Get ready to tantalize your taste buds as we bring you the exquisite flavors of Persian grilled corn, also known as Balal. Discover how the saltwater dipping creates a delightful mild salty taste, while the smoky flavor comes from the beautiful charring on the corn. We’re excited to share our memories of enjoying it both in Iran and the US and guide you through our very own recipe for this mouthwatering dish. Learn how to make the perfect saltwater bath and master the grilling techniques to achieve that authentic taste that your summer barbecue has been missing!
In this week’s Ask the Beats we explore our favorite go-to Persian dishes for our families, from a comforting yellow split pea stew Gheymeh to Beata’s easy Halim, made with rotisserie chicken and oats. Don’t forget to send us your questions to be featured on a future episode!
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Transcript:
Intro:
This is Modern Persian Food, a culinary podcast for today’s food enthusiast.
We talk about classic Persian flavors, modern recipes, and embracing culture and identity through food.
I’m Bita and I’m also Beata. Welcome to our show.
Bita:
Hi friend. This is episode 141. Today we’re talking about a single ingredient or dish, and it is Persian corn, persian grilled corn. In the Persian language it’s called balal and we’re going to teach you how to make it just like the classic, delicious Persian street corn you may remember or may have heard about. Today I’m sitting remotely with my lovely partner, co-host Beata joon. How are you doing, hi there, Beata joon.
0:01:04 – Beata
I’m doing great, thank you. This is a fun recipe and I’m happy that we are including this summer series right now where we’re kind of talking about some of our favorite summer flavors. We talked about Persian picnics Last week. We talked about joojeh kabob and its delicious flavors, grilled right on the barbecue. We also give a couple tips and tricks on other ways to make it. If you haven’t listened, people can go and listen to that last episode. But today balalad is such a part of Persian style barbecue in summertime. Actually you don’t even have to do it during summertime, but it’s classic during the summertime. I’m happy to be here chatting with you today.
0:01:44 – Bita
Yeah, what makes it special? When you think about corn, we actually don’t have a bunch of it in other dishes in Persian cuisine, but it is really special in its own way. Let’s just break it down. What makes it special.
0:02:00 – Beata
So I think what really makes the Persian style corn stand out amongst other corn recipes is it really gets dipped into like a saltwater bath right after grilling. That makes it kind of just get that salty flavor kind of mild, not too salty. I think really the saltwater dipping is what really sets it apart from other corn recipes.
0:02:22 – Bita
Yeah, the saltwater bath, as you put it, it has two functions it makes it salty and it cools it down so you can eat it right away. Yes, so I think that’s what makes it special, and I don’t have a ton of memories of being in Iran. If you’ve been with us for a while, you know I grew up in the US and only went back once, pre-islamic revolution, and during that time, though, I do have the memory of the corn being grilled on the street and the smell of it and being able to smell it and just eat it like within moments, and then later, as an adult, I had the same experience in Turkey. So I’m guessing that this tradition or custom of cooking the corn outside and selling it and eating it right there on the street is probably common in many Middle Eastern cultures and countries. But yeah, i mean, the other thing about it is it’s very charred, so that flavor of kind of smoky flavor comes through and the sweetness of the corn, and then the salt brings out more the flavor, and I feel like the water does more than just make it salty. It also just makes it I don’t know like juicier, and yeah for sure it’s so, so good.
So we definitely do that whenever we’re grilling. How I do it? the recipe is it’s almost not even a recipe, because it’s just simply the water bath. So it’s so easy. We like to get a big pitcher out, that I can take outside it’s not going to break pool or patio safe and I fill it with water, like three quarters of the way with water, and then I put almost an entire cup of salt in there. So, and then I stir it around. Wow, that’s a lot of salt, uh-huh, mm-hmm, a lot of salt.
Typically we’ll just, yeah, just be grilling the corn alongside whatever else we’re grilling. We’ve got vegetables going, we’ve got meats going, and then we will dunk it right away. Could probably fit like three ears of corn into the salt water bath. It’ll spill out sometimes and it doesn’t matter, it’s outside, it’s just water. Then we’ll just usually have like a Pyrex, you know, like one of those rectangular glass pyrexes to put the corn instead of already been in the salt water for, you know, five minutes, and we’ll put them in there because they’re still a little bit drippy sometimes, and then stack them in there before we take them in the house to eat.
