Ode to Choghondar (Beets) + Recipes for Laboo and Kookoo Barg-e Choghondar (Beet Greens)

One wintry day long ago, during one of our trips to Tehran, I remember accompanying my mother as she went all over town running errands and shopping. It was getting late, and we were hurrying to get home before dark when my mother stopped at a دکه ی لبو فروشی - dakeh-ye laboo forooshi (street vendor stand selling beets). Many large, glazed purple/red beets were stacked neatly with some floating in their juice on a large tray. How do they make such simple and inexpensive street food so delicious? There must be an ancient secret recipe among the beet vendors in Iran - one that I would really love to get my hands on. Biting into a perfectly sweet, tender, and warm laboo in the snow after a seemingly endless day was especially gratifying. لبو/ چغندرپخته Choghondar pokhteh/Laboo (cooked beets) happens to be one of Iran's popular street foods throughout the winter months. And this recipe brings the cherished memories of my youth back home in Iran.

چغندر - Choghondar (beet) is highly nutritious, low in calories, quite versatile, and has a gorgeous color. Beets can be thinly sliced or grated raw into salads, steamed, boiled, or baked. Beets can also be used in both sweet and savory dishes. Those who love the earthy taste of beets can enjoy them throughout the year since they're always available in the market.

I have tried various ways of preparing beets. The simplest one is to roast them until tender and just serve them plain. Beets have a very high sugar content, and there's really no need to add any sugar/sweeteners. However, I am on a quest to achieve the delicious and flavorful taste of the laboo I had in Iran.

I like to add honey for sweetness to the dish. You can use table sugar, brown sugar, or honey, whichever you prefer, and you can adjust the sweetness to your liking. In addition, adding a good squeeze of lemon juice will enhance the color as well as the flavor of beets. For this recipe, I peeled and sliced them before cooking. You can cook beets whole instead of slicing them. Just remember that beets stain everything, and you may want to wear gloves while peeling and slicing them.

Laboo - Beets

Ingredients

Serves 4-6 

-4 medium-sized beets, trimmed, peeled, sliced
-2 teaspoons white sugar or brown sugar, or honey (I used raw, unfiltered honey), use more if you like.
-2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Water

Optional garnish: chopped pistachios, sliced almonds

Method:

1. Place the beets in a large heavy saucepan. Add enough water to cover the slices by 2 inches, bring to a boil for 2-3 minutes over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes.
2. Add the lemon juice and honey, cover, and simmer over low heat for another 10-15 minutes or until beets are tender and glazed. Make sure there is some liquid left in the bottom of the pan.

To serve, place the beets in a deep serving platter, and pour 2-3 tablespoons of the remaining liquid over them. Sprinkle with almonds and pistachios and serve immediately as a side dish or snack.

Beetroot greens (leaves and stems) also have nutritional value and can be substituted into most recipes that call for spinach. It can be added to ash reshteh, kookoo sabzi, or even ghormeh sabzi for a great flavor variation. After I cooked the beets, I decided it was about time to make a dish just using their greens, the under-appreciated and often discarded barg-e choghondar, and that's how this beautiful and delicious کوکوبرگ چغندر kookoo barg-e choghondar was created.

Kookoo Barg-e Choghondar - Beet Greens Kookoo (leaves and stems)

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

-2 cups beet leaves, chopped (I gave them a quick rough chop)

-2 cups beet stems, chopped

-1 medium yellow onion, chopped

-2-3 garlic cloves, minced

-4 eggs

-1 tablespoon flour

-1/2 teaspoon turmeric

-1 teaspoon salt
-1/2 teaspoon pepper

-A pinch of cumin (optional)

-A pinch of cayenne pepper (optional) 

-Vegetable oil

Method:

1. In a medium frying pan, heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil, add onions, and saute over medium-high heat until light golden brown. Add turmeric powder and garlic, saute for another 2-3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove fried garlic and onion from oil, and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until well mixed.
3. Add the green beet leaves, red stems, fried onion, garlic, flour, salt, pepper, cumin, and cayenne. Mix thoroughly.
4. In a large skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat, and gently pour in the mixture. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 35-40 minutes. There's no need to turn them over. This way, they'll maintain their gorgeous color and fresh rustic look.

Serve warm or room temperature with warm bread, salad, mast o khiar, and torshi.

As I am sure many of you may already know, since I have already shared the news on my Facebook and Instagram pages, I was recently chosen by Yahoo Food as their blogger of the week. The following three recipes: Zucchini and Yogurt Salad, Fesenjoon, and Khoresh-e Karafs were featured during the week, along with a Q&A. I am truly honored and delighted.

