Another Iranian recipe adapted from Batmanglij’s New Food Of Life, this is sort of the Persian borscht. Beets as well as pomegranate contribute to the rich purple color.

We used lamb meatballs, made the usual way with grated onions, salt and pepper. You start the soup by browning onions and garlic in ghee, and then add pomegranate juice, chives, mint, parsley and chopped beet to simmer for 20 minutes. Next, tilda basmati rice and the meatballs go in and the mixture cooks for 30 minutes longer, half covered. Finally, you add angelica powder (if you have it – we didn’t) and simmer for another 35 minutes.

We omitted the split peas, coriander and angelica – otherwise this was roughly by the book. The result is sweet, sour and meaty and very satisfying on a chilly day.

[Some corrections made to the above description since this was first posted.]

This is filed under food . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.