Baghala Ghatogh

The Gilani stew of broad beans smothered in dill and garlic with eggs cracked in at the end

Origin: Gilan, the Caspian Coast, Iran

From the journey of Dill.

Gilan, the humid green province along Iran's Caspian shore, cooks quite differently from the dry plateau to the south. It rains there, the rice paddies are worked by hand, garlic is used in quantities that alarm Tehranis, and the herb of the province is dill. Bāghālā ghātogh is the dish that shows it. Broad beans, garlic, and a very large amount of chopped dill are stewed together with turmeric until the beans collapse and the whole thing turns thick and dark green, and then eggs are broken over the surface and left to set in the residual heat. It is eaten with kateh, the sticky Gilani rice that is cooked by absorption rather than by the drain-and-steam method of the interior, and it is a breakfast dish as often as a supper one. The garlic is not a background aromatic. Gilani cooks use whole heads of it, sliced or crushed, and the province's local variety is a small, intensely pungent bulb often sold semi-dried. Along with the dill it is what makes the dish taste of the Caspian rather than of Isfahan. The bean matters too. What is traditionally used is the dried baghala of the region, closer to a fava than to a fresh broad bean, soaked overnight and cooked long, which gives a starchier and more collapsed result than fresh beans do. Fresh or frozen skinned broad beans make a lighter and perfectly good version, and are what most cooks outside Iran will manage. It is a plain dish of four ingredients and it depends entirely on not stinting the dill.

Ingredients

Beans

300 g dried broad beans (baghala), soaked overnight, or 500 g frozen skinned broad beans

Base

4 tbsp light olive oil or butter
12 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp ground turmeric
150 g fresh dill, tough stalks removed, finely chopped
1 tsp salt, or to taste
0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
400 ml water

To Finish

4 whole eggs
1 pinch dried chilli flakes, optional

Method

If using dried beans, drain the soaked beans, slip off any tough skins, and simmer in fresh unsalted water for 45 minutes to an hour until tender. Drain. Frozen skinned beans need no pre-cooking.
Warm the oil in a heavy pan over a low heat and cook the sliced garlic gently for five to six minutes until soft, fragrant, and pale gold. Do not let it brown.
Stir in the turmeric and cook for thirty seconds.
Add the beans, the salt, the pepper, and the water. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook over a low heat for twenty minutes, crushing about a third of the beans against the side of the pan with a spoon as they soften.
Add the dill, stir it through, and simmer uncovered for a further fifteen minutes, until the mixture is thick and has turned a deep green.
Make four hollows in the surface with the back of a spoon and crack an egg into each. Cover and cook on the lowest heat for six to eight minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks still soft.
Scatter with chilli flakes if using and serve straight from the pan with rice and flatbread.

Notes

A hundred and fifty grams of dill to three hundred of beans looks wrong on the page and is right in the pot. This is a herb stew with beans in it rather than the reverse. The traditional rice is kateh, Gilani-style: rinse the rice, cover with water by 2 cm, add salt and a knob of butter, boil hard until the water is absorbed, then cover and steam on the lowest heat for thirty minutes. It is stickier than the drained-and-steamed rice of the plateau and is what the province eats. Some Gilani households finish it with a spoonful of kashk, fermented whey, instead of the eggs. Others add both. It keeps for three days refrigerated and reheats well, though the eggs should be cooked fresh each time rather than reheated.

The Gastrographer

Name: Baghala Ghatogh
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 12 h
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Iran
Ingredients: 300 g dried broad beans (baghala), soaked overnight, or 500 g frozen skinned broad beans; 4 tbsp light olive oil or butter; 12 cloves garlic, thinly sliced; 1 tsp ground turmeric; 150 g fresh dill, tough stalks removed, finely chopped; 1 tsp salt, or to taste; 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper; 400 ml water; 4 whole eggs; 1 pinch dried chilli flakes, optional

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