Adas Polo -- Persian Peasant Food

Persian Adas Polo (sort of)

For my first attempt at both cooking peasant plant-based food, and also a first attempt at blogging, I'm going to try something I remember from a Persian restaurant called Adas Polo (it seems to go by other similar names and I'm not sure what the real name is).

FIRST CONFESSION:  I am not Persian.   I don't have any family or close friends who are Persian.  I have no great-grandmother to tell me how to do this correctly, but I do have a desire to try plant-based peasant food, so be warned if you are an Adas Polo purist, this may not meet your expectations.    If you are an Irish-American, this may add a dish to your "Forks-over-Knives" type of diet.

OK, let's get started.   Here's my kitchen setup (what you will need):
Couple of pots to boil water with rice and lentils, some way to grate some carrots, a colander to drain and rinse, and a huge something to mix stuff up in (a large bowl would be better than the huge pot shown, but I don't have a bowl big enough)



SECOND CONFESSION:  This will make a huge amount of food.   For one hungry guy, it will last a week, for a family it will definitely be more than one meal.    Good thing is, because there's no meat or dairy, it won't spoil.   There's nothing in it that can spoil, even after a week in the fridge.   So make a lot, and enjoy.

Start with a bag of Basmati Rice (Persian rice can be found in any grocery store).  I am using brown basmati rice, but you can use white if you prefer.
















Next comes Lentils.   You are going to want around 1/2 bag of lentils for a full bag of rice.   Adjust accordingly.

Pour rice into a large pot of boiling water.  You don't need to measure, just make sure you have a lot of water.   A large pot will work for a bag of rice, but if you insist on measuring, use at least 3 cups of water for every cup of rice.  You want extra water, and don't worry, this rice doesn't cook like japanese rice.  Even with lots of water it's not going to get pasty.


Same deal for the lentils, though of course you have less, so a smaller pot will also work.  If you want, you can cook these one after another (if you only have one pot), and indeed they can be cooked ahead of time, if that suits you.   Both rice and lentils keep well after cooking, so don't worry about them spoiling.

 

Now, while the rice and lentils are cooking (it will take around 20 minutes for the lentils, and 40 minutes for the rice), you should grate a couple of large carrots.   You can get fancy if you want with a mechanical grater, but hand works fine, and it's only a couple of carrots, after all.

Once the carrots are done, you can assemble all the other things you are going to want to add to your Adas Polo.   As shown, you will want dark and light raisins, dates, roasted pistachios, and sliced roasted almonds.   All are typical ingredients in Persian food, but you can also find variations of Adas Polo with any combination of one, two or more of these ingredients.   Orange peel zest, and other choices make it easy to create variations.



Set out a pile of each ingredient, something like this.    More is good, but too much will overwhelm the subtle flavors of the rice/lentil mixture, so don't go overboard your first time.  Slice the dates lengthwise, and cut once across, or as you wish.  Don't get pre-cut dates as they are disgusting and they also have lots of sugar added.

Now, for the hard part -- saffron (not really, it's just that saffron is expensive, so it's hard to make yourself use it).

Saffron is around $20 for only enough to hardly be seen in the bottle.   They put it in a little plastic envelope, as shown here.    Really, it's TWENTY BUCKS for that little bit.   But a little goes a long way.   

No matter how you figure it, the cost of the saffron is probably more than the cost of ALL THE OTHER INGREDIENTS COMBINED.   But without saffron, it's just not the same dish.   Saffron has a kind of bitter taste, but has a wonderful floral aroma that fills the kitchen and gives a beautiful golden orange tint to the dish.    I'm tempted to try it without, but I'm afraid of setting some sort of bad precedent where I will leave out any critical spice that I don't want to find or buy.   Not good.  So saffron it is.

The way to prepare saffron is to take a "pinch" (I used about half of what is in the bottle, or about $10 worth).   Put a LITTLE bit of hot water (boiling hot is good) over the saffron filaments and let it steep like a tea while you do the next steps.

This is how it looks with the water added:

Ok, so if your lentils are done (they get done before the rice, remember?), you can pour them out in a colander and rinse liberally with cold water.   You want to rinse them so they don't overcook or become mushy, as that will make your Adas Polo too sticky and mushy.

Lentils change color a bit when they are done, but you can always try a couple to make sure they are ready.

Now, do the same thing for the rice, waiting of course for it to be done.   Make extra sure you rinse the rice really well with cold water, to stop cooking, and to remove any surface starch that will keep your rice from fluffing properly.

At this point, you should have a boatload of rice, and an appropriate smaller amount of cooked lentils, each rinsed, drained, and set aside.

I used a giant soup pot to mix in, but you can use a huge salad bowl or something similar if you have it.   Either way, it's a relatively simple thing to dump all the raisins, dates, carrots, and nuts onto the rice and lentils, and fluff until mixed.   DON'T STIR IT, FLUFF IT.    With a big spoon dig down and fluff the mixture upward until everything is mixed.   Stirring, in the traditional sense, will mash your rice and lentils, and the resultant concoction will not have the wonderful fluffy lightness you want from Adas Polo.

When properly fluffed, it should look something like this:

Now, GENTLY drizzle the saffron water mix over the mixture.   If you used only a little water on your saffron, it will flavor everything without sinking to the bottom.

You want to allow the saffron filaments into the mix.   If you can separate them gently, that is best, but either way you want all of it (all $10 worth) in your mix.   The filaments may not have much flavor left at this point, but they add color and visual interest to the dish.   In a restaurant, seeing the saffron filaments is proof they used real saffron (I guess you could call this the "money shot").

Your Adas Polo should smell like heaven, and should look like this.  In my esteemed not-official-Persian opinion, it's best to make this dish cold, then microwave it just as it is served.  That way the fruits, nuts, carrots, rice, and lentils all retain their individual flavors and textures.  This is not like a soup or stew where you want everything to intermingle.

Leaving it in the fridge for a while even doesn't make everything blend, as long as you don't mix it heavily (fluff only, remember?).   Even days later, the carrots are still sweet, the nuts crunchy, and the fruits chewy.

Because we made a huge batch, you will have enough for an immediate meal, and still a lot leftover for tomorrow and beyond.    I like to make up some small plastic containers, that I can take for lunch at work.   They are just right for a light lunch, and you won't need to fight for refrigerator space at work because they won't need refrigeration, at least not for a day.

I get these little lunch-size plastic buckets at our local dollar store, four for a dollar.   At 25 cents each, it's way cheaper than going out to lunch (even with saffron), way better for you, and cleanup is a breeze (I just throw them away -- no environmental haters please, it just is was it is).

Hope you enjoy this sometime soon.    It's easy to prepare, cheap to make, nutritious, tasty, and has no meat, dairy, fat, sugar, or salt.

Bon Apetit