#76 persian love rice with burnt butter tzatziki

from Nopi

This recipe was actually pretty complicated, which takes a lot for me to say. First you make a Persian spice blend, then you make the tzatziki which requires shredding zucchini, salting and removing the water, and also browning and straining butter. Once you're done with that, you don't get to kick up your feet. You have to saute onions garlic and ginger in a pan, add some saffron soaked in boiling water, the spice mix, basmati rice, boiling vegetable stock, let it cook, then add sliced pistachios and almonds, barberries and mulberries that have been soaked in boiling water and shredded carrot. Then you take some grape leaves that have been boiled for 15 minutes, lay them over plastic wrap and a mold, and stuff each one with the rice mixture. At this point you refrigerate it. That's what I did last night, and then decided that I didn't want to eat this dish anymore and ate some cheese dip instead. For lunch today, I unwrapped them from the plastic wrap, seared for each side up for about two and a half minutes and then stuck in the oven for 10 minutes to warm up. But then it was finally time to unwrap and serve. It was one of the fanciest lunches I've ever made, and was quite good. It was like a giant grape leaf, but with Persian spice. The one thing I would absolutely skip next time is the brown butter. I don't think it added anything in terms of flavor, and it made the butter he have a gritty texture until it melted over the hot rice. This was going to be my #mezzetizer for Monday, but as mentioned above the cheese dip won.