Persian jeweled rice is a stunning rice dish that is delicious, fragrant and colorful. Made with fluffy basmati rice, spices, dried fruits, nuts and exotic aromas, it is a mouthwatering combination of textures, flavors and colors.
Persian Jeweled Rice
Persian jeweled rice is also known as Morasa Polo or Javaher Polo. In Persian language, "Javaher" means jewels, and "Polo" means rice. Studded with red barberries and green pistachios, this rice dish looks stunning and is often served at special occasions.
Popular since ancient times, it is somewhat similar to zereshk polo and is usually served with saffron chicken. It is made with fluffy basmati rice, saffron, almonds, pistachios, carrots, orange peel, barberries, spices, aromatics, and sugar. These are the flavors I've used in my cranberry rice with lentils.
This dish is actually quite easy to assemble. But I am sharing different ways to make it so you can decide what suits you best. Finally, restaurant quality results requires the use of high quality basmati rice, original saffron, and ghee or butter.
Ingredients and Substitutes
- Rice: Use the best quality, aged, long grain basmati rice from a popular brand. Ask your local Indian grocer for the best variety in any brand.
- Saffron: Choose premium saffron as we used for saffron tea. Grind it to a fine powder using a mortar and pestle to get maximum flavor.
- Yogurt: To make a rice crust (tahdig), use regular yogurt (not Greek yogurt). I don't use yogurt for making a flatbread crust.
- Cooking Oil, Butter or Ghee: Ghee or butter is traditional and more commonly used in restaurants. To make it lighter, use olive oil for the main rice recipe and ghee or butter for the rice crust (tahdig) or just drizzle on top.
- Spices: Use Persian spice blend, advieh, available at Middle Eastern stores or online. For polo (rice), use the specific advieh blend or use khoresh advieh blend in small amounts. Substitute: combine 1 teaspoon coriander, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon cumin, ½ teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon cardamom, and ¼ teaspoon turmeric.
- Sweetener: This recipe uses sugar like shirin polo, which is sweeter than this dish. Substitute with honey.
- Orange Peel: You'll need finely slivered orange peel, so pick organic oranges. Just peel the orange skin leaving the white pith behind.
- Julienned Carrots: You can also use store-bought pre-shredded carrots, usually placed in salad and vegetable section.
- Barberries: These tangy-sweet berries are known as "zereshk" in Persian and are available in their dried form at Persian and Middle Eastern stores. Substitute with finely chopped dried cranberries.
- Orange blossom water or Rose water: This is optional but recommended. Try soaking saffron in orange blossom water, as it intensifies the orange flavor.
- Chicken (Optional): Use bone-in skin-on chicken that is whole or cut up into pieces. Cornish game hens also make a nice presentation. Skin-on chicken roasts beautifully keeping the chicken moist.
How to Make Jeweled Rice
This is a brief overview. Full recipe with measurements is at the end of the blog post.
- Prepare Barberries: Start by cleaning and rinsing dried barberries.
- Preparing the saffron water: Grind saffron and soak in orange blossom water or plain water.
- Orange Peel and Carrots: Cook slivered orange peel with julienned carrots and honey.
- Preparing the rice: You can cook rice using a traditional pot method or a rice cooker.
- Preparing the garnish: Fry onions until golden brown. Add dried fruit, nuts and cook with honey.
- Preparing the crust: To make rice tahdig, spread a mixture of cooked rice, yogurt, and saffron water over oil or butter in a pot to form a golden brown crust. Use sufficient oil or butter at the bottom of a non-stick pot for best results.
- Layering and steaming the rice: Assemble the dish by layering the cooked rice with the orange-carrot mixture and then steaming it for 15-20 minutes.
- Serving and garnishing: Serve it by layering it with fried onions and the dried fruit-nut mixture.
- Saffron Chicken: It is optional but you can make saffron chicken with this rice.
My Top Tips
Barberries: To prevent staining the rice, add the cooked berries in the final assembly step. Be careful not to burn them by taking the pan off the heat quickly.
Pistachios: Soak briefly to soften the exterior to loosen the peel. If you soak it too long, it will take longer to crisp the nuts later on.
