Kalam polo - rice with cabbage and meatballs

 

Kalam polo, rice with cabbage, is aromatic Persian comfort food for winter weekends. It's a typical Iranian main-course rice dish, assembled and finished in one pot. This version, with meatballs, is associated with Shiraz. The recipe is for eight.

In the morning (or at least four hours before you cook the rice), you set it to soak. I've always measured rice in what recipes used to call an 'after-dinner coffee cup', so put eight of those, or just over 500 grams in all, in a big bowl, and wash the rice first in hot water, then cold, till the water runs clear. Add a fistful of sea salt - not a pinch, a fistful - cover the rice with fresh cold water and leave it to soak till you're ready to cook it.

Make some little meatballs using about 400 grams of meat (not too lean or the meatballs will be dry), two onions chopped fine, herbs (e.g. coriander), maybe some turmeric if you like, and salt and pepper. Whatever: you can use your own usual meatball recipe, and just roll them small: not more than 2 cm, so you get about four per person, 32 in all.

Take two more onions and about half a white cabbage or a whole medium green one. You need a big frying pan for this as the cabbage takes up a lot of room until it cooks down. Slice the onions thinly and start them off in plenty of hot oil. Add two teaspoons of turmeric and one each of ground ginger, cinnamon, cumin, fenugreek if by chance you have it... A few scrapes of nutmeg wouldn't go astray, and a dozen or so cardamom pods, pounded to extract the seeds, discarding the husks, are essential. Add salt and pepper. 

Turn the onion over and over with the spices and start adding thinly-sliced cabbage, keeping the vegetables coloured with the spice mixture and adding oil if they start to look dry. When all the cabbage is in the pan and starting to cook down, put a lid on and let it cook for about half an hour, until all the ribs in the cabbage leaves are tender.

All of this can be done well in advance, as you wish.

A quarter of an hour before your guests are due, set a big pan of water to boil and drain the soaked rice. No need to rinse - the saltiness of the soaking water won't transfer to it. While the water heats up, grind a good pinch of saffron and one cube of sugar with a pestle at the bottom of a coffee cup.

When your water reaches a rolling boil, turn the drained rice into the pan and cook it quite briefly: the soaking means the rice will be done in four minutes or even less. Basmati rice, in particular, is soon ready as the grains are so slim. By 'ready', I mean really al dente, as the rice is going to cook a second time once assembled.

While it cooks, ladle a little of the boiling water into the ground saffron, and stir.

Now you need a deep, medium-sized saucepan. Your aim is to find one that the rice, cabbage and meatballs will fill almost to the rim. A non-stick pan is ideal if you have one, and the rice will also turn out better if it's fairly heavy, so that the heat spreads well up the sides.

Put some olive oil and butter in the bottom of the pan and let it heat up so the butter melts and starts to sizzle gently. Put a third of the rice in a layer at the bottom, then half the cabbage and half the meatballs. Add another third of the rice and the rest of the cabbage and meatballs. Finish with the remaining third of the rice. With the handle of a wooden spoon, poke four or five holes almost but not quite to the bottom of the pan. Dribble the saffron mixture over it. Take a clean tea-towel folded in two (check it hasn't been washed in an over-scented detergent, as the rice will absorb the smell), cover the pan with it, put a lid on and fold the tea-towel back over the lid. You can now leave the rice to cook, five to ten more minutes on a medium heat, to start the browning process at the bottom of the pan, then another 45 minutes or more on a low heat until you're ready to serve the dish.

A word on temperatures. The settings on my hob (induction) run from one to nine. I start the oil and butter off at 6 out of 9 and leave the rice on that setting for ten minutes, then turn the hob down to 3 out of 9. It isn't easy to judge the first time. The point is to end up with a golden, crunchy crust of rice at the bottom. If your hob is too low, the bottom ('tahdig', which Iranians are almost prepared to fight over) will be too pale and soft, but if the heat is too high and you burn the rice, the whole dish will taste smoked. First time you do it, go for a low option and see how it turns out. Next time, you'll know exactly which setting gets the best result.

When the time comes to serve the polo, take the cloth off, place a serving dish over the pan, and turn the dish out. If you're really lucky, it will retain the shape of the pan. More often, the sides give way slightly, but the bottom crust, now on top, remains intact for everyone to fight over. You can serve some plain yogurt on the side or, if you have the patience, yogurt with cucumber, garlic and mint.

In this photo, the rice has been finished with barberries and pistachios, but it gives an idea of what a successful polo looks like. But of course, even if your polo collapses at the sides, it will still taste good.