Traditional Persian Turnip Pottage | Ashe Shalgham
Ash e shalgham is one of the traditional Persian Pottages made with turnips and is rich in health benefits. This pottage is full of vitamin C owing to its major ingredient “turnip”. As you might know, when a person catches cold, one of the very first ideas coming to caregivers’ minds is turnip.
This ash is originally from Khorasan but it is also cooked in Shiraz and Qazvin too. There are many beneficial recipes that you can prepare for a sick person besides Ash-e Shalqam, like Eshkeneh, Soupe Morghe Zaferani, soupe jo and many other great Persian dishes that you can find in 14 Delicious Winter Warmer Persian Recipes. This Ash can also be made with meat balls too that are called ghelgheli.
If you are vegetarian, you can replace meat with soy and make an awesome vegetarian dish for yourself. The perfect minerals and vitamins of the Ashe Shalqam can be a real good motive for you to replace the meat with veggies and make it meat free.
Ashe Shalqam Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 unit Rice (1 unit is equal to 200-250 grams)
- ½ unit Cooked lentils
- ½ unit Mung beans
- 500 g Meat (ground meat/ cubed meat/ chicken breasts) optional
- 2 Onions
- 5-6 Turnip
- 250 g Parsley, mint, dill, spinach, coriander
- Water as much as required
- Salt as much as required
- Turmeric as much as required
- Lemon juice or sour grape juice as much as required
- Pepper as much as required
Instructions
- Wash and peel the onion, then grate the onion. Mix the meat(preferably minced meat) and onions with pepper and turmeric. Then add some salt. Knead the mixture together. When they are all mixed and perfectly ready, make meat balls with your hands and put aside in a dish. The size of the balls should be as big as a walnut.
- Pick another onion and dice it into small pieces. Pick a pot that is suitable for your porridge and heat it. Add the diced onions into the pot and add the meat balls or ghelghelis into the pot. Saute them into the oil and let the color of the ghelghelis change.
- Now add the rice to the pot. Add enough amount of water and spice to the pot. Now stir the content properly to have them mixed all just fine.
- Wash and peel the turnips and dice them into cubic shape. When the water into the pot has boiled, add the raw turnips to the boiling water. When the ash is half cooked, the rice is parcooked and it is somehow ready, taste the content and balance the spice. Also add the already cooked mung beans and lentils to the ash.
- Add the herbs altogether to the pot. You can add the lime or lemon juice, sour grape juice to the ash at the ending stage or just a little enhancement of the flavor. Your ash is ready. You can serve it with desirable amount of fried onions.
Tips to Have a Better Ashe Shalgham
- Id the herbs are not available, you can use spinach instead of them all, coriander would do so.
- If you are making this dish for a sick person, better not to fry the onions and just add them raw into the content.
- You can add previously soaked mung beans and lentils at the same time you add rice and do not parcook or cook them before. You can replace mung beans with split chickpeas and barely bulgur.
- To have it more beneficial, you can add some garlic cloves, too.
Did you like the recipe? Let us know more about your experience with turnip porridge.
Healthy and tasty together? Yes, that’s possible. Try this one to find out
I don’t like turnip but ashe shalqam is delicious
thanks for the healthy recipe
wow this was just awesome
turnips are delicious. this stew is lovely too
thanks for the recipe. I like this pottage
thanks for the delicious ash. I love it
ashes are really delicious. this one is delicious too
thanks. I loved it
wow nice ash