Day 1 - Trying Something Persian

It’s funny. Maybe I’m the only one, but have you ever bought a spice that completely intrigued you but you had no idea how to use? I’ve had Saffron in my spice rack for more than 5 years. Yes, it’s probably expired, but that’s not the point . I’ve always wanted to cook with it but had absolutely no idea what to make. I have Googled recipes with saffron but nothing really seemed like something I wanted to try.

Enter our Culinary Adventure!

Looking forward to all the flavor from these spices!

The month’s first recipe, Persian Lemon Chicken with Rice, included both saffron and another spice I’ve always thought was beautiful but had never used, turmeric. Along with a host of other flavors that our family typically loves - garlic, lemon, paprika.

In full transparency, I chose this recipe for two reasons:

1. It sound approachable and like something my kids could get behind for the first day.

2. It was the first recipe on an Eating Well meal plan I had researched.

But, it including both saffron and turmeric was certainly a bonus.

The recipe I followed, with a few slight modifications which I’ll detail below, is linked here. As written, the recipe makes two meals. I didn’t want to do that since I wasn’t sure if we’d like it, so I just halved everything.

The new to us portion of this recipe included not only the spices but also:

• Brown rice (I know this isn’t really out there but we are white rice people)

• Cooked cabbage

Because brown rice takes a hot minute to cook, I decided to cook the rice earlier in the day so it would be ready come dinner time. I don’t typically have an hour of prep time come dinner so preparing the rice ahead of time really helped with getting the food on the table at 6:15pm.

I forgot to snap a photo of the brown rice preparation (I promise to do better in the future) but I cooked my rice in chicken stock rather than water. I do this will all rice and find it just has more flavor.

So now comes the main preparation. The recipe was easy to follow and with my rice already done, it came together quickly.

Seared chicken ready for the oven.

First, I seared my chicken. The recipe called for searing in oil but I substituted the oil for butter. Mostly, this was because I wasn’t paying attention to the recipe and had already melted the butter in the pan. The only other modification I made to the chicken portion of this recipe was adding salt and pepper directly on the chicken as it seared. The recipe didn’t call for any but I wanted to make sure all parts of the dish had flavor.

Because the recipe gets finished in the oven, the chicken is only seared for a few minutes on each side and pulled. Done!

Next came the spices and cabbage. Actually the recipe calls for onions and spices BUT I grabbed the wrong number of onions at the grocery store so instead I substituted 1/2T onion powder. Same flavor. So I warmed my spices (I think they call it blooming them ), squeezed in the lemon juice, and then threw in the cabbage.

My cabbage chopping skills could use some work.

After combining everything and letting the cabbage wilt a little, the smells of the saffron, garlic, and fun Eric really started the fill the kitchen. My oldest popped his head in asking when dinner would be ready and commented it smelled good. I was crossing my fingers that was a good sign.

Now comes the part where I should have read the whole recipe before starting because I didn’t pick a big enough pan for the next step. So I CAREFULLY added all of the rice to the cabbage-spice mixture and ever so slowly combined.

Once everything was combined and warmed through, I every so gently scooped the rice into my prepared baking dish, placed the four chicken breasts on top, covered with foil and placed it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Lots of leftover rice, which needed salt.

Despite putting an ample amount of rice in the baking dish, there was still A LOT left over. I had halved the recipe since I was only making one meal but I could have done just a third of the rice and still had plenty.

While we waited, my husband and I tried the leftover rice. We both thought it needed more salt. So, I added more salt to the leftover rice and Joel described it as “delicious”. I made a mental note to add more salt once the pan came out.

After 40 long minutes (it needed 10 more minutes to get to temp after the initial 30), everything was ready. My kids were ready to eat and it wasn’t until I had gotten three chicken breasts out and served that I realized, I never snapped a final picture. So here is my lackluster picture with just one cooked chicken and rice.

Oops. Started serving without snapping a final pic.

So, now the important part. What did they think?

The highs:

• The 4 year old said it was “my most favorite chicken ever”.

• My husband said, “Delicious. And not too lemony like I was afraid”.

• Everyone, including all four kids, are all of their chicken which may be a first for us.

• I cleaned my plate after thinking I hated cabbage. I couldn’t really taste the cabbage when it was in the rice; it was just a different texture.

• No one noticed it was brown rice and not white rice, which was a major win.

The lows:

• The 9 year old repeatedly said “the rice just is t doing it for me”.

• The 4 year old was eating the rice, but once he noticed the cabbage pieces, he decided he was DONE.

Overall, there were certainly more highs that lows with this dish and while I’m not sure I will put it in regular rotation, we all learned we could try something new and actually like parts of it.

Scores:

• Joel: 4

• Allison: 4

• Parker: 4 (I think this was elevated because he didn't want to hurt my feelings)

• Lucas: 3.5

• Bennett: 3.5

• Ashlynn: Giving her a 3.5 since she ate her chicken and had a few bites of rice.

On to the next adventure!