Mahi Shekam Por, Stuffed Caspian Whitefish, with Kateh

As tradition built it

Serves 4. 30 minutes to marinate, then baked 45 minutes plus a final 10 minutes to colour, the kateh needing a 2 to 3 hour soak beforehand.

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, ingredients named but not yet weighed. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

• 1 whole cleaned white fish (a bream or sea bass stands in credibly for kutum, which will not be found fresh in Britain)
• lime juice
• grated onion
• to taste salt and pepper
• 1 onion, finely chopped, for the stuffing
• 2 cloves garlic, for the stuffing
• large bundle a large bundle of finely chopped parsley, coriander, mint and tarragon
• handful a handful of chopped walnuts
• 1 spoonful pomegranate paste
• scatter barberries, a scatter
• 700g rice, washed two or three times, for the kateh
• double the rice's volume salted water, double the rice's volume, for the kateh

Method

1. Marinate the whole cleaned fish in lime juice, grated onion, salt and pepper for thirty minutes.
2. For the stuffing, sauté the finely chopped onion and garlic, then combine off the heat with the chopped herbs, chopped walnuts, pomegranate paste and barberries.
3. Pack the stuffing into the fish's cavity and close with kitchen string or skewers.
4. Bake covered at 200°C for forty five minutes, then uncover and finish a further ten minutes to colour the skin.
5. For the kateh, soak the washed rice in double its volume of salted water for two to three hours, then simmer uncovered until the water is absorbed to the rice's own surface.
6. Reduce the heat, place a cloth-wrapped lid over the pot, and steam a further thirty minutes.
7. Serve the fish with the kateh.

What a modern chef changes

Method

1. Portion the fish into fillets rather than cooking it whole, and cook each fillet sous vide at a precise low temperature until just translucent at the centre, finishing skin-side down in a hot pan for colour only at the very end, for control over exactly how far the flesh cooks that the whole-fish version cannot offer.
2. Blend the stuffing's herb and walnut mixture to a coarse paste in a high-power blender rather than leaving it roughly chopped, and serve it as a sauce spooned around the fish rather than packed inside it, a plating change rather than a flavour one.
3. Finish the kateh with a small pool of saffron butter stirred through at the very end of its steam, a deliberate borrowing from the plateau's own tahdig repertoire onto a dish that would not traditionally carry saffron at all.