I'm Game for Ghaymeh

As I noted in my review of Alborz Persian Restaurant, my discovery of khoresh ghaymeh had me wanting to try it at home. After much digging around and coming across the same recipe over and over and over again, I settled on a recipe that I thought I could...well, I thought I could manage to pull off without royally screwing it up.

The recipe's from a gluten-free food blog aptly titled "For the Love of Food!" I like how the author describes her own cooking process, and I very much appreciate that she included photos. I find it very helpful to know what the finished product should roughly look like.

Khoresh-e-ghaymeh Lapeh (Persian Split Pea Stew)*

*Please note that the first-person voice herein is of the original author, not me, The Faudie.

1 C yellow split peas
1 lb. stew beef, cut into small pieces (mine was about 2 1/4 cup chopped)
3 medium onions, chopped
6 T oil (olive, grapeseed)
5 T tomato paste
1 28-oz. can organic crushed tomatoes with basil (I recommend Muir Glen)
2 t turmeric
3 t cinnamon (less if you don't like it that strong)
2 t sea salt
1 1/2 t black pepper
1 t oregano
3 dried limes

1. Rinse the split peas and set them to cook in 4 cups of water over medium heat in a small pot. The cooking time will honestly depend on the type of peas--it really does make a difference. I think mine cooked in about 15 minutes, but watch it and check after 10, then 5, etc. etc. If they overcook they will turn to mush and will be a sad sight. [I agree! --The Faudie] They should be al dente, or almost soft. Don't add salt or they won't cook! While they're cooking, skim the foam off and discard.
   
2. Boil some hot water. Wash the dried limes and stab a few holes in them. Pour the hot water over the limes in a bowl, and cover to let them soak and soften.
   
3. While the peas are cooking, cook the chopped onions in 3 T of oil in a large stew pot until golden but not overdone. Remove a third of them and place them in the saute pan in which you will cook the meat.
   
4. With the other two-thirds of the chopped onion still in the stew pot, add the can of crushed tomatoes as well as the tomato paste. Stir well.
   
5. Add a teaspoon of turmeric to the sauce. If the tomato paste is unsalted, add some salt.
   
6. Bring the sauce to boil then let it simmer.
   
7. Heat the saute pan with the third of the chopped onions, and add 3 T of oil.
   
8. Add the cinnamon, salt, pepper, oregano and turmeric to the saute pan, then the beef.
   
9. After a minute or two, add the limes (not the water), and cook until the meat is almost thoroughly cooked.
   
10. Add the meat and split peas to the sauce and stir well.
    
11. Turn the heat down to low, cover and let the stew simmer for an hour to two hours. Taste periodically to check if you want to add any more salt, pepper, etc. The stew can get fairly thick depending on a variety of factors. If it's too thick for your taste, you can add some water. I sometimes add some of the water the limes were soaking in for more flavor.

Nutritional Info
Sorry, I have no nutritional info to share for this recipe. Lentils are pretty low in fat and high in protein and fiber, so that's a plus. If you use as much oil as the recipe calls for, you might be looking at a higher fat content--and that's not including the beef.

The Faudie's Futzings
Oh boy, I did a fair amount of futzing with this one, but I think I wound up with something that tasted pretty close to the khoresh ghaymeh I enjoyed at Alborz:

• For starters, I didn't use any beef. I'm not a big fan of red meat, particularly bovine. It's dense. After eating it so sparingly over the last...decade or more, I can feel its weight as it's digested slowly. It makes me feel sluggish and icky, so I try not to eat much of it. Plus I didn't buy any last Friday at HEB as this recipe was sort of something I thought of doing over the weekend that followed. If you ask me, no big loss.
  
• I didn't use a basil-enhanced can of crushed toms. I used plain 'ol crushed tomatoes with the lowest sodium content I could find. And no, I didn't add any additional salt to the sauce as the author suggests. I don't find it necessary to add salt to everything. My family has a history of hypertension, thank you very much, and I don't want to wind up with it too (although if you look at the statistics, almost everyone winds up with hypertension as they get older).
  
• Since I had no beef, I'd planned to use 3 and a quarter cups of toor dal--the equivalent of the cup of split peas the author's original recipe calls for plus the 2 and a quarter cups of chopped beef she wound up with after chopping up her pound of beef. Unfortunately, I didn't have that much toor dal left. Fortunately, I had exactly two cups of the stuff, so that made me happy.
  
• I wasn't able to find dried limes at the two nearby HEBs. Sure, I could have popped in to Gandhi Bazaar, which is near the HEB where I usually do the weekly shopping where I had to run to buy tomato paste, or Shahi Foods, which is near the HEB across from the gym where I did stop after my miserable run in search of dried limes--but I went to neither place. My leg was aching during both trips, and I just didn't feel like making the additional stops. Bad, lazy me.
  
• Since I was unable to procure dried limes, I juiced three fresh limes--and discovered that was too much for my tastes. I was leery of doing that much in the first place but wound up doing it in an attempt to get a bit more liquid into my stew. The stuff was really thick by the time I added the lentils to the sauce.
  
• Because I didn't want my stew so thick, I added--gradually--an entire 32-ounce container of Pacific Foods vegetable broth. Even then, I didn't end up with the very soupy khoresh ghaymeh I'd had at Alborz--and I wasn't going to add the almost-full container of Central Markup-brand low-sodium chicken broth to try to get me there either.
  
• Since I found the lime taste and accompanying acidity not to my liking, I added a half-teaspoon of cinnamon to my stew after I'd added the veggie broth. Doing so made it taste more like the slightly sweeter concoction I'd had at Alborz.

While the author of the original recipe recommends serving the stew with basmati and the dish is served with it on the a la carte menu at Alborz, I didn't make any rice to go with my stew. I was lazy and warmed up a quarter of a teardrop of naan we've had in the 'fridge for a few weeks. If the stew had had more liquid, then I might have made up a quick batch of brown rice--which the recipe's author ate with her stew. My finished stew, though, was lacking for delectable juice to be absorbed by the rice. The sauce, however, was just the right consistency for mopping up with morsels of naan. And I made sure that bit of leftover naan didn't go to waste. Brilliant!