Baghali Polo ba Mahicheh: Dill Rice with Lamb Shank

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Baghali polo is rice cooked with heaps of dill and broad beans, green and fragrant. Add a lamb shank, slow-cooked with onion, turmeric and saffron until the meat slips off the bone, and you have one of the great Persian feast dishes.

It is a favourite at weddings and Nowruz lunches. It is also easier than it looks.

At a glance: serves four. About three hours, mostly the lamb cooking on its own. Medium.

Ingredients

• 4 small lamb shanks
• 2 onions, 1 quartered and 1 sliced
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 cinnamon stick
• A generous pinch of saffron, bloomed in 4 tbsp hot water
• 3 cups basmati rice, soaked for 2 hours
• 400g broad beans, fresh or frozen, outer skins removed
• 2 large bunches fresh dill, chopped, or 4 tbsp dried dill
• 3 tbsp butter or oil
• Salt and black pepper

Method

1. Put the lamb shanks in a pot with the quartered onion, turmeric, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Cover with water and simmer gently for two and a half hours until very tender. For the last half hour, add half the saffron.
2. Boil the rice in plenty of salted water for six minutes. Add the broad beans for the last minute, then drain everything together.
3. Heat the butter in the pot with a splash of water. Layer the rice, beans and dill in the pot, finishing with rice, and shape it into a mound.
4. Cover with a lid wrapped in a tea towel and steam on a low heat for 45 minutes.
5. Fry the sliced onion until golden. Brown the cooked shanks briefly in the pan and spoon over some of their liquor.
6. Serve the rice topped with a little saffron rice and the fried onions, with a shank on each plate.

Peel the beans. Slipping off the tough outer skins takes ten minutes and makes all the difference.

A quicker version. Baghali polo is also delicious with chicken, or simply with a fried egg on top for a weeknight supper.

Where to buy the ingredients. Outside Iran, you can order saffron, dried dill, basmati rice, a Persian rice cooker and turmeric online.

Serve with salad Shirazi and a bowl of yoghurt. Fresh broad beans are in season in Iran in spring, which is when baghali polo appears on almost every table.