jeweled-rice-msg

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jeweled-rice-msg - 5/2/20

Period Persian jeweled rice.

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Gavin Skal

April 29 at 8:49 PM

Does anyone have a period recipe for any sort of jeweled rice? My lady requested it for our next feast from home, but when I asked her for sources she's having trouble finding them.

Johnna Holloway

The folklore or legend is recounted here: https://turmericsaffron.blogspot.com/.../javaher-polow...

Javaher Polow - Persian Jeweled Rice

TURMERICSAFFRON.BLOGSPOT.COM

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

Yes, there is a recipe for Jeweled Rice in the 1594 Persian cookbook by Nurallah, cook to Shah Abbas. I taught it at one of the West Coast Culinary Symposia, where we cooked it.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

The 1594 cookbook is Māddat al-ḥayāt, resāla dar ʿelm-e ṭabbākī (The substance of life, a treatise on the art of cooking), by Nurollah Nuri Natanzi, the cook to the court of Shah Abbas I. Around 2010 I translated the 66 recipes from the German of noted Austrian scholar Bert G. Fragner. In 2017 the whole cookbook was published by Mazda as "Dining at the Safavid Court", translated by Prof. M.R. Ghanoonparvar.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

Here's my translation:

Morassa‘-polāw ("decorated polāw"). This is also called molamma‘-polāw (Glittering polāw). Thus it is prepared: Cut chicken meat up small. After washing the rice, cook it [together with the chicken meat]. Once the rice is half-cooked (i. e., before steaming), mix it with green raisins, pistachio and almond kernels, dates, figs, chestnuts, barberry, and many chickpeas. Then put it like other dishes of [this type] on a low heat and let [the polāw] steam. Each of the ingredients is present in the dish on its own (i.e., not mixed with others). In particular, the dates must be replaced after straining [the rice gently], so that they are not overcooked.

Here is my version that we cooked at the WCCS

· 3 lb. chicken pieces, with skin and bones

· 3 quarts chicken broth

· 1 lb. butter

· 6 cups good quality long grain rice such as Basmati or Jasmine

· 3-1/2 tsp. salt

· 1-1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

· 1/4 tsp. saffron, soaked in 1/4 c. warm water

· 1/2 c. green raisins

· 6 figs

· 1/2 c. almonds

· 1/2 c. pistachios

· 2 cups chickpeas

· 6-12 peeled chestnuts

· 1/4 c. barberries

· 6-12 dates

• Soak the rice in water to cover.

• Cook chicken pieces in broth. When cooked remove from broth, saving broth.

• Cool chicken slightly, then skin, bone, and cut or tear chicken meat into small pieces.

• Carefully drain the rice.

• Put chicken meat into broth and add the rice, bring to simmer, and cook on low-medium heat, no lid.

• When rice is half-cooked, about 12 minutes, gently stir in salt, pepper, and saffron liquid with threads.

• Then on top add green raisins, pistachios, almonds, figs, chestnuts, barberries, and chickpeas. Each ingredient should be clearly separate from each other.

• Cover the pot with a clean dish towel and then with its lid. Put it on a low-medium fire, and finish the rice by steaming.

• Dates should be added only after straining the rice, so they are not overcooked to mush (tā lītī našavad).

Rebecca Friedman

I hoped you'd answer this one!

Where are you getting the saffron and black pepper from? Does that cookbook specify spices for this type of dish elsewhere, or...?

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

Good questions. I'm not sure why i added the saffron, since it doesnt appear in the original recipe, and i think we didn't use it when we made this at the WCCS.

As for the pepper, the recipes are often quite vague about which seasonings to use, leaving it up to the cook or to unexplained conventions that we don't know now. That may be why i added it.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

In contrast with Bavurchi's 1521 cookbook, Nurallah's 1594 cookbook is vague about a lot of details.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

Hmmm, i just looked thru Ghanoonparvar's translation. He also has a section with his worked out versions of most of the recipes. He includes saffron in his modern recipe for Morassa‘-polāw... and as far as i can tell, it is not in his translation of the original recipe, either. Weird.

Rebecca Friedman

It may be that he's used to modern versions of the same thing, and therefore assumes it must be there even if it doesn't say it?

I would be very surprised by that, incidentally - saffron is *expensive*, even that late I wouldn't imagine anyone would n…See More

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

The author of the book is the cook to the Shah of Persia. The expense of saffron wouldn't matter at all. Many of the other recipes include saffron. It's pretty common in this cookbook.

Many of the recipes instruct the cook to use "spices" without specifying which. True, this specific recipe doesn't, but Nurallah took a lot of shortcuts in his recipes, compared to Bavurchi, who was one of his relatives

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya

Also, the two books I've mentioned are Persian and for either the Shah, in the case of Nurallah, or a very highly placed nobleman, as in the case of Bavurchi.

Many Arabic-language cookbooks are often similarly vague when mentioning "spices". In those cases, I will look at other related recipes to see what spices are called for, when they are [not] specified.

The conventions of European cookbooks do not apply.