It seems like every restaurant in Iran serves chicken kebabs with rice! It has become a running joke on the tour — always the top item on each menu. But there’s an explanation. Most Iranians eat at home, and when they go out this is a popular choice, as most families don’t have the type of grill that makes good kebabs.
But kebabs apart, the food is varied and delicious. Particular favourites for our group have been eggplant with tomatoes and onion; beef or lamb cooked in spinach, mint, and herbs; lentil stew; meatballs filled with dates; and chicken in a walnut and pomegranate sauce.
Every meal includes flatbread and rice, and there are several varieties of each. One type of flatbread is rolled and pressed thin, then thrown against the wall of a wood-fired oven. It sticks to the wall and cooks super-fast as you can imagine, then is peeled off and sent out to the customers. Lovely and chewy, with a slightly blistered skin, just perfect for dipping in yogurt with scallions and herbs. It isn’t very Iranian to do this, I am sure, but I personally enjoy the flatbreads at breakfast spread with labneh (a mild soft cheese) and carrot jam. Rice pilafs often contain pistachios and dried barberries, and a special kind of rice which I have quickly come to love includes a crust of rice made by cooking it in a very hot pot.
Alcohol is illegal, but zero-percent “malt beverage” is popular; it comes in plain Beer-type flavour, also in peach, lemon, or pineapple, which are like shandies really. They also serve delicious fresh drinks that include combinations of fruit juice, ginger, lemon, and mint, and a carbonated yogurt drink (doogh) in both the cow and camel variety.
Camel dough, eh? I’m sorry I’m not there with you, but it’s spurring me on in my planning. Do they call the rice and lamb dish “plov”?
From a culinary perspective, it’s interesting. Not appealing but interesting.
Your official taster of camel doogh seems to be much more enthusiastic about camel doogh than he was about kvas :):):)