Mung Bean Rice

Mung beans and rice are a match made in Iranian heaven. One of my top comfort foods of all time. I made this rice today for futoor with BBQ chicken.

Recipe:

2 cups of rice
3/4 cup mung beans
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 potato
Half a stick of butter
Cooking oil
Salt
Saffron

Method:

Wash and soak the rice with loads of salt for up to an hour. Cook the mung beans in water adding turmeric and little salt until soft but still firm by holding its shape. Do not throw away the mung bean cooking water it will be used later.
Fill a cooking pot with water and let it boil. Once the water starts to boil add your rice with a tad more salt. As soon as the rice starts to boil in the water wait 2 minutes and drain the rice in a strainer and pour water on the rice.

Peel and cut your potato resembling something like this:

Heat the cooking pot and add oil, potato slices and start layering the rice and mung beans adding a couple of spoons of the mung bean water along the way. Once the layering has finished, add a tiny spoonful of saffron on top and thick slices of butter.

Cook on high heat for 10 min and then let it gently cook for an hour on low heat.

Note: You can assemble the rice hours ahead and cook an hour before you want to eat as I did.