Frying Onions: Cook until golden brown with crisp edges. Cast iron cookware works the bests as it retains heat better and watch carefully to prevent burning, especially towards the end.
Rice cooker: If you love Persian rice, definitely invest in a Persian rice cooker to make perfect rice with ease.
What to Serve With It?
- With Saffron Chicken: Persian jeweled rice is typically served with saffron chicken.
- Other Options: Serve it with joojeh kabob (chicken kabobs) or just plain jeweled rice without chicken.
- Salads: Try it with mast-o-musir (shallot and yogurt dip)
- Sides: Such as mirza ghasemi (eggplant with eggs).
- Special Occasion: Add ranginak (date walnut dessert) and doogh for beverage.
More Rice Recipes
- Chicken Kabsa (Arabian Chicken and Rice)
- Sabzi Polo (Persian Herb Rice)
- Adas Polo (Lentil Rice)
- Baghali Polo (Dill Rice)
★ DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE? PLEASE COMMENT AND GIVE IT A STAR RATING BELOW!
Persian Jeweled Rice (Morasa Polo)
Ingredients
- ½ cup barberries or dried cranberries
- 2 organic oranges for 1 cup slivered orange peel
- 2 carrots peeled and julienned or 1½ cups shredded carrots
- ⅓ cup honey or ½ cup sugar
- 3 cups basmati rice rinsed well and drained, see note
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup olive oil or avocado oil
- 1 large yellow onion thinly sliced
- 2½ tablespoons butter or ghee
- ¼ cup almonds slivered or sliced
- ¼ cup pistachios slivered or sliced
- ½ cup raisins golden and dark raisins
- ½ teaspoon saffron ground and dissolved in 2 tablespoons orange blossom water or plain water
- 2 tablespoons yogurt
- 1 teaspoon advieh Persian spice mix, or combine ground cumin, cardamom and turmeric
Chicken (optional)
- 2 pounds chicken whole or cut up, bone-in, skin-on
- 1 yellow onion peeled and chopped
- 2 garlic cloves grated
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ⅓ teaspoon turmeric
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon saffron ground and dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
Instructions
Barberries
- Remove tiny stems from dried barberries and place them in a colander. Immerse the colander in a bowl of cold water for 20 minutes until sand settles at the bottom. Rinse thoroughly, drain and set aside.
Orange Peel and Carrots
- Peel the orange skin leaving the white pith behind. With a sharp knife, finely cut the orange peel into long slivers.
- In a medium saucepan, add slivered orange peel and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 2 minutes. Drain to remove bitterness..
- To the same saucepan, add julienned carrots and cook for 2 minute over low heat. Add ¼ cup of honey and 2 tablespoons of water. Cook until slightly softened, for about 1 minute, stirring often. Drain excess juices and set aside.
Cook Rice
- Rinse rice 4-5 times with lots of water until it is clear and not starchy. Drain well.
- In a large cooking pot, bring 10 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of salt to a rolling boil. Add basmati rice and boil at medium-high to high heat for 4-5 minutes until soft but al dente, and stirring occasionally. Drain rice in a colander and set aside.
Fried Onions
- In a cast iron skillet, heat remaining oil until shimmering. Add onions and sauté until light golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 15 to 20 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer onions to a plate. Wipe skillet clean.
Dried Fruit and Nuts
- To the same skillet, add ½ tablespoon of butter and let it melt. Add nuts and sauté until toasted and crisp, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer nuts to plate.
- Add raisins and sauté for 1 minute. Then add barberries and cook for under 1 minute. Watch carefully as the berries burn easily.
- Add the nuts back to the skillet and drizzle 1½ tablespoons of honey and stir for 1 minute. Transfer dried fruit and nut mixture to plate.
Rice Crust
- Melt 2 tablespoons of butter or ghee in a non-stick pot or Persian rice cooker bowl. Combine ½ cup of cooked rice with yogurt and 2 teaspoons of saffron water. Spread ¼ inch thick layer of rice-yogurt mixture over melted butter in pot. Tip: Adjust the oil, rice, yogurt and saffron used according to the pot size.
