Iranian vegetable stew

(serves 6)

Recipe from Ottolenghi

Living in the south-west of Sydney in the multicultural suburb of Fairfield is really great for finding ingredients that I'm unfamiliar with and is a fun challenge to learn new dishes. I decided to try this Iranian vegetable stew because I saw these dried lemon/limes at the local grocery. They are used to make Arabic lemon tea (infusion of saffron, dried lemon and sugar) which has a great tang to it and is really delicious! 

So of course, after buying a whole punnet of dried limes I had to google what on earth to do with them. This seems to be the most popular dish and now I can see it is for good reason. It has a faint curry smell with the cumin seeds and turmeric, but tastes very light and a has a good tang from the limes. The dish takes a bit of time to cook so we ended up cooking it the night before so dinner would be nice and quick, bonus is that it keeps well! We also served it with poached chicken as breastfeeding doesn't seem to allow me to be satisfied with vegetarian meals!

Whole dried limes (left), flesh removed (right)

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes

Ingredients
50g butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely diced
½ tsp ground turmeric
1½ tsp cumin seeds
1 T tomato paste
20g coriander 
10g tarragon (or 2 tsp dried tarragon)
10g dill
1kg potatoes (4 to 5 medium potatoes)
1 small butternut pumpkin
3 dried limes, pierced 2-3 times
salt
5 medium tomatoes, quartered
1 zucchini
150g spinach leaves
15g barberries (if you can find them)
3 cups brown rice, cooked to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C. 

2. Put a large pot on medium heat and sauté the butter, onion, turmeric and cumin for 10 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for two minutes. 

3. Peel and chop the potatoes and pumpkin. 

4. Tie all the herbs into a bunch and add to the pot with the potatoes, squash, limes, a teaspoon and a half of salt and a litre of water. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and boil gently for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are semi-cooked. 

5. Roughly chop the tomatoes and zucchini. Stir through the tomatoes, zucchini, spinach and barberries, crushing the limes gently as you do so, to release some of the juices inside.
6. Tip into a large roasting tray and bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened a little and the vegetables are soft. 

7. Remove from the oven and leave to sit for five minutes, then serve with brown rice and chopped herbs (coriander, dill) on top.