a can or box, but I think many people prefer using the mix or the frozen herbs to save time. After all cleaning and chopping the hrebs does take a while to do.
@ Bria, I had never heard of using fenugreek seeds. Good to know!
@ OysterCulture, Funny story! thank you sharing you had me laugh out loud!!!
@ Kim, oh my, I certainly have not had, or thought about, having Ghormeh Sabzi pizza!!!
This is my favorite stew on the planet. It looks great Chef!
Aaron
I had my share of problems making ghormeh sabzi. I made it a few times and when it was unsuccessful, I quit making it for a while. This is one of those dishes that either you are good at it or not, there is nothing between. If it’s not well made nobody will eat it. Two important part of making this khoresh, is: one, frying the herbs, and two, slow cooking. If you master these 2 steps, you will have a delicious khoresh! I have to work on 2 skills yet. For me the dried packaged sabzi works better, sometimes i add some fresh parsley.
lately we start substituting chicken for red meat for health issues. I made ghormeh sabzi with cubed chicken breast, it turned out pretty good.
This is by far my all time most favorite food in the world. Thank you for sharing your take on this splendid dish.
This is by far my favorite Persian dish. When we were kids, we would joke that my mom made it with the grass clippings when my dad mowed the yard! This is totally Persian comfort food!
And, I love it so much, I eat with or without rice!
I can see why Sous Chef ate it all, it sounds delicious and very aromatic. I need to try dried limes…do you dry them yourself?
LL
This is my favorite Persian dish!! It took me a few years to acquire a taste for it, but now I cook it every few weeks.
@ Lori Lynn, it really easy a delicious dish. No, I don’t dry the limes myself. I buy them dried. I will try to remember to bring you some on Sunday!
@ Shannon, I can totally understand that it takes a little bit to acquire a taste for it if you have not grown up with it!
Love this story – my favorite ghormeh sabzi story was from the very first time I made it (over twenty years ago now). I was so excited by my first attempt and wanted it to be a surprise to my Persian husband. I drove to pick him up from the train and as he got in the car he said “you made ghormeh sabzi!” – I didn’t realize how the fragrance followed you everywhere and he knew the second he got in the car what I’d been up to!!
I am so happy to find that you have such an excellent web site that I have shared with customers. My husband and I have a small mini mart in Lees Summit, MO and recently started carrying a small assortment of persian products. I needed to find a website that would help us Americans how to prepare the most wonderful food in the world. I have found there are so many variations that can be made in this dish. Personally I use the dried vegetables vs the fresh, because of the unavailability of fresh fenugreek here, but do use some fresh with soaked dried in the spring and summer, but always better with fresh. Thank you again for creating such a wonderful website.
Hi Sanam,
This is by far my most favourite persian dish however as i don’t eat meat i find it hard to adapt. I’ve cooked it using mushrooms but it just doesn’t taste right, I would be very grateful if you could suggest an alternative or perhaps another herb or spice i can add in – I don’t necessarily need to substitute for something ‘meatlike’.
The recipes look great, thanks for your hard work!
Nasim, I would suggest upping the amount of kidney beans and adding leeks or spinach to it. See how you like it that way. Let me know how it comes out!
This recipe looks delicious and i would love to try it. Can i use regular lemons instead of persian lemons or lemon juice that is available at grocery store( if not what other subsitutes can i try) ? Also are there any secret small tips to make it more delicious:)? thanks
Erusmus, you can use lime juice instead of dried lime juice. I would say the secret is to let this stew simmer on low for a while so that the flavors come together. Also I would use fresh herbs.
I made this finally today, though I left out the meat and added more beans, as you’d mentioned in an email is what is normally done when making it vegetarian style. I also made a mistake and got dried Fenugreek instead of leaves so I put the dried herb into a metal tea making device and just put it in the brew like that while cooking. I also made a mistake and got my herbs without the amounts written down so I got the proportions all wrong, but I figured it would still taste good – and it really did. Yum! I love this dish!!
And I wanted to let others know that even after making a few mistakes, it still tasted fabulous!! I also could not get dried limes around where I’m at so I just added some lime juice when the brew had about an hour left to cook and I added salt after adding the lime to get the desired flavor.
