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Persia and the Caucasus · Volume 60, The Palaw, the Dumpling and the Winter Meat

Kichri qurut

Herat, on the first day of winter

Kichri qurut, soft rice under hot qurut sauce with kofta, fried garlic and dried mint: a deep plate of soft pale rice and split yellow mung beans cooked to a loose mass and flooded with a thick pale sharp qurut sauce.

Illustration

Time
1 hour 30

Kichri qurut is the rice Herat eats on the first day of winter: rice and split mung beans cooked soft and wet, a sharp sauce of qurut rubbed out in warm water, and kofta. Herat's Doorbin magazine lists it in February 2018. The same list has kichri gusht-e land, the rice with winter-dried mutton, served with qorma, spinach stew, aubergine dishes and pickles.

As tradition built it

Serves a family. About 1 hour 30 minutes.

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

Method

  1. Cook the rice with the split mung beans soft, with more water than a palaw, until it is a loose mass.
  2. Rub the qurut with warm water in a rough bowl until it is a smooth, sharp sauce.
  3. Mix the minced lamb, onion and spice, shape it into kofta and cook them in a little stock.
  4. Spread the rice, pour the qurut over, set the kofta on top, and finish with the fried garlic and mint.

Notes

The rice and split mung beans are Zaheda Ghani's, who was born in Herat (SBS Food, 2024), written as 800g and 400g; her kichri is a beef and mung bean dish without qurut. The sauce and kofta have no cook's weights yet.

What a modern chef changes

The qurut sauce made smooth, the rice made to order

Rung 5

Method

  1. Soak the qurut in warm water an hour, then blend it and pass it through a chinois; the clay bowl is the tradition and the blender is the substitute, and the sauce is the same.
  2. Cook the rice as a risotto, adding hot water in ladles, so it is soft and separate at once.
  3. Brown the kofta in the pan before they go into the stock, for the colour the tradition does not bother with.
  4. Serve the qurut hot: it splits if it boils, so warm it in a bain-marie.
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