Vegan Ghormeh Sabzi - Is It Possible?

Probable. The thing about my favorite Persian dish of all time is that it's normally cooked with lamb meat (under other circumstances: chicken, beef, or even fish). Researching under the tags "vegan" "ghormeh sabzi" "recipe" proved to be an excruciating journey across the interwebs.

Why vegan? Other than the health benefits and the weight loss associated with the diet, I think I like the challenge of taking a "normal" recipe and substituting all the ingredients for vegetables/non-animal origin, trying to get as close or even better taste than the original. It's not that I'm a diehard vegan, but I like eating vegetarian/vegan stuff (especially since it can come out to be pretty cheap too compared to buying expensive meat).

So in my second attempt to get vegetarian/vegan ghormeh sabzi, let me chronicle my efforts. I don't have picture (sorry!) Next time I make this dish, I will. I took kat's recipe and made a few mods.

ROMANTIC FRESH HERB PERSIAN STEW

Materials
1 Stew pot
1 wooden spoon for stirring
1 knife
1 cutting board
1 ladle

Ingredients
1 white onion
sea salt
garlic powder (I had to use garlic salt, bleh)
2 cans of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
frozen spinach
1 bag of sabzi
water
olive oil
1 brown potato

Ideally, sure, I would love a meat substitute (like Quorn or TVP) but that stuff is out of my budget right now. BTW, Quorn is farkin delicious.

1. So first I chopped up the onion relatively fine, stirfried it in the olive oil in the stew pot.
2. I added hydrated sabzi (all of it, which may have been a mistake...) to it, as well as two whole cups of more water.
3. Then I added the potato and the kidney beans.
4. I cooked it on medium for a while (like 30 min.)
5. Served with basmati rice (the tahdig recipe, which I totally effed up. -_-;..)

So in conclusion, compared to my fenugreek-less ghormeh sabzi made from scratch, my first attempt of entirely fresh vegetables was more delicious than the 90% dried mix I used last night. The boyfriend was less than pleased and didn't even finish his plate. Luckily I actually like any form of ghormeh sabzi that won't give me food poisoning.

I think next time I make this, I'll add dried limes, reduce the dried herbs to 20%, bring back the fresh vegetables. But in the meanwhile, I'm left eating portions made for a LARGE AMISH FAMILY by myself. Boo!

I'm also thinking of exploring the option of cooking ghormeh sabzi (along with other Persian dishes) in a slow cooker because of my hectic schedule with school and work. I mean, who really wants to cook while they're already HUNGRY?

In other news: Trains are sexy back.