Persian Green Bean Rice | Loobia Polo

Have you ever heard the name of the Persian pilaf “loobia polo”? This Persian rice and green beans dish is an awesome food and you can make it for dinner or lunch. Exciting point in making this dish is that you can turn to an ideal option for vegetarians or meat lovers by just removing or adding meat into it.

Green beans are one of the best and most nourishing ingredients you can add to a dish. There are also other dishes made by green beans in Persian cuisine like Kookoo loobia sabz and Khorake loobia sabz. Have fun with the recipe below!

Persian Green Bean Rice | Loobia Polo

Loobia Polo or Green Bean Rice is a dish with no stew, some ingredients, mostly green beans and meat, are cooked, mixed with rice and cooked again to form this dish. If you are a vegetarian, this dish can suit your taste. You can go on and learn how to cook it. Just like Etamboli and Dampokhtak is usually served with some yogurt, Torshi, Sabzi Khordan. 

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs

Course Main Course

Cuisine persian

Servings 6 people

Calories 250 kcal

Ingredients

  

• 500 grams lamb rear shank
• 1 big diced onion
• 500 grams green beans
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 soupspoon turmeric
• 1 soupspoon cinnamon
• 1 soupspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon saffron powder
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 sliced potato
• Salt as much as required
• Oil and butter as much as required

Instructions

 

• Use a suitable pot and some oil to stir fry the minced onion. Cut the meat in pieces and after the onions are partly cooked, add the pieces of small meat. After stir frying the pieces of meat for a while, the color will change.
• Add the turmeric and stir fry the ingredients for a short while. Then add the tomato paste and ½ soupspoon cinnamon. Mix the ingredients completely and stir fry them.
• Add ½ liter water to the ingredients and wait for the water to boil.
• Meanwhile, cut the green beans in suitable shapes and stir fry them in a separate frying pan. When they are half cooked and the water of the other pot is boiling, add the beans to the other pot. In the final 10 minutes, add the salt and saffron powder to the ingredients. When the meat is cooked and the water is completely gone, put out the flame and let the cooked ingredients cool down.,
• Meanwhile, cook the rice. To do this, leave the rice in water for about 12 hours before you want to cook it. When you want to cook the rice, boil some water and add the rice (note that you have already separated it from the previous water) to the boiling water. Let the rice boil for about 8 minutes and then separate the rice from the water using a sieve.
• Choose a suitable pot for cooking the Green Bean Rice. Add some oil and brewed saffron to the bottom of the pot and cover its bottom surface with potato slices as Tah Dig.
• Add a layer of rice and top that with a layer of other ingredients. You can also add very little cinnamon to each layer.
• Cover the pot with a piece of cloth as an infuser and finally cover the pot with its lid. It needs about 30 minutes to be cooked completely.

Topping and Serving Green Bean Rice

• Some people might find this dish dry so make sure to top it with some butter before serving it.
• Sabzi Khordan, Doogh, Shirzi Salad and yogurt are always served next to this dish.

Tips for cooking Loobia Polo

• It’s always a good idea to use fresh ingredients, so try to provide fresh green beans.
• This dish can also be cooked with minced meat or chicken breast which are both very popular.
• If you are a vegetarian, this dish can be really suitable for you. Simply do not add any meat. You can use soy instead.
• Diced onions can be added to this dish.