It was really quite easy to make, though a little time consuming with using the fresh herbs, but I prefer to use fresh. This is one of my favorite things to eat. Thanks for the blog!
I like to make this in a slow cooker – it makes it very tasty and tender. Abgoosht is another good slow cooker dish – it makes the water part of “the water of the meat” really flavoursome.
Katie, thank you for sharing your tips!
I love this story! This looks good, I saved it to make, thanks!
Debbie, yay!! Go for it!
Dear Sanam,
About sauteing the herbs it reminds me of the Indian penchant for sauteing their spices and then adding the water and other ingredients. Of course the spices and how they interact with the final dish are very different then just putting them in. I often employ this method so I can imagine that doing the same with herbs will also impart a unique taste. Very interesting.
I love ghormeh sabzi. Our friends from Singapore love it too. My mother in law is the best cook in cooking ghormeh sabzi. She always has some dried-rubbed feenigreek in cupboard. She fries 1 tea spoon of it and adds it at the last 30 minutes of cooking to ghormeh sabzi.
I can not find feenigreek, can I use something different in its place? If so, what would be best to use?
I can not find the fennigreek can something be used in its place?
Sarah, if you can’t find it, you can omit it.
So I’ve been dating a persian guy for the past 7 months, and he’s introduced me to the persian culture and everything. When we go out to eat, persian food is always on the top of my list. I love vaziri, kebob, everything but I knew there were more dishes since he always talks about them. Not too long ago, his mother was cooking ghormeh sabzi at home. I had a taste of it and OMG, I cant even begin to say how flavorful the dish was. It was just amazingly perfect. Sooooo long story short, when I get my cravings for persian food (and this is very often), I get crazy and start researching on the Internet. And yesterday I came across your website, and found the recipe. It looked hard at first but with the pictures and everything, it really helped!!! I got all the fresh ingredients from the persian store and made my first ghormeh sabzi. It was phenomenal! Everyone at home loved it lol. My background is actually Iraqi and it’s just funny how the first dish I ever cooked in my life is Persian
hehe LOVE PERSIAN! Thanks for the amazing recipe, your site has definitely made it to my favorites list. You’re awesome!!!
Hilarious story with funny and stubborn character… He should have been taken for Mc donald instead!…lol
Hi Sanam Jan, Thank you for your great website and instruction. Is there a chance you would include two more things in your recipes please? One the time of preparation and the second the total cooking time. With the busy life we all have, there are times that we would like to cook a particular dish, yet we won’t know how long prepartion and cooking will take before hand up until we read through entire instruction and add up the numbers to come up with the final time. Please forgive me if I’m asking too much, but I think it would greatly help us to know whether we have enough time or not before going through the whole instruction. In a more sophisticated manner you could even categorize your dishes based on the time, like under 30 minutes meal, or under an hour, etc. (The latter suggestion may have a little more work involved, but the former is definitely practical). Thank you for considering.
Mina jan, thank you for your suggestion. I will definitely take it in consideration.
Thankyou chef for your wonderful tasty recipes. regarding this dish if i cook it with mushrooms instead of meat when do you think i should add the mushrooms.
Bernie, that’s up to you, if you want your mushroom to stay slightly on the firm side, I could add them in the last half hour. Otherwise I’d add them with the herbs.
Hello. Looking forward to trying this! I have just one query regarding adapting the recipe for vegetarians. Do you reduce the cooking time and if so, how long do you cook the dish for?
Many thanks.
Gill, for the vegetarian option you need to cook the stew for as long as it takes for the kidney beans to cook.
Help! I can’t find fresh fenugreek leaves in NYC. What do you suggest as an alternative?
Calista, you can find it at Persian Stores. You can omit it if you can’t find it.
I just read this story and can’t stop laughing! And I thought my mother-in-law did the unthinkable in ordering it with dill rice instead of white. I shudder inside each time she does that. I think this has been my favorite dish from the minute I was born but am always too intimidated to make it myself. Thanks for the recipe and for making me laugh!