One of the most ancient Iranian dishes is Gheimeh Stew. Undoubtedly, at least every Iranian has eaten or cooked this food once in their lifetime.
Gheymeh stew is made from sliced meat, split pea, tomato paste, onions and flavorings such as lemon and cinnamon. This delicious dish is usually cooked in two types with potato or eggplant. Although, other types of Gheymeh stew is cooked in different cities of Iran, which are often the same in raw materials and differ only in the method of cooking and flavoring. We are going to tell you all about it.
The history
Since the taste of Khoresht Gheymeh suits most people and has a simpler recipe than other official dishes, this stew has long been one of the most suitable dishes in Iran.
There is no exact date of origin for this food. However, according to some historians, by examining the root of the word gheymeh, they guess that its recipe is very old. In the dictionary of Dehkhoda, (Persian Farsi dictionary) the word gheymeh is derived from the Turkish root meaning sliced meat.
From ancient times, not only has this stew become one of the most suitable foods in Iran, but it has also become a common dish in Iran’s neighboring countries, such as Iraq.
Today, this food is cooked everywhere, from homes and restaurants to servings in religious ceremonies as a custom. Accordingly, one of these customs is giving out food to people who are in need, especially on the days of Tasua and Ashura.
In this type of Stew, fried eggplant is used instead of freshly fried potatoes. Of course, along with eggplant, this dish uses dry sour grape seasoning.
People living in the city of Qazvin have a stew which is called Gheymeh Nesar. This stew is similar to the traditional and common type of Geymeh, but instead of using fried potatoes, Qazvinis use nuts such as almonds and pistachios, or sliced orange and barberry peel.
In this type of stew, chickpeas are used instead of yellow split peas. In some places, this dish is usually confused with abgoosht (an Iranian dish) due to its ingredient similarities. Geymeh Chickpea stew is cooked in the southern and central regions of Iran with goat meat.
One of the most delicious gheymehs cooked in Iran is the one cooked in Rasht (a city in the north of Iran), known as Gheymeh Rashti. It uses tomatoes instead of tomato paste. This stew has the most similar methods of cooking compared to the traditional way of cooking Gheymeh. Although, instead of using dry sour lemon, they use pomegranate and lemon juice, or they add sour pomegranate paste to make it sour. That’s why it has a lot of fans.
If you think that this type of stew tastes sweet, I must say that you are surely mistaken! The recipe contains sour green apples. The other ingredients in this dish are the same as those used in traditional stews, and just like the Gheymeh rashti fresh lemon juice is used instead of dry lemon.
Pumpkin Gheymeh stew is a type of stew that pumpkin is added separately. Lemon powder is also used in this food to bring out the flavor of the pumpkins.
One of the delicious Iranian stews that belongs to this family is the plum gheymeh stew. If you add the mixture of plum and quince to the original recipe of Gheymeh you end up with this stew. Note that in this dish, although plums and quince are used, the taste is not sweet at all.
In this type of stew, small carrots are used, in a form of so-called garnished. Beside the carrots, raisins and a special spice are added to this dish. This stew is mostly cooked in Azerbaijan province of Tabriz and it happens to have a very delicious taste.
The only difference between this type of stew and okra stew is that it uses cobs. In addition, instead of dry lemon, they add lemon juice or orange juice to it.
This type of gheymeh usually uses chicken breast meat and you have to pour less water than regular stew. In this stew the chicken meat cooks much faster than regular meat and is mostly used by people who should not eat red meat.