Assemble Layers
- Stir ¼ cup of cooked rice with a teaspoon of saffron water and set aside. Place remaining cooked white rice and most of the orange peel-carrot mixture in several alternating layers, sprinkling advieh in between. Drizzle 3 tablespoons oil on top. Sprinkle saffron water all over and make several holes in rice with a wooden spoon.
- Wrap the lid with a kitchen towel and place it firmly over the pot to create a tight seal. Raise the heat to medium high for about 10 minutes and then lower it and cook for about 25 to 35 minutes until the rice at the edges turns crispy.
Serve
- Turn off the heat and let it rest for 5 minutes. Lightly mix the layers. Plate rice on a serving platter, alternating with fried onions and dried fruit-nut mixture. Top with more fried onions, slivered orange peel and carrots, dried fruit-nut mixture. Scatter some saffron rice on top. Serve the rice crust (tahdig) if prepared, on the side.
Chicken (optional)
- In an ovenproof baking dish, combine chicken with onions, garlic, cumin, turmeric, olive oil, salt, pepper and saffron. Cook the chicken on the stove or in the oven, until fork tender and then brown it. To do this on stove top, evaporate all the juices, drizzle some oil and brown the chicken on all sides. Alternatively, broil in the oven at high heat. For stove-top method, cut up chicken for easier browning.
Notes
- Rice: Check package for cooking times or test with a small quantity first.
- Persian spice mix Advieh and barberries (zereshk) are available at Persian or Middle Eastern stores or online. Substitute advieh with mild Mediterranean or Middle Eastern spice blend.
- Oven Method:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil or butter in oven proof dish such as a Pyrex baking dish. Spread saffron-rice-yogurt mixture or flatbreads to fit the base of the pan.
- Arrange rice and orange peel-carrots in alternating layers, drizzle oil or butter and remaining saffron water. Cover with parchment paper, foil and seal well. Bake for an hour, until steam builds up well.
- If making the crust (tahdig) it should be golden. If using a glass dish, you can check the base. Remove from oven and let it rest a few minutes before serving.
- Rice cooker method: Test 1¼ to 1¾ cups water per cup of rice, depending on the age of the rice. Check the video for this lentil and rice with cranberries.
- Make Ahead/Storage: Have the saffron water, orange peel, carrots, dried fruit and nuts ready 2 days ahead. Mix the dried fruits and nuts only before garnish. The jeweled rice freezes beautifully. Just thaw and reheat.
- Variations and recipe questions answered below.
Nutrition
Variations
This Persian rice is gluten free (with a rice crust), egg free, soy free and vegetarian (without optional chicken). If using a flatbread crust, it would not be gluten-free. Below are some ideas you can try.
- Vegan/Dairy Free: Use only oil and skip butter or ghee. Choose non-dairy yogurt for making the tahdig. Skip the chicken and use roasted cauliflower steaks.
- Other Meats: You could also try beef kabobs or lamb chops.
- Add Vegetables: Try adding roasted shiitake mushrooms or eggplant.
- Lower Carb/Grain free: Try replacing basmati rice with cauliflower rice.
- Healthier: Replace white basmati rice with brown basmati rice, adjusting the cooking time and amount of water as per package instructions. You could even try combinations with wild rice or quinoa.
Recipe Questions Answered
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil or butter in a wide non-stick dutch oven. Spread the oil or butter evenly and sprinkle few drops of saffron water. Place the lavash or tortillas to fit the base of the pan. Assemble the rice and orange-carrot layers according to the recipe.
Use the right amount of water and oil, and avoid overcooking the rice. Pay close attention to the cooking time and use a wide pot, stirring gently. For additional tips, please refer to the biryani recipe.
Soaking rice enhances the texture and integrity of rice grains by absorbing the water and expanding. The grains become longer, stronger and also have an improved ability to stay fluffy.
Persian Jeweled Rice is loaded with nutritious carrots, orange peel, nuts and dried fruits. You can further improve the nutrition value by using brown rice. Adding chicken will also increase the protein content of the recipe.
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