Gheimeh | Split Yellow Peas and Lamb

If you are waiting for a really tasty and traditional Persian dish, gheimeh is the best option for you! Gheimeh is absolutely delicious and you can easily make this dish without bothering yourself too much. Gheime is one of the very popular members of Nazri dishes in Iran. A sheer traditional nazri occasion definitely will contain gheime in it! The other items you might see in a nazri occasion can be Halim and Halva. All these options are very popular and usually made in moharram.

Gheime is a stew like Persian dish which contains cubed meat and legumes. As you can guess, the dish is a healthy one!

Gheimeh Stew Recipe

Gheimeh is a flavorful Iranian stew, served with rice. In many religious ceremonies in Iran, Gheimeh is cooked as “Nazri”. Distributing Nazri is an old Iranian tradition. As a way of thanking and praying to God, people donate and distribute different types of food among their families, friends and even strangers (at masques, …). There are several ways to cook Gheymeh. Go on and read about cooking this appetizing stew.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 3 hours hrs

Total Time 3 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine persian

Servings 3 people

Ingredients

  

• ½ glass Yellow split peas
• 2 onions
• 300 grams mutton
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 5 glasses water
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 dried limes
• 2 teaspoons brewed saffron
• 1 tablespoon rosewater
• French fries

Instructions

 

• About 12 hours before you want to cook Gheimeh leave the yellow split peas in some water so that they will absorb some water. Leaving them in water for 3 hours is also fine. But, the longer, the better!
• Chop the mutton in to cube shapes, and dice the onion. Use some oil to stir fry the onions. When the onions are half cooked, add the cubed-pieces of mutton and fry them. Also, add some pepper.
  
• Add the yell split beans and stir fry them for a while. Add 5 glasses of water and the cinnamon sticks. Cover the pot with its lid. The ingredients need at least 2 hours to cook.
  
• After the meat and yellow split beans are cooked, stir fry the tomato paste and add the tomato paste, salt and the dried limes to the other pot.
• About 45 minutes later, when the dried limes are softer, add the rosewater and the brewed saffron. You can also taste the stew and if not sour enough, add some lemon juice. In 15 minutes, the stew must be well prepared
• The magnificent Gheymeh is ready. Serve it with some rice, as kateh or cholo and Sabzi Khordan

Gheymeh topping

Commonly, French fries are used to top this stew. Not only do they make the stew look more beautiful, but also they will make it much more pleasant to eat.

Tips for cooking Gheymeh

It’s necessary to stir fry (but NOT to cook them, because they will cook in the water) the yell split beans for a short while before cooking them in water. If not, their texture will be lost and the stew won’t look much beautiful.

Do not stir fry the pieces of meat for a long time or they will be really tough and hard to cook.

This stew must be cooked over a low flame of gas burner. If you are used to cooking with a higher flame, instead of 5 glasses of water, add 6.

Before adding the dried limes, use a fork to pierce holes in them.

If the dried limes cook for a long time they might make the stew taste bitter, so when they cook, you can take them out of the stew and add them back when serving the stew.

Rosewater and saffron are not necessary, but make sure that they’ll make the stew much more delicious.