It comes down to a few things: The right pot The right rice The right amount of parboil The tahdig recipe The correct method of steaming.
I use this book Food of Life to make most Persian dishes and they all come out perfect.
Hey! Iranian cooking is not the most popular on YouTube, but I do have a book I swear by, which also perfectly articulates what Persians mean when they say "hot and cold" cooking. It also shows how Persian food isn't made to look fancy, it's just bright and colorful and happens to be fancy. The table traditions are addressed in various parts, too.
I know this book is one of the best ones out there because we have a lot of Persian cookbooks. For this book only my dad, who is an immigrant from Tehran, even said that this food tastes almost exactly as his late mother used to make. My mother and I can follow it point for point and it comes out excellent, and with one or two homebrew changes for Dad's childhood nostalgia, it's definiately good.
Link here to Amazon but if you can find it anywhere else go for it.
WRT Iranian food, my sister got me Food of Life by Najmieh Batmanglij a while back. I've not yet perfected my Tahdig, but I've gotten decent. I'd definitely recommend learning to cook if you have a kitchen.
So, my late father left Tehran and came to the US when he was 19. After meeting my mom, she learned how to cook Persian food for him. As they grew older, mom tried to get as close to her mother in laws cooking as possible. She learned from this book here foor more advanced things. Dad said "it tastes like mos cooking" every time; so Im sure this was a good book.
Recommended Cookbook here. "Food of Life"
Recipes that dad taught me from memory, that I know even without a recipe:
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I seriously recommend these because they are easy to understand with familiar things, just a different type of spice party.
No problem. I'll be posting more vegetarian dishes here (hopefully mainly vegan ones), Iranian cuisine is very veg friendly :) If you're into cookbooks, the famous anad amazing Iranian chef Najmieh Batmanglij has a released a book called Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies that has vegetarian recipes, shouldn't be too hard to veganize them
There aren't really any easy Iranian foods. I recommend this book. Try checking Chapters as well, might be less expensive in there.
First, get a good persian cook book: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Life-Ancient-Persian-Ceremonies/dp/193382347X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540326251&sr=8-2&keywords=new+food+for+life
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My wife puts a couple tbls spoons of Rose Water in our water container, and we drink that. No sugar, and its delicious.
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Buy Tumeric. Costco sells Tumeric pills for like $30/50 pills. You can buy it cheap.
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Dried Mint and dried Shallots. Use the dried mint crumbled in your yogurt. Let the dry shallows soak in warm water, then chop, put in yogurt for a delicious dip.
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So sorry for the late reply! I thought I responded already oops! Here's the cookbook: Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies https://www.amazon.com/dp/193382347X/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_XS87DQ9MTPKZ4ZFRT4Y9
Do you have a Persian/Iranian cookbook you can recommend? I've got this one, but what I've cooked from it has not turned out well.
Jeweled Rice from this cookbook. Yes, worth it! https://www.amazon.com/Food-Life-Ancient-Persian-Ceremonies/dp/193382347X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
If you don't already have this, get it: