Iranian Food

At its best, Iranian Cuisine is excellent. With its emphasis on the freshest of ingredients, it is remarkably healthy. To enjoy the best and the full range of Iranian cooking one must be invited into Iranian houses. Hence the main dishes served in the restaurants are Chelo Kabab (a long thin strip of meat or mince served with a mound of rice)& Chicken, other Iranian dishes can also be found in there. Generally, the Iranian diet is heavily based on rise, bread, fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit. Meat, chicken and fish are also widely used in Iranian kitchens. A large number of fresh herbs and spices are used in Iranian cookings, often with great subtlety.

Typical meal courses
Generally, like most other countries, there are three main courses, breakfast, lunch and dinner during a day. For breakfast, people usually have bread, butter, cheese, jam, marmalade, or sometimes omelet, sausages, and tea, coffee, milk and/or fruit juices as a drink.
For lunch which is the main course, they have a kind of Iranian stews or dishes usually along with rice.
People have a lighter meal for dinner, although in some parts dinner is also considered as a main course.

Local Food
As the main Iranian diet is generally based on rice, bread, vegetables, herbs, fruit, meat, chicken and fish, various dishes can be cooked and served.
Meat is usually minced or cut into small chunks used to add in stews or chopped and grilled. Chicken and fish are generally cut into chunks (not as small as meat) to be fried or grilled.
The standard meats are lamb or mutton, though beef and veal also turn up from time to time. Chicken is often spit-roasted and served whole or by the half.
Lots of fresh herbs and spices, particularly turmeric, saffron, nutmeg and cardamom, are used in Iranian cooking. Nuts, and fresh or dried fruit, are commonly added to meat and poultry dishes to creat a peculiarly Iranian blend of the sweet and the savoury.
The main dish served in restaurants throughout Iran is the kabab. The standard chelo kabab is a long thin strip of meat or mince served with a mound of rice or with bread and grilled tomatoes. Kabab makhsus (special kabab) is a larger strip of meat made of better quality lamb; kabab barg (literally, ‘leaf kebab’) is thinner and more variable in quality. The most common version is kaba-e kobide (literally, ‘ground kebab’), made out of minced meat. Kebabs are usually sprinked with somaq (sumac) and accompanied by a raw onion, a pat of butter and a bowl of yogurt to stir into the rice.
Another Iranian favourite is juje kabab, marinated chicken kebab served in the same way as a normal kebab. Fille kabab is made with lamb fillet and is invariably delicious.
As a change from kebabs one may get served either soup or stew as a main course. Iranian sup (soup) is usually made from lentils and tomato paste and is thick and filling. A particularly popular variety is ash, often made from various vegetables, grains, yogurt, sometimes meat. Abgusht also known as dizi, a soup-stew combination eaten with sangak bread, is commonly served in the restaurants called dizi-sara. The best abgusht is served in Tabriz, Tehran and of course all parts of the country.
Khoresht is a blanket term for any kind of thick meaty stew made with vegetables and chopped nuts and served with rice. One of the prizes of Iranian cooking is fesenjan, a meat stew made with pomegranate juice, walnuts, aubergine and cardamom. It is quite an honour to be served this in an Iranian home; some restaurants also serve it. Qormeh-ye sabzi is rather bitter stew made from lamb, various vegetables and dried lime.
Iranian dolmehs are vegetables, fruit or vine leaves stuffed with a mixture of vegetables or meat (mostly both), and rice. Kofta are meatballs which are made with the ingrediants similar to dolmeh, and mostly well-known as kofta-Tabrizi as it is a food originally from Tabriz.
Yogurt, called mast is a staple of Iranian cuisine. It is sometimes served on its own with lavash bread, or is mixed into rice, diced cucummber or other vegetables, fresh herbs or othe spices. It is alos served as a side dish in many restaurants.
Tables in restaurants are usually set with lavash bread, cubes of cheese, rings of onions and a green salad.

Rice, the national main food
Rice is mostly served as the main course along with a stew, kabab or chicken. Rice from the rainy plains of north provinces such as Mazandaran and Gilan are to be known as the world’s best. In general, rice is called berenj. Chelo, boiled steamed rice, forms the basis of meals such as chelo morgh (chicken and rice). Rice cooked with other ingredients like nuts and spices is called polo. Iranian rice is always fluffy and tender, nevr sticky or soggy. Often the cook will steam rice with yogurt or an egg yolk to make a crunchy golden crust at the bottom of the pan, which is boken up and served on top of the rice. Saffron is also frequently used to add flavour and colour. If rice is served with a knob of butter on top, blend this in as the Iranian do; it really livens it up if it is bland or dry.

Bread
Iranian bread, known generally as nun, is readily available in all parts of the country. There are four main varieties, which are either baked in a carvernous clay furnace or briefly plunged into the flames of a pit-oven.
Lavash is a flat, thin and cardboard-like, and keeps for months. Crips, salty barbari has a glazed and finely latticed crust and is best eaten hot from the oven. The elite of Iranian breads is sangak, a thicker, oval-shapedbread, baked on a bed of stones to give it its characteristic dimpled appearance; make sure all the stones are removed before having it. Taftun a crisp bread about 1 cm thick and oval or circle-shaped, with characteristic ribbed surface is another Iranian bread available in most parts.

Nuts & Fruit
These are passed around Iranian houses all day long and eaten in copious quantities. Most Iranian fruit is good, someof it among the best in the world. There are very few fruits that will not grow in Iran; even bananas can be found in southern provinces. Particularly recommanded are pomegranates, peaches, watermelons, all kinds of oranges, figs, and rosy-fleshed grapefruits, which are fine to eat without sugar. Fig-peach a particular fruit which is a cross between a fig and a peach. Tangrines, oranges, sour & sweet oranges, lemon, lime and kiwi are grown in northen provinces.
Iranian almonds, hazelnuts, walnut and pistachios are all excellent.

Desserts
Everywhere in Iran one can find ice-cream stalls or shops. Traditional ice-cream in Iran consists of two circled-shaped slices of crispy bread stuffed by special ice-cream made with saffron and knobs of cream inside it. Other kinds of ice-creams are also available in supermarkets.
Cake shops and confectioneries are usually big shops selling different Iranian sweets and cakes. Sweets and cakes from other countries are also available in those shops.
Iranian confetionery can be too sweet for some tastes, but if you have a sweet tooth, try some delicious and refreshing paludeh in Shiraz, chewy gaz from Isfahan or many delicious products made from honey, particularly in north-western Iran.

Restaurants
The standards of restaurants varies considerably. You can eat at Chelo Kababis, hamburger joints, pizza places, snack bars or restaurants of various Iranian dishes. Coffee shops and Teahouses are convenience places to enjoy all non-alchoholic drinks and any kind of deserts; in some coffee shops, there are also a list of fast foods in their menu.