Morasa Polo Recipe | Best Persian Jeweled Rice
Morasa Polo Recipe
Today at Tak Recipe, we want to make a unique and gorgeous Iranian dish that you will love its aroma and taste. Morasa polo, or jeweled rice, is one of the most traditional Iranian dishes that is topped with various colorful ingredients. This dish is quite similar to Shirin polo, and sometimes they are mistaken for each other, but there are some distinctive differences between them; in Morasa polo, ingredients are topped on a plate of rice in contrast to Shirin polo which rice is filled with the ingredients. Secondly, the Shirin polo is meant to be sweet, but there is no definite rule for making the Morasa polo sweet. We have shared with you the Shirin polo, and today we want to teach you how to make this fancy and gorgeous Morasa polo in your kitchen. We ensure you can impress everyone with this dish.
Ingredients for four people | |
Rice | 4 cup |
Chicken breast | 400 g |
Golden raisin | ½ cup |
Barberry | ½ cup |
Large onion | 3 |
Slivered almond | ¼ cup |
Slivered pistachio | ¼ cup |
Slice of orange peel | ¼ cup |
Brewed saffron | 2 tbsp |
Cinnamon | ½ tsp |
Lemon juice | 2 tbsp |
Sugar | 2 tbsp |
Salt | To taste |
Black pepper | To taste |
Turmeric | As needed |
Morasa Polo Recipe
Step 1
Wash and rinse the rice a couple of times to eliminate extra starch and dust in the rice. Then fill a bowl with water, add a generous pinch of salt and let the rice soak for half an hour to two hours.
Step 2
Peel the oranges and remove the white part of the orange peels. Thinly slices them, add them to a bowl filled with water, and set them aside to soak for an hour.
Step 3
Then place the orange peels in a pot and put it on high heat. Let it boil. Then change the water and let it boil again. Do this technique 3 or 4 times until you remove the bitterness of the orange peels.
Step 4
Add the sliced orange peels to a pan and sauté them with two tablespoons of oil. Then add a tablespoon of sugar to the pan and candy the peels.
Step 5
Wash and pat dry the chicken breast and take their skin off. Then transfer it to a kitchen board and cut it into medium size cubes. Put them in a large mixing bowl.
Step 6
Peel and wash one of the onions and cut it into thin slices. Add the sliced onion, lemon juice, and a generous pinch of salt to the bowl containing chopped chicken. Stir the ingredients to get mixed.
Step 7
If you have enough time, cover the ingredients with plastic wrap and refrigerate the ingredients for about two hours or more to marinate the chicken.
Step 8
Peel and wash the remaining onions and chop them finely. Put a pan on medium heat and sauté the chopped onions with two tablespoons of oil until translucent.
Step 9
Take the marinated chicken out of the refrigerator and add them to the pan. Add ground turmeric and black pepper to the pan and stir them. Now put the lid on the pan and let them cook with the onion juice on low heat for about 20 minutes.
Step 10
Then add brewed saffron, salt, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and a little cinnamon to the ingredients, mix all the ingredients and sauté them for a minute. Then remove the pan from the heat and set it aside.
Step 11
Fill a pot with 6 cups of water and a generous pinch of salt and put it on high to bring the water to a boil. Then drain the soaked rice, add it to the pot, and let them simmer for about 7 minutes until the rice is half-cooked.
Step 12
Once the rice is soft outside but uncooked in the center, remove it from the pot and rinse it with cold water in a strainer to remove excess salt.
Step 13
Coat the bottom of a pot with liquid oil and place a layer of sliced potato or flatbread on the bottom of the pot. This will give you a crispy layer as Tahdig and prevent the rice from burning. However, you can skip this step and get a crisp layer of rice at the pot’s bottom.
Step 14
Put the rice in the pot and shape it into a dome. Then make one or two holes in the rice with the handle of your spatula and put the lid on. Place the pot on medium-high heat and let them cook until you see steam rising.
Step 15
After about 5 minutes, when you see rice steaming, cover the lid with a cloth and put the pot on a heat diffuser. Reduce the heat to low and let the rice steam for about 45 minutes.
Step 16
Put the slivered almonds and pistachio in rose water to soak. Soak the barberries with regular water. Let them soak for 10 minutes.
Step 17
Then rinse the nuts and barberries. Put a pan on medium heat and add liquid oil. Firstly, add the slivered almonds to the pan and sauté them for 2 to 3 minutes until shiny. Then remove them from the pan and set them aside. You do not need to sauté the pistachio.
Step 18
Then add the barberries and a tablespoon of sugar to the pan, sauté them for a minute until it becomes shiny, then set them aside. Be careful to stir while cooking the barberries since they will burn quickly.
Step 19
Then add raisins to the pan and sauté it for 30 seconds. Then set them aside.
Step 20
Add half of the cooked rice to a large serving platter and place a layer of sautéed chicken on them. Then top it with the rest of the cooked rice and pour some brewed saffron on them.
Step 21
Then top your rice with sautéed barberries, raisins, sautéed almonds, pistachios, and sautéed orange peels in any pattern you want. Your Morasa polo is ready. We hope you like it and give it a try.
Note:
You can use beef or lamb meat instead of chicken breast if you want. Also, you can prepare this dish with minced meat. For this purpose, grate one onion, drain its juice, and then mix it with the minced meat. Knead that for 5 minutes and then shape them into tiny balls. Then sauté the meatballs with some oil in a pan and top the rice with them.
- Thanks to :
- ashpazimaneli