Best Havij Polo Recipe | Persian Carrot Rice with Chicken

Havij polo is one of the simple and very delicious dishes that I am a fan of. I remember that when I was a child, whenever I came home from school and the launch was havij polo, I was very excited.

One of the reasons that I liked this food so much was that my mother always added cardamom powder to it, and its aroma filled the house.

Of course, the use of cardamom powder in foods is a matter of taste, and many people may not like it. Another reason for the attractiveness of this dish for me was the presence of carrots.

I love carrots, and I eat carrots in any dish, whether cooked or fried. Persian carrot rice can be made with meat or chicken, and I love chicken with it because I generally like chicken more than meat in dishes.

What is havij polo(Persian Carrot Rice)?

If you are a fan of sweet food, havij polo is one of the most suitable options. This is one of the delicious Iranian dishes and one of the popular Iranian mixed pilafs, which you can prepare with chicken or meat.

This pilaf is prepared from a combination of rice and carrots, and this food can be made without meat or with meat. You can use minced meat, chicken, and mutton pieces to prepare havij polo.

Persian carrot rice is very delicious, like another Persian pilaf such as loobia polo, shirin polo, ghanbar polo, baghali polo, adas polo, kalam polo shirazi.

If you prepare havij polo for a party, you can replace it with dishes such as zereshk polo ba morgh or other types of pilaf dishes in your parties.

This pilaf is a low-calorie and completely vegetarian food suitable for people with special diets or those who do not eat meat and chicken for any reason, especially for vegetarians.

Preparing Persian carrot rice is very easy, and you don’t need any cooking skills. The best advantage is that you can add or reduce the ingredients you like to this dish according to your taste, and finally, after cooking and tasting this dish, it becomes one of the best rice dishes you have ever eaten.

You don’t need special ingredients to make a different pilaf made with carrots, and it’s better to know that this dish is easy to prepare and takes a little time. If you are planning to make this low-calorie and tasty dish, we have prepared for you how to prepare havij polo, which you will like.

Be liberal in using saffron in preparing this delicious rice, giving the food a good color and glaze. With the number of ingredients included in this recipe, you can prepare this pilaf for 4 people. To make more or less, multiply or divide the ingredients.

How to make havij polo? (Persian carrot rice recipe)

For: 4 people

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Instruction:

1. Soak rice for 2 to 3 hours, then prepare chicken meat. For this purpose, put the chicken meat in a pot with 2 glasses of lukewarm water, add onion with salt, black pepper, and cinnamon, and put it on the heat until the chicken is completely cooked.

2. Check the chicken meat with a fork; if it is completely soft, remove it from the heat and let it cool. Cut the cooked chickens into pieces and set aside. Please do not throw away the chicken broth at this stage; pass it through a filter and keep it for adding to the food.

3. Chop a medium onion into small pieces and fry it in a relatively large pan with a little oil. After the onion becomes golden, add turmeric to it and stir well. Then add chopped chicken meat to it.

4. Grate the carrots with a coarse grater, add them to the pan, and mix well with the ingredients. Add spices, including salt, black pepper, and cinnamon, to the ingredients of the pan and stir well.

5. Add the saffron you brewed to the chicken and carrot mixture. Note that your saffron should have a high concentration. Next, add lemon juice and a few tablespoons of strained chicken broth to the ingredients and fry well.

6. Pour the soaked rice with a teaspoon of salt and some oil into a pot of boiling water. When the rice kernels are completely soft, and the rice core is firm, you should rinse the rice.

7. Choose the desired pot and pour some oil on its bottom. Put any tahdig sibzamini according to your taste (with potatoes or lavash bread) on the bottom of the pot and pour some rice on it. 

8. Now pour some of the carrot and chicken mixture on the rice, and in the same way, add the rice and the chicken and carrot mixture to the pot layer by layer. Fill the last layer with rice and put the chopped butter on the surface of the rice.

9. Place a steamer on the pot lid and let the rice brew. After 45 minutes to an hour, your food is ready. Mix the havij polo in the pot until it is completely uniform, pour it into the desired dish, and decorate it with pistachio slices and barberry.

Notes for Persian Carrot Rice:

• If you want, you can use minced meat instead of chicken, and after roasting the onion, add minced meat instead of chicken or, like other pilafs, serve this pilaf with meatball minced meat. For this meat, grate onion and add black pepper, turmeric, salt, and chickpea flour. Knead it completely with your hands, and after an hour of rest in the refrigerator, take a piece of meat the size of a walnut, shape it in your hand, and then pour a few spoons of oil in the desired pan and place it on a medium-high heat and we fry the meats. Of course, it is more common to use chicken in this.
• To make it more festive, you can also use a saffron snail-shaped chicken fillet and place it on the rice when serving.
• We cut the chicken fillets into strips, season them with onion, salt, black pepper, saffron, lemon juice, and olive oil, and let them stay in the refrigerator for a few hours. Then, we roll the fillets in a 
• Spiral shape and fix them with the help of a toothpick. Pour a few spoons of oil into the pan, put the fillets in it, and fry them gently until they are completely cooked. We use them on this pilaf.
• If you want, you can use the barberry after roasting it into the carrot and chicken mixture.
• The amount of sugar used varies depending on your taste and, of course, the sweetness of the carrots.
• It is better to grate the carrots with a coarse grater so that they are cooked well. If you cut the carrot into slices, add some water so the carrot does not remain raw.
• You can also use raisins instead of barberry.
• Adding sugar to this food depends entirely on your taste, but if you enjoy eating sweet foods, try this with sugar.
•  Adding some lemon juice will make your carrots more colorful and not dark.
• In the end, if desired, pour a little butter or Kermanshahi oil on the rice to make it tastier.
• Because there is sugar juice in this food, and this juice reaches the bottom of the pot, there is more of a possibility of burning tahdig than other pilafs. For this reason, you need to reduce the heat under the stove or use a flame spreader, which takes about 45 minutes to brew.
• Nokhod polo and mash polo are very delicious Iranian dishes and are close to this dish

Did you like this recipe?

• Please share your experience about cooking this Persian dish.
• If you are looking for vegetarian food, I suggest you this dish.
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