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Ok, well it's Iranian.. But just wanted to share my excitement about a meal I'll be having tonight..

The dish is called 'Koresh Gormei Sabzi'.. Koresh means stew, Sabzi means green vegetables (I think) and I think the Gormei refers to the process Iranians use to cook meat for Koresh - they generally always fry it with onion first..

Ok, so am sitting in Gloria Jeans after just leaving Ranch Market, where I've got the essentials.. This dish is as Iranian as Fish and Chips is English, as Korma is Indian and as Spaghetti is Italian.. Though I was born and raised in Australia, we grew up on almost entirely an Iranian diet. My father is from Rasht, a small city on the Caspian Sea..

Iranian cuisine, has one major flaw. Presentation when served is not a strong point. Europeans focus much on presentation, as do Japanese - but Iranian cuisine is far lagging in this field.. Anyhow, it doesn't make it any less delicious.

This dish has a number of key ingredients - few are easily located in Indonesia, hence my excitement that I'll be eating tonight. We'd eat this dish at least weekly in Canada..

Here goes..

4 cups parsley
1 cup chives
1 cup cilantro / coriander leaves
1 cup fenugreek
4 dried limes
3 medium onions
400g red kidney beans
700g beef (needs to be well marbled, or at least have good quality fat)
1/2 tsp tumeric
Salt and pepper to taste..

The art of cooking this dish is the proper frying of the sabzi.. Too much it burns and tastes bitter, too little it will taste as though the flavour is underdeveloped.. You only get 1 chance with the frying of the greens.. Chop all the greens very very finely (not the onions) - Use generous amounts of butter and fry until the small particles feel like little 'softish' splinters.. Keep stiring continually. When done remove from heat and set aside..

Next, thinly slice your onions and fry in the same butter (add if necessary) - with the tumeric, pepper and salt.. Shortly before caramelization, add your diced beef.. Try and keep the heat adequate to slightly sear it - you don't want it stewing at the beginning.. As the beef continues to cook it will release some liquid and at that point you add your sabzi, your lime and about after 1/2 hour of simmering, you add your cooked red kidney beans.. Simmer it on extremely low heat for at least 2-3 hours.. You'll know when it's ready as the darkened oil (should be a dark green) will start to release from the vegetables and rise to the surface..

Serve like you would a curry on top of BASMATI rice - I can't find it here so I'm going to have to settle for regular rice..

Anyhow its a dish that looks scary to newcomers, but it almost always gets the same comments from them after trying.. "Omg, delicious!"..

But its all about taste I guess..

Ct

The ingredients look fairly normal to me and you should be able to get them almost anywhere. What can you not obtain?

Hi Jimbo - yes I managed to get it all and that's why I posted, because I was excited at the prospect of having it, but some of the ingredients we brought from Australia from our last visit. 2 things I think you'd have a real difficult time finding which are key are fenugreek and dried lime - I've not seen them anywhere. Dried lime could be substituted for fresh lime, but the flavour would be very different. Fenugreek, to the best of my knowledge can't be substituted and is one of the more notable flavours of the dish. We bought both dried limes and fenugreek with us from Australia - but it was even difficult to find it there. Managed to get the dried limes from a lebanese shop and the fenugreek from an indian supermarket. All of the ingredients are very easily found in Vancouver because there's over a hundred thousand iranians there, so the "sabzi" mix can be purchased in a dry packet, already blended. Last nights was different as the parsley and coriander was fresh - not dried. But it wasn't worse, just different. Actually the proper way to prepare it was as we did last night - with all fresh herbs, but its the first time I've had it like that. People are used to using the dried sabzi these days.

Ct

it sounds healthy and full of flavour to me ..........make me hungry