Ghalie-Mahi
Originated from south of Iran, this rich complex meal combines layers of fish, vegetable, and oriental spices to create a balanced flavor of sourness, sweetness, and hotness.
Whether you love meals with fish or you don’t like them, you should try this meal!
Ingredients for four people
Base (sauce)
Fish
450 Grams salmon or cad fillet chopped to 4-5 cm pieces
Vegetables
200 Grams red onions chopped in ½ cm thick slices
250 Grams baby spinach
200 Grams fresh parsley
100 Grams fresh coriander
100 Grams green onions
50 Grams Šanbalile (Trigonela foenum graecum)
You can buy a dried combination of these vegetables, as one package called Ghorme-Sabzi, from any Iranian store.
Seasonings
½ Teaspoon turmeric
½ Teaspoon smoked paprika
¼ Teaspoon cinnamon
½ Teaspoon hot pepper (chili)
½ Teaspoon black pepper
Other ingredients
50-75 Grams Timbre Indi dissolved in 1 cup of boiled water, mixed well, and strained
1-2 Tablespoons brown sugar
50 Grams butter
3 Tablespoon olive or cooking oil
Rice
200 Grams Persian or Basmati rice
2 Tablespoons salt
¼ Tea spoon saffron powder dissolved in 2 table spoon of hot water
1 medium size yellow potato (around 150 grams)
50 grams butter
2 Tablespoons cooking oil
Directions
Preparations
Wash the rice in a 5-litre skillet 3 to 4 times until clear. Soak in 3-litre of cold water mixed with 2 table spoons of salt and preserve. You may do this step ahead of time and keep the soaked rice in a cool place. The rice has more time to absorb water and salt and becomes tastier.
Peel the potato, cut in 1/2 cm thick slices, and soak in cold water to release the excess of starch.
On a cutting board chop the fish into 3 to 4 cm pieces.
Clean, wash, and chop vegetables. Combine and preserve.
Making Base (sauce)
Set the heat to medium, add 2 table spoons of oil in a 5-litre skillet, then add onions. Fry for 5 minutes stirring occasionally until soft. Add seasoning, stir, and let the flavours to diffuse.
Add chopped vegetables and cook for another 5 minutes with medium heat.
Combine with the fish and stir well to let the flavors to diffuse to the fish.
Reduce the heat to low, add 1 cup of water, timber Indi, and sugar. Timber Indi is available with different sourness. So, it is important to make a balance between sourness and sweetness by adding proper amount of timber and sugar to match your taste.
Cover the skillet and cook for 30 minutes or until the juices thickens.
In the meantime start with the tadig and rice. Keep another eye on the base and add more water if needed. At the end add butter, salt, and pepper stir and continue to cook for another few minutes.
Making Rice
While the base is cooking, boil the soaked rice on a medium to high heat for 5-10 minutes or until the rice is cooked.
Be careful and do not overcook the rice, otherwise the rice grains would be disintegrated. Also note that the under cooked rice is not tasty. A well cooked rice grain is solid but fluffy. One needs some experience to identify the optimum cooking point of a rice grain and, with the experience, you can do it by eye. It should be also noted that the cooking point of a rice grain varies form one type of rice to another. This is the basic rule; The rice is ready when the rice grains expand 2-3 times in size and appeared to float on the surface of boiling water.
Drain the rice in a strainer and rinse with cold water. Taste the rice and make sure that it is not too salty. Rinse more to remove the saltiness.
Put back the skillet on a medium heat, add 3 table spoons of cooking oil and butter, lay down the sliced potatoes evenly on the bottom, and season slightly with salt and pepper.
Add the rice over sliced potatoes in the skillet and spread evenly.
Pour the dissolved saffron evenly on the top of the rice. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and continue to cook for another 30 minutes. This 30 minute is a little imprecise and depends on many parameters including but not limited to the skillet size and its bottom thickness, the real heat produced by the cooking plate, and the thickness of sliced potatoes (tahdig). Therefore, you should keep eye on it and check occasionally.
Manage the time in such a way that the sauce and rice are cooked simultaneously and they are ready at the same time to be served.
Enjoy It!
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