0:04:56 – Beata
Oh wow, so you actually soak it in there for a long time. Yeah, you’re not doing a quick dunk, you’re like letting it soak in there.
0:05:02 – Bita
We like to kind of let it soak in there and get the salt in there. And so actually back in the food blogger days, when I was more of a recipe developer, at that time there was only one other video beside mine of how to do it, and so you know, it’s kind of winging it and doing it the way that makes sense for you. So I made a video way back when but I don’t know the official way to do it, but that’s how we do it. We leave it in there for maybe five minutes.
0:05:29 – Beata
Okay, great, when I visited Iran. I was born here in San Francisco, I grew up here, I visited Iran a bunch of times over, like summers and things like that, so my corn recipe isn’t necessarily from Iran. But I remember my aunt would grill outside and then that was when I first was like introduced to it that grilling and then the corn on the barbecue And then you completely shocked the corn. There’s no corn silk or anything on it, so it’s just completely bare.
0:05:58 – Bita
Yeah, definitely has to be right on there, right Yeah.
0:06:01 – Beata
And I do remember, actually, when my auntie would bake it. I must have been like five or six years old, but I was missing my front teeth and then they kept calling me “Peereh zan”, because it was like a little joke that like when you’re a kid and you lose your teeth, they call you like an old woman.
So I remember being actually a little bit frustrated about it because I couldn’t like bite onto the corn and then we just kind of, like you know, shaved it off or whatever. But that’s my like first initial memories of having corn this way. Another kind of like story is just this past year for Char Shambasuri, which is, you know, the festival of light and fire that’s right before the Persian New Year where you jump over little bonfires.
Another Persian family here in the city they had hosted us over there and they had made this ballon and it was like so nice and it was just so nostalgic and it was like a really nice little addition to some of the little appetizers and treats that she had placed out for us. But to actually, like you know, grill it up and dunk it right there, and then, you know, she put it in a platter and we all kind of dug into it. So it was a fun little, just so easy recipe that, especially if you already have the grill growing, it’s great, but to kind of just bring some of that Persian flavor and experience to everyone in the family.
0:07:19 – Bita
Yeah, I encourage you all to try it. So a friend of mine who is American born and raised, not at all Iranian, had me over a few years ago. Her husband is the, the home chef of the family. She’s a school teacher, kristen and Patrick. And Patrick did the coolest thing when I was over for dinner And it was a really great segue for me to be able to talk about the classic Persian grilled corn. He actually used a flame thingy. What are those flame thingies called?
0:07:51 – Beata
Yeah, little torches, uh-huh Yeah, that you do for like crumb related type of thing.
0:07:55 – Bita
Yeah, so he had a torch. Corn was part of the menu and I got so excited and I told them how Persians like to make an eat corn and he did it with his torch. Uh-huh, it was not exactly the same, to be honest. It didn’t have totally the same flavor. The smokiness sure It didn’t have quite the same smoky flavor, yeah, but I thought that that was a pretty cool modern twist on getting the char on the corn.
0:08:22 – Beata
Yeah, absolutely. I have another like kind of way that I would do it. I don’t have it where I’m living right now, But the last place I lived had a gas stove and I actually really love using gas stoves, even though there’s I know there’s a lot of controversy about it right now. But you can char your corn right on your gas stove too. You just basically like get the flame high enough and then put the corn right on the stove top and the gas flame gives it a char, use tongs to kind of twist it around and things like that. But that’s a easy indoor way to do it if you don’t have a barbecue and you do have a gas stove.
0:08:58 – Bita
Yeah, I’ve never tried it that way. That’s really interesting. I would imagine you’d need to take care not to burn your kitchen down.
0:09:04 – Beata
Yeah, I mean she just put it on there. I never had any big issues of like nothing flamed up or anything, but you do sometimes you’re like the pop and you’re like, oh, is it popcorn? Is it turning into popcorn?
0:09:13 – Bita
Yeah, your cute story of having a hard time eating it when you’re a little and you were missing your front teeth reminded me of how my girls had stages of braces growing up. They didn’t want to miss out on that yummy corn, and so they would also shave it off. Just shave it off with a knife, hold it up vertically and then use a knife to carefully cut it down. It’s really yummy that way And then when you have it that way, you can use it on top of your salad or in your bowl, your grain bowl. And you can have it in more ways, which brings me to some other modern ways. You might use Persian corn. Yeah, it’s really delicious. It’s got the char, it’s got the salt. Another thing you could do is you could shave it off, serve it on the side and add a Persian spice like sumac/somagh, the Persian culinary sumac. Perfect, that would be really delicious. I think that that’s the sourness of the somagh would again bring out the sweet notes and add another flavor note.
0:10:14 – Beata
Yeah, I think that’s a great idea and if you didn’t want to shave it off and you wanted to keep it on another recipe that you can do that.
I was thinking that you can use somagh as well on it is if you just kind of keep it whole, and we like to make a Mexican style corn where we can yeah you could put butter or like a thin layer of mayo or something like that, and then cover it with cheese, cover it with like cojita cheese, and so if we wanted to make, do a Persian version of that, you can try to maybe use a little bit of feta to roll the corn in the feta and then cover it with like sumac. As like a little bit of a twist, you can try something a little bit different.
And then if you’re entertaining and you want to do this and you don’t want to like have one whole corn ear for everybody, you can kind of break them in half. When you have the corn and before you cook it, you can easily with your hand to snap it into two pieces and that makes it like a little bit more of an appetizer style corn as opposed to, like you know, a big side.
0:11:09 – Bita
I love it. That sounds so good, and I think Persian street corn, at least when you get it in a restaurant, is usually it’s been shucked and it’s you know, it’s been shaved off, and so the Persian street corn, you could do exactly what you said. You could do the Persian corn that’s charred with the salt. You could put the sumac, you can put the feta, and then you could also cut up some herbs, some Persian herbs and bring out the color and that would be such a great side to bring to a barbecue or, yeah, potluck or something.
Yeah, let’s talk about some serving suggestions and some ideas of what else you would have in, like a Persian barbecue where you’d have the street corn or you’d have the Persian grilled corn.
0:11:54 – Beata
Yeah, I mean like if we wanted to just like pull together a summer menu right here. Take last week’s joojeh kabab -, this week’s corn on the cob, and next week we’re going to be talking about another ingredient that’s fun to grill up some tomato action, some charred tomatoes on the side of that, get some bread, some lavash or some pita bread, and a bunch of fresh herbs and you got yourself a little barbecue ready to go. Great to entertain with, great to have on the weekend with your family or with your friends.
0:12:25 – Bita
Yeah, I think I’d do the Persian grilled corn. I’d probably do veggie skewers, some Persian burgers. I definitely have a little pot of rice going. I always like to have a little rice with whatever we’re grilling. Yeah, and some fresh herbs. That sounds delicious.
0:12:41 – Beata
Hey friends, just wanted to ask you a quick favor If you would like to join on to our mailing list. There’s three ways that you can do that. You can either go to our website, modernpersionfood.com you can scroll down in the show notes and whatever up you’re using to listen to this podcast and there is a button that you can click to sign it for the newsletter. Or on Instagram we have it in our bio direct links that you can sign up. Sign up and don’t skip a beat. Well, hopefully everybody could be inspired to grill up some corn and have some fun Persian flavors this summer.
We hope you’ve liked this episode. You know it’s been a minute since we’ve done some ask the beats, So we are back on the ask the beats wagon and we are looking for your questions. Or, if you have anything that you want to ask us or tell us, you can email us at hello@modernpersionfoodcom. You can send us a message over Instagram. If you have our phone number, you can call us. Whatever way you want to do it, We love to hear from our listeners and I have asked the beat question that was asked of me this past weekend, So I thought that I’d bring it on to the show and ask you if you’re ready for it.
Yeah, what’s the ATB?
Okay, the ATB, the ask the beats for this week’s episode comes from Jackie, who lives in Hayward, and her question is what is your go to Persian dish for your family right now?
0:14:06 – Bita
That’s a good question.
0:14:08 – Beata
Yeah, what’s one of your go to dishes for your family this season?
