Venison Ghormeh Sabzi

Ghormeh sabzi is an ancient Persian dish of fried herbs stewed with beans and meat, usually lamb. It is often considered Iran’s national dish and has been regularly eaten there for over 5000 years! Venison makes for an amazing stand-in for the regular lamb meat, it’s flavour really complimenting the herbaceous and citrus tones of the dish. You’ll want to use either neck meat or shoulder meat, which will slowly break apart during the long cooking time and end up moist and tender. There are some hard to find ingredients in this stew, but you should be able to find most of them at any middle eastern, Persian, or Indian grocery store, or even in the international aisles of large grocery chains. Dried limes, or loomi, are a pretty integral part of this dish, but if you can’t find them, add the juice of a fresh lime in the last 15 minutes of cooking. The other ingredient you may have trouble with is fresh fenugreek leaves which are also known as methi. If you can’t find them, try looking for dried methi leaves, and if those prove to also be elusive, substitute a teaspoon of ground fenugreek seeds. Serve this Persian-style, with saffron rice, a platter of fresh herbs, onions, pickles, and crisp vegetables, and a bowl of thick yogurt, which you can flavour as you please (I used fermented beet juice, sumac, and rose water).

Prep Time30 min
Cook Time2 hr 30 min
Total Time3 hr
Yield4 servings

Cuisine
Course
- Main Course
Cooking Method
- Frying
- Stewing

Ingredients

For the Stew

1 lb (454g) venison neck or shoulder, cut into bitesized cubes
1 bunch flat leaf parsley
1 bunch curly parsley
1 bunch cilantro
1 bunch fresh fenugreek leaves, or 1 tablespoon dried methi leaves
1 bunch chives, or 5 scallions/green onions
4 tablespoons (60ml) vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped finely
1 tablespoon (15ml) ground turmeric
1 tablespoon (15ml) tomato paste
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 can red kidney beans
4 dried limes, or juice of 1 fresh lime
Fresh herbs, radish, cucumber, onions for garnish

For the Saffron Rice

1 cup basmati rice
1 teaspoon (5ml) vegetable oil or butter
2 pinches of kosher salt
2.5 cups (750ml) water
1 small pinch of saffron threads

Preparation

Debone the neck or shoulder meat if necessary, then cut it into largish bite-sized chunks.

Pick the leaves off of all of the herbs by running your fingers up the stalks, knocking the leaves and small bits of stem off. It’s okay if you have some stems in the mix, but you don’t want the thick stalks.

Once you have all of the leaves picked, put them in a bowl and fill it with water, swishing the leaves around so they get well cleaned.

Shake off the leaves (you can use a salad spinner) so they’re mostly dry.

Now mince the pile of herbs finely with a very sharp knife, or pulse them in a food processor until finely chopped.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or large thick bottomed pot over medium heat.

Add the herbs and fry, stirring often for 15 minutes.

Remove to a bowl, leaving behind as much oil in the pot as possible.

Add more oil to the pot if necessary, you want about 2 tablespoons (30ml).

Add the chopped onions and fry for about 5 minutes. Add the venison, turmeric, tomato paste, a pinch of salt and black pepper and fry for another 10 minutes or so, stirring regularly.

Cover the contents of the pot with water by about an inch (2.5cm), and bring to a simmer.

Cover with a lid, reduce heat to low, and cook for 1 hour.

After an hour, take off the lid and add the rinsed can of beans. Take a fork a stab it into each dried lime, then throw them in too.

Gently simmer uncovered for medium low heat for another hour or so, stirring every 5-10 minutes. You want the end product to be quite dry, not at all soupy, but more like a thick stew.

While the stew is reducing, start to prepare the rice.

Rinse the rice under cold water until it runs mostly clear.

Put the oil or butter in a medium pot and melt it over medium heat.

Add the rinsed rice, 1 pinch of salt, and the water.

Bring to a boil, stirring, then cover the pot, and reduce the heat to low.

Cook for 20 minutes, then take off the heat and let rest for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, take the other pinch of salt, and the saffron (about 5-8 threads) and put them into a mortar and pestle. Grind the salt and saffron into a powder, then add 2 tablespoons of hot water and stir it in (if you don’t have a mortar and pestle, just pour the hot water over the whole threads in a bowl).

When the rice is ready, take out 1/3, put it into a bowl and mix in the golden saffron water, so it dyes all of the rice grains. Top or mix the white rice with the yellow rice.