Recipe created for Paper Chef #22, in the home category. Inspired by “Oven-Baked Rice” on page 152 in New Food of Life by Najmieh Batmanglij. If my rusty linguistics fieldwork skills are to be trusted, in Persian this dish would be named shirazi polow-ye zereshk-o kadu halvai. [pictures to come later]
Oven-baked Rice with Barberries and Butternut Squash, served on a bed of spinach

makes 6-8 servings
prep time: 1 hour 40 minutes (more if you pre-soak rice)
cook time: 2 hours 30 minutes

3 cups long-grain basmati rice
2.5 lbs chicken (i used breasts)
2 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tsp ground saffron, dissolved in 2 Tab hot water
1 lb 4 oz (565 grams) butternut squash (i used only the top portion of a butternut to simplify knifework, and this is what it weighed)
3 Tab oil
1 cup dried barberries (most of my 3 oz package)
1/2 butter (or oil or ghee)
1.5 Tab sugar (i used raw sugar)
2 cups plain yogurt
2 egg yolks
1 tsp ground cumin

1. Clean and wash 3 cups rice 5 times in warm water. “It is then desirable but not essential to soak the rice in 8 cups of water with 2 tablespoons salt, for at least 2 hours.” (Mine soaked about 1 hour, the duration of the initial chicken cooking [step 2].)

2. Place the chicken and 1 sliced onion in a saucepan. Do not add water. Cover and simmer over low heat for 50 - 60 minutes. If using a whole chicken, bone and cut into pieces. (I did not bone my chicken.) Sprinkle 1 Tab saffron water over the chicken. Set aside, reserving juices.

3. Meanwhile, clean sand from and soak barberries. (Place berries in a colander and place the colander in a bowl of cold water. Let soak for 15 minutes. (Any sand will settle to the bottom.) Rinse then drain.)

4. While barberries soak, peel squash. Cut into 3/4″ cubes. Brown slices in 3 Tab hot oil for 5 to 10 minutes (they should get brown and soften somewhat, but do not need to cook through.) Remove squash, then brown the remaining onion in the same pan until golden brown and soft, at least 10 minutes. When onion is done, stir together with squash and set aside.

5. Bring 8 cups of water and 2 Tab salt to a boil. If you soaked the rice, wash and drain it again. Pour the rice into the pot. Boil briskly, uncovered, for 6 to 10 minutes. Stir gently twice to loosen any rice that might be sticking. Bite a few grains - if the rice feels soft, it is ready. Much of the water will be absorbed. [Cookbook says to drain and rinse yet again - I skipped this step, which may explain the saltiness of my rice.]

6. While the rice is cooking, preheat oven to 350F.

7. While the rice is cooking, saute the cleaned barberries in 2 Tab of butter for 1 minute. Do not overcook! Remove from heat, add the sugar, and set aside. Set aside 2 tab of barberries for garnish.

8. Melt remaining butter in a deep ovenproof dish. (I couldn’t find my largest casserole dish, so used two smaller ones.)

9. Take 4 spatulas full of rice and combine with yogurt, egg yolks, and the remaining saffron water. Place this rice mixture in the ovenproof dish. Arrange chicken pieces on top. Spread the barberry mixture over the chicken. Arrange the squash and onions around the chicken. Cover with remaining rice. Sprinkle cumin over the rice and pack it down into the dish, using a spoon. Pour remaining chicken juices over the top of the rice.

10. Place lid on top of oven-proof dish to prevent steam from escaping, or cover with aluminum foil. Bake in the oven for 2 to 2.5 hours, or until the crust is golden brown.

11. Remove the dish from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes (do not uncover) on a damp surface.

12. While polow is cooling, saute chopped spinach (and arugula) in butter or oil (preferably in the skillet used to cook the barberries, in hoopes of picking up residual flavors). Sprinkle with cumin to taste. Add a splash of pomegranate vinegar at the end.

13. Loosen the rice around the edges with the point of a knife. (If you have an immobilized arm, you’ll need to have someone else do the next step!) Place a large serving platter on top of the dish. Hold the dish and platter firmly together and turn over to unmold the rice. Garnish with the reserved barberries. Serve hot, over or near the spinach. Nush-e Jan!