Enjoy!

Shoorba-ye Yazdi (Lentil and Beet Soup with Tiny Dumplings)

What could be better on a cold winter day than a hot bowl of tasty, healthy, and sumptuous soup? This beautiful and nutritious soup is from the region of Yazd, Iran and is called شوربا - shoorba or Ash-e Shooli. "Shoor" means salty and "ba" generally refers to soups/stews. This shoorba is made by combining sauteed golden brown onions, brown lentils, small cubed beets, chopped young beet greens and fresh dill simmering gently over low heat until the lentils and beets are tender and soft. To make the shoorba tastier and to increase the thickness of the soup, small flour dumplings are added about thirty minutes before serving. This delightful recipe was given to me by my wonderful friend of many years, Sohaila khanoum, and I am very thankful and grateful to her for sharing her beloved mother's Yazdi shoorba recipe.

P.S. I would have written a post specifically for my 2nd blogging anniversary on December 4th had it not been a hectic month for me. However, I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you, my wonderful and super kind readers and Facebook fans, for your support and sweet comments for the past two years. It always means a lot to me! Here's to hoping that I'll be able to keep my blog running steadily and continue to share as many Iranian recipes for as long as I can! I guess I make that my New Year's resolution! Once again thanks to all my readers!!

Shoorba-ye Yazdi/Ash-e Shooli (Lentil and Beet Soup with Tiny Dumplings)

Ingredients:
Serves 4-6

1 cup lentils, rinsed
3 medium-sized beets, cubed
A small bunch of beet greens, chopped 
1 bunch fresh dill, washed and chopped

1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 (14-ounce) can chicken broth  or vegetable broth *optional
2 tablespoons vinegar or pomegranate molasses
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper to taste

Vegetable oil

Dumplings:

1/2 cup flour
Pinch of salt
Water (lukewarm) as needed

You may substitute dumplings with small pasta shapes.

Method:

1. Combine the flour and salt, add water little by little, one tablespoon at a time, and mix well. Add more flour and water as needed until a soft dough forms. Make small size balls out of the flour dough. Set aside.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a stockpot on medium heat. Saute onions until tender, add turmeric, stir.
3. Add 4-5 cups of water and a can of chicken broth, bring to a boil, add beets, add lentils, lower the heat, cover and cook for 50 minutes.
4. Add the vegetables and salt and pepper. Gently place the dumplings into the shoorba. Add more water if necessary. Cook for another 15 minutes.
5. Add 2 tablespoons of vinegar during the last ten minutes of simmering.

Serve the shoorba hot with warm lavash or pita bread.

Enjoy! Wish you all a very happy, healthy, prosperous and glorious New Year!
Love, Peace and Blessings!

Mast-o-Laboo - Persian Beet & Yogurt Dip

There are so many types of street food vendors here in New York, fruit stands, soft pretzels, hot dogs, toasted chestnuts, and so on. The other day, we took a stroll down Fifth Avenue and to Rockefeller Center to see the holiday decorations and lights. My daughters bought roasted peanuts from a street vendor, and the warm, nutty smell instantly took me back to my childhood in Iran. I remembered how my mother would buy me fresh, whole salted walnuts, grilled corn (balal), and warm, juicy cooked beets (laboo). Sometimes I wonder if it's simply nostalgia, or if the food we grew up with tasted better.

Beets are an interesting root vegetable; they add so much color to life. They stain everything they touch, your cutting board, your hands, and your nails. It makes me wonder whether, long before modern cosmetics, people used beets as make-up to tint their cheeks and lips. 

Cooked beetroot (choghondar) can be served in many ways: sliced in salads, cut into quarters with a sprinkle of sugar, or mixed into yogurt. Even the green can be added to the ash, the hearty vegetable-and-bean stew, where it lends a wonderful flavor. Yet, the greens are usually discarded before serving. That may be why we have the Iranian expression used when someone feels ignored, unappreciated, or excluded from decision-making: "Am I a beetroot leaf here?  (pas man inja barg-e choghondaram?) 

Mast-o- Laboo/Borani Laboo - Persian Beet & Yogurt Dip

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

-3 small beets

-2 cups plain thick yogurt
-A pinch of sugar (optional)

-Garlic powder
-Salt

Method:

1. Place the beets in a pan, cover with water, and cook over medium heat for about 45 minutes or until tender.
2. Remove from the heat and set it aside to cool.
3. Peel, cut into small bite-sized pieces, or grate them using a food processor or a hand grater.
4. Combine the yogurt, beets, and a dash of garlic powder, salt, and a pinch of sugar.  Mix well. Refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Serve cold.

Enjoy!