January | 2021 | Fatmanyash

This is a magnificent rice dish which comes from Persia or as it’s called these days Iran.

This country has an amazing history of food and influences of these foods are seen in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent and the Ottoman empire. The pulao and the biryanis have originated here or in the Ottoman empire and travelled with the many invaders to the sub continent.

There might have been rice which went there and saffron which came back who knows what happened with the old trading routes invaders and all of that. What we do know is we have some amazing food that we can use today.

I learnt to make this when post gulf war two our hotel in Dubai was running empty and restaurants were suffering. Our director ops got the bright idea to sublet our banquet rooms to an Iranian restauranteur / caterer to whom we had to to assist with the food production in our banquet kitchen .

They came or rather the one chef they sent came with their pots and A charcoal bbq which was quite amazing. Had a shallow pit and an electric blower to help light the fire faster .When they left we arranged for this to get hidden so we got the proverbial fell off the back of the truck amazing bbq. I also got the design to custom make two BBQs which 15-16 years later are still in use in my hotel then.

I used this recipe also for the 1st curry cup competition at the Nz culinary fare. The judges had never seen zereskh berries before and we’re blown away. My students Simaranjit Singh and Shamika Ratnayake Palliyage went on to win the inaugural cup , gold medals and best in category award..much joy and happiness. Boom boom bang..fast fwd to recipe before you fall asleep.

Basmati rice get the good quality one- 200 gm/ 1 cup. Wash with room temperature water till it’s clear this gets rid of the excess starch because the rice when cooked should be individual grains.
saffron -1/4 of a gram.or a bit less.. toast this in the microwave for 20 seconds ..this makes it easy to get the maximum colour and flavour out. Then add in a few spoons of warm water and cover and keep for atleast 15-20 mins
Zereskh berries – a good spoonful 2- gms or so.. if you can’t get these you cannot really use cranberries because they taste so different..it’s like using pears for apple pie because it’s a pip fruit. U can buy them dry from a persian shop but keep them on the fridge they get brown and yucky otherwise
Oil and butter 20-30 gms together ..can go a bit higher too..

Heat water in a heavy bottom pot and add some salt to it and 1 bayleaf and 2-3 cardamom.

while it’s boiling soak the zereskh/ barberries with some clarified butter and some warm water.just to rehydrate them.

When water has boiled add in the rice and cook till 80 %done and drain it. Then in that same pot add some of the oil butter mix and pour the rice over it.. the traditional way they put the saffron and berries underneath but sometimes that kills the delicate saffron or zafran as it’s called . This slow cooking of the base forms a cripsy rice cracker like crust called “Tahdig,”.so In my way we put the saffron on the top of the rice and the berries right in the end .pop a lid on and low heat ,6-8 mins ..et voila..

These evolved from a class of students that Moi used to teach at Whitireia Poytechnic , in New Zealand /Aotearoa. Ive eaten muffins all over the world and truly these were so awesome moist, and chock full of berries or you could replace them with something else..

While we are on that topic, there was a muffin place called M#ff^in break( of all the things), which were some of the worst ive ever eaten. i counted 5 berries in one, like they kept one person on slave rates to count the nos of frozen berries to chuck into each little muffin cup.

So this recipe makes 12 medium sized ones or could make smaller mini sized ones about 30 odd..the cooking time for those is about 60% so about 12 -14 minutes, you have to check its not an exact science.

Flour sieved 200 g
Cornflour sieved with above -40 g
baking powder sieved with flour and cornflour together- 10 g

ok stop , before going any further, preheat your oven to 180 C on fan assisted mode and get your muffin tin and cups ready( muffin cups even the disposable ones need t be sprayed or brushed with some oil)

Butter 48 g
oil 48 g melt together
Eggs 2 large sized 6–65 g each
Sugar 180 g
vanilla essence – enough to take the egg smell off
milk -100 ml
Blueberries –120 g atleast, so you get a good mouthful in each bite

The way forward is quite easy…Whisk the eggs , sugar and essence together over a bowl of hot water till thick and foamy. you could do this the old fashioned way with a good whisk or use the electric hand blender, dont worry i wont judge you.

then slowwwwly add in the melted butter oil mix , and milk and dont whisk. Use a spatula or spoon ti mix gently so all the aeration isnt lost. Then pour in your flour/cornflour/baking powder blend, the one which had been all sieved togther.( to blend well , remove any bits of paper/ plastic or glass which could go in..and also make the mix lighter).Put on the greased cups/ yes even the disposable baking cups so the batter doesnt stick horribly. Bake at 180C fr 8-20 minutes turning midway once or twice.

Take these out and take a bow, your kids will love you forever( well atleast till the muffins last). I will make a batch with my happy kids tomorrow and post a pic..