Paper Chef is a mostly-monthly event where food bloggers are challenged to cook creatively given 4 ingredients, chosen somewhat randomly from a list of nominations. I’ve participated once before, and came close quite a few times (like once this summer where I had all the ingredients and an idea - but only saw it after the deadline!).

This month finds us at Paper Chef #22 - The Slow Edition. The ingredients are: barberries, pumpkin, spinach, and “something slow.” “Slow” characterizes most of my work in the kitchen right now, so I have that covered without even trying (or rather, by trying at all). And as soon as I saw the barberries, I knew I’d be turning to my Persian cookbook, New Food of Life, by Najmieh Batmangli.

This cookbook was a Christmas gift in 2002, from my younger brother-in-law and his bride-to-be. Along with the cookbook was an assortment of specialty ingredients, including a package of dried barberries (zereshk). I was scared off them for a bit, since I was pregnant at the time and one of my books said that (herbal preparations of) barberries were an abortifacient and to be avoided during pregnancy. I never found out for sure if I needed to be worried about cooking with them - centuries of Persian cuisine would suggest not, but to be safe, I set them aside. And I set them aside for almost 4 years, because I’m just now using them. Every time I went to try one of the recipes in the book, I was put off by either the list of ingredients or the length of preparation. But length of preparation fit the Paper Chef theme this month, so that was fine.

The index in this cookbook is not so great, because it only shows a few recipes for barberries, even though they appear throughout the pages. But using the index, I started by looking at the barberry khoresh recipe (p 221) - khoresh being a slow-cooked stew. Nearby I found a spinach and prune koresh (p 219), a spinach and orange khoresh (p 222), a butternut squash and prune khoresh (p 215), and (not in today’s theme) a rhubarb khoresh (p 241) that I will be so all over next June. The obvious next step was to create my own barberry-spinach-pumpkin khoresh, but my attention turned to something else instead: oven-baked rice (p 152). Even before I noticed “bake in the oven for 2 to 2 1/2 hours” near the end, the oven-baked rice appealed to me more than the khoresh (not to mention the fact that I’m not sure any of my pots can stand in for the dutch oven best suited for khoresh). I somehow overlooked the “preparation time: 1 hour 40 minutes” that proceeded that “Cooking time: 2 hours 30 minutes.” A 4+ hour meal preparation, started at 4:30, is not so accommodating to hungry children! But they probably weren’t going to eat much of it anyway (exotic flavors and smells, mixed textures), so they got plain chicken and plain rice.

Oven-baked rice: the name sounds simple enough, but is actually quite complicated. Like many Persian dishes in this cookbook, it’s all about making a beautiful rice crust (which becomes the presented top when you turn the baking dish over onto the serving dish). Oven-baked rice is a polow, a dish which layers rice with meat, fruit, and vegetables. The rice is pre-soaked and parboiled. The other ingredients get cooked separately, then it all gets layered together and steamed in the oven. The oven-baked rice recipe I consulted (shirazi polow-ye galebi) incorporates chicken, onions, eggplants, and barberries along with the rice melange (rice, ghee, egg yolks, yogurt).

So I had my idea, and I had dried barberries. I have a couple pumpkins from my CSA, but wanted to reserve them for other uses, so decided to substitute butternut (which I used in place of eggplant in the recipe). I also have spinach from my CSA (as featured in a local newspaper story!). I used the spinach as a side for the casserole.

The result, for the ‘home’ category: oven-baked rice with barberries and butternut squash, served on a bed of spinach. (Recipe in separate post.)

There are many ways this dish fit the slow theme. Most obvious is the preparation time: close to 5 hours when all is said and done. (We cheated, though, and ate some before the 2.5 hours of steaming was complete). Clean-up will be slow, because of all the pots, pans, and mixing/measuring containers I used. It took a long time for me to get around to this recipe - I’ve had the cookbook for nearly four years but only tried smothered rice before this. And my immobilized left arm slows down all the preparation these days.

Was all the effort worth it? Well, I cannot yet be judged on the quality of my rice crust (”the reputation of Iranian cooks rests on the quality of their tah dig, or golden crust”), because we spooned out some of the food before the dish finished steaming and didn’t do the full presentation. (I’ll try that as leftovers on Monday - but should I reheat it them flip, or flip them reheat?) But what we tasted was wonderful! The combination of flavors was marvelous and rich: the pan-roasted squash and onions were soft and slightly sweet; the sweetened-yet-tart barberries add a touch of zing as they burst in your mouth, the chicken was moist and flavorful, and the rice pulled it together (despite being somewhat salty on its own, since I skipped a rinse step). It was rich in a satisfying but not overwhelming, even though we didn’t get much of the bottom-which-becomes-top-crust (yogurt + egg yolks). We both really enjoyed it.