0:14:12 – Bita
I just made ghemeh and that’s the yellow split pea. Stew is one of my favorite khoresh. You know it’s a khoresh is a saucy dish served with rice. I’m always kind of trying to perfect it and make it taste the way it’s supposed to taste. I really like it and the next time I made it it surprised me because I was like, wow, okay, this is pretty good. Let’s taste almost like what it’s supposed to taste like. Okay, good job,I cooked my yellow split peas. I had the slow cook version from the market.
In Persian markets you can often find two versions slow cook version and quick cook version. I like the slow cook because the legumes tend to hold their shape and not get mushy as quickly, so I can kind of just have it going on low. I’ll cook it sometimes in a little bit of veggie broth for extra flavor, and then I’ll do my onions with Persian spices and some tomato paste. Then I will add like water and put my split peas in, and at that point is probably when most people do meat, so I kind of cook my meat separately. I have one little batch with the meat and one little batch with either nothing or tofu, as I’m trying to cut down and eliminate meat in my life, but it worked out for this case, so it’s just the two of us. Right now we’re empty nesters. I had a version with meat for Bobby and a version with just the legumes and tofu for me, And we’re both happy and we enjoyed that.
0:15:44 – Beata
Yeah, sounds delicious. Did you add limo amani or any lemon juice to it?
0:15:48 – Bita
Oh, yeah, yes, yes, i did. I probably put like four or five of them, and what I did with that was I actually kind of reconstituted or rehydrated them with some boiling water, I poke some holes in them and I add them to the stew and they definitely cook down with all of the rest of the ingredients, because I love a really sour ghemeh and I added lemon juice to it as well, and salt and turmeric and saffron and a little tiny touch of cinnamon, and it was sour and delicious, yes, and I love eating actual chunks of Persian dried lime.
Yeah, me too.
0:16:27 – Beata
I’m a big fan.
0:16:28 – Bita
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, it’s fiber and sour and so good. What have you been cooking, Beata joon? What’s going on in your kitchen?
0:16:36 – Beata
One dish that I’ve been making that is a go-to that I like to eat a lot, and my daughter actually really loves to eat a lot, is Haleem. So I’ve been making some Haleemm. I know it’s kind of like wait, the weather’s getting warmer and you’re having like a warm, cozy dish, but it is delicious and it’s just like such a comfort food. I actually call it porridge. My husband hates that that I call it porridge. I think it makes him think of like an orphanage or something like that. But you mentioned bastardized. I really take a lot of liberties and shortcuts in this recipe, but I serve it kind of traditional style with the cinnamon and sugar on top. So how I make this like really shortcut recipe is gosh. You guys are gonna think I’m crazy. But I use rotisserie chicken that’s already cooked. So that’s a huge cheat for me. I debone the chicken and I take all the bones and I put it in a pot and I cover it with water and I kind of make like a little broth out of that. So is it the most compelling broth that you’ve ever had? No, but can I make use of the ingredients that I have and get it done while I’m like in the kitchen. Yes, I cook down the whole chicken so I have enough bones there’s definitely a lot of bones. I cover it with water, i let it simmer for like an hour and then I strain it out and I use that broth in the porridge and what I do is I basically add oats like oatmeal. Basically I add oats to it. I take like one of the chicken breasts and shred it up after the oats cook a little bit more. Then I add the chicken to it and then I kind of let it all kind of like melt together a little bit and then I get a hand immersion blender and I puree it all, and so it’s kind of like the same consistency and it makes the house smell delicious and it is such a comfort food. So then I’ll pour a little bowls of it and you know the traditional way. You have a lot of butter, melted butter on it, with granulated sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top of it, and sometimes people like to have like a little bit of toast dipped in there. I wasn’t always a big Halim fan. I felt like it was like too rich, but you know, without adding all the additional butter and fat to it, it actually is like super delicious. I love it. Traditionally people would have it for breakfast. I’ll have it kind of anytime of day, really for any meal, and it’s been like a really good go-to for my daughter and I. It has protein in it, it has carbs in it. It’s kind of like nice, like kind of all in one little dish. Yeah, so that’s what I’ve been kind of been making.
A lot of times when I get a rotisserie chicken, I kind of just like