Persian Recipes

Sabzi Polo ba Mahi is a rice with greens that is typically served with mahi (fish). Obviously everyone uses different types of fish, and depending on where you live you probably don’t have all the types of fish you would like to have.

Sabzi Polo ba Mahi

I made Sabzi Polo ba mahi and have explained the ingredients I used below. For the fish I used Tilapia, which doesn’t take long to cook at all. You can use another type of fish. Halibut is pretty good and if you have access to buying Mahi Sefid (white fish) its pretty tasty too.

Ingredients:
3 cups rice — rinse your rice and soak it for an hour or more before cooking it. Add salt to the water you are soaking the rice in.
Sabzi (greens) — I used a combination of parsley, cilantro, green onions, and dill.
Tilapia –allow it to thaw out if it is frozen before cooking
lemon juice
salt/pepper
garlic powder
flour
eggs (optional)

Directions:
Chop up the parsley, cilantro, green onions (only the ends where it is green, this is in place of tareh), and dill (if using fresh dill). I use a food processor to chop it up.

For the rice, you will bring a pot of water to boil and then add your chopped up greens first and after about 5 minutes add the rice (after draining the water it is soaking in out). Once the rice boils (about 5 minutes) you want to use a strainer to drain the water. Add a half cup water and some oil to the pot and return it to the stove top on a medium-high temperature. Add the rice (now with sabzi) back to the pot and cover the lid with a towel and place it over it. You want to allow it to steam and then turn the heat down to a low temperature. You can allow it to stay on the stove top over 30 minutes. Again the longer it stays the crispier your tahdigh (crispy rice bottom crust) will get. Note: if you are using dry dill don’t add it until you are adding the rice back into the pot with the rest of the sabzi.

For the fish that is served with the Sabzi Polo, first heat some oil in a frying pan. Pour some flour in a bowl or plate and add salt, pepper, and garlic to it then mix together. If you like you can put an egg or two in a different bowl and mix it as well, then you would dip your fish into the eggs then into the flour. For Tilapia I didn’t use eggs, instead I dipped the fish into the flour and coated it on both sides then placed it in the frying pan. Like I mentioned above it doesn’t take long for Tilapia to cook, so make sure you keep an eye on it. Place the lid on the frying pan if you like to allow it to thoroughly cook. Flip it over after a couple a minutes for the other side to fry a bit too. After the fish is done frying you can add some lemon juice to it.

Serve the Sabzi Polo with the mahi.