I served it on a bed of spinach and arugula. I sauteed the greens in the barberry cooking pan, hoping to pick up a touch of the sweetness. I sauteed them in melted butter, sprinkled with cumin, and added splash of pomegranate vinegar at the end. The simplicity made it the perfect accompaniment to the complex polow.

I’d definitely try this (or other recipes from the book) again - but only if I start the preparation right after lunch! Now to visit an Arabic grocery to track down more barberries…

On the left is C-boy on a trip to the orchard in 2001,

and on the right is a picture from 2006

Some things (like his fascination with the mechanics of the apple sorting machine) never change - they just come into sharper focus! :^)

Last Wednesday, C-boy’s class was going to (our favorite!) local apple orchard. Z-boy’s class was supposed to walk to the Farmer’s Market, where our favorite orchard has a stand (but his trip got cancelled due to thunderstorms). And T-boy and Jonski Papa had to accompany me to the Farmer’s Market, since my immobilized arm couldn’t readily manage the CSA share pickup. The three of us stopped by the Wasem corner in the market to pick up our favorite cider, some honeycrisp apples (which I discovered and loved at least 2 years before they got noticed by the paper), and plums. Then I was tempted by some vintage / heritage apples at another stand, and picked up a quart of Greenings. We also bought some ginger gold apples at yet another stand, but they seem to have passed their prime as they have gotten pretty soft.

Friday was apple baking day in C-boy’s class. I’d volunteered to help before my accident. His teacher reassured me that they could probably manage without me, or I could come and help as much as possible. So I went, and helped C-boy’s group - 5 boys in an apple pie group. With the crusts pre-made, our task was pretty simple. We had an apple peeling machine, which was used with great gusto by our team. Once we had “apple slinkies”, we broke them up by hand into our mixing bowl rather than chop them. Given their enthusiasm with the peeler, I think I’m glad none of them were wielding knives! We mixed in some cinnamon, sugar, and cornstarch, then spooned onto the crust.

There were two pie groups (for a total of 4 pies), two crisp groups (apple crisp with flour, apple crisp with oatmeal), and one muffin group. Since I didn’t get to stay for the taste off, C-boy’s teacher sent a muffin home for me to try, and it was quite tasty.

So I’m not sure if I was inspired by the apple day muffins, or the overwhelming quantity of apples in our fruit drawer, but either way, I decided to make muffins on Sunday (using 1 Greening and 1 Ginger Gold). Since our apple peeler got left at school over the weekend, I had to chop the apples for these muffins by hand. I thought I’d use some apple cider as part of the liquid, to add an extra apple punch. And once I started mixing, I realized I was low on vegetable oil, so I did the “low-fat substitution” trick of substituting some applesauce for the missing oil. The result I named:

Triple Apple Muffins

2 eggs
1 cup milk + 1/2 cup apple cider
3/4 cup vegetable oil + 1/4 cup applesauce
2 medium apples, peeled and chopped
4 cups flour (I used 1.5 c whole wheat + 1.5 c white + 1 c wheat germ)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons salt

topping: 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, 1 tsp cinnamon

Tip: prepare crumble topping and apple before preheating oven.

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare 24 muffin cups (I usually use liners, but was out today so used non-stick spray).

Mix 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, and 1 tsp cinnamon in small bowl and set aside.

Beat eggs; stir in milk (and cider), oil (and applesauce), and chopped apples. Stir in remaining ingredients all at once until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).

Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full. Put a spoonful of streusel topping on each muffin. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Immediately remove from oven.

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Cooking with one arm immobilized isn’t as hard as I’d feared, but does take a little extra time. Some containers are really hard to open. Some tasks are nearly impossible, so I hand them off - such as lifting (or pouring from) heavy pots, dumping or scraping from a lifted pan, using our garlic press, etc. Knife work is possible but requires some extra attention. There are times when I wish the counter were higher, and times when it could be lower (like when i need to hold something still for chopping with my left hand). But I’m managing!