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🍚 Persian Saffron Rice Pudding Sholeh Zard

Persian Saffron Rice Pudding Sholeh Zard

🍽 Serves ⏲ Total Time
10 5.83 hours

🧂 Ingredients

  • 🍞 200 g short grain rice
  • 💧 0.75 L water
  • 🍬 400 g white sugar
  • 🧈 30 g salted butter
  • 🌷 2 tbsp liquid saffron
  • 🍎 0.25 tsp (1 g) ground cardamom
  • 💧 4 tbsp (57 g) rose water
  • 🌰 some ground cinnamon
  • 🌰 some slivered pistachios and almonds
  • 🌰 some almond flakes
  • 🌰 some whole almonds
  • 🌶 some dried crushed rose petals
  • some rose buds
  • 🌿 some edible silver or gold leaf

🍳 Cookware

  • 1 saucepan

📝 Instructions

Step 1

Rinse short grain rice (but not risotto rice) a couple of times and drain.

Step 2

Place the rice in a large saucepan, along with water, and bring to a boil on high heat.

Step 3

When the rice is boiling, give it a quick stir, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 1 hour (or simmer for 1.5 hours if using long grain rice).

Step 4

Add white sugar, stir to mix, then follow with salted butter, liquid saffron (made with a generous pinch of saffron), and ground cardamom (ground seeds of 4 cardamoms). Bring back to a boil on medium heat.

Step 5

When boiling, reduce the heat to low, stir once, then simmer for 10 minutes.

Step 6

At the end of the 10 minutes, turn the heat off, remove from the hot stove, and stir in rose water.

Step 7

Serve into serving dishes, leave to cool slightly for 10 minutes, then cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours (and up to 2 days). The pudding will thicken as it cools.

Step 8

When you are ready to serve, garnish and decorate as you wish using ground cinnamon, slivered pistachios and almonds (or almond flakes), whole almonds, dried crushed rose petals (or rose buds), and optional edible silver or gold leaf.

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