Basic Iranian Rice

Iranians call this plain rice dish "polo" or "chelo"; I'm sure many of you already know of the famous Iranian dish "chelo kabab". Voila!

Before you read the recipe think of how you make pasta: boiling the water, adding the salt and pasta, draining it in a sieve. Iranian “polo” is made just like that plus a few other steps.

Ingredients (Serves 3)

• 2 cups basmati rice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 6 cups water

 

Directions

1. Rinse the rice a couple of times (most Iranians also soak the rice for a few hours before cooking, but to be honest, I skip this step and my polo just turns out as good and truly Iranian!)
2. Fill a nonstick pot with 6 cups of water (the pot shouldn’t be too small or too big for the amount of rice you are using, for 2 cups of rice a pot with the diameter of about 20 cm should be fine).
3. Bring the water to the boil.
4. Add the salt and the rice, stir once or twice to make sure the grains don’t stick together.
5. Keep it boiling for 7-8 mins.
6. Just like how you test your pasta if it’s ready to be drained, pick one rice grain out of the pot and press it between your thumb and index finger. If it’s soft (neither hard nor mushy), it’s ready to be drained. This is a very important step because draining the rice too early will give you a not-well-cooked rice and too late will give you too mushy rice with the grains all fallen apart. Another indication of the rice being ready for draining is that it’s longer than it was before going into the pot.
7. Drain the rice in a sieve.
8. Put the pot back on the stove, add 1 tablespoon of oil and wait a couple of mins till the oil gets hot.
9. Add the rice back into the pot, shape it into a cone (imagine a hill or a sand dune!)
10. Use the end (handle) of your spatula to make a couple of holes into the rice. This ensures the rice is steamed evenly everywhere.
11. Put the lid on, and using a high heat wait for 3-4 mins till the pot gets all steamy inside.
12. Immediately turn the heat down to low and wait for 20-30 mins for your rice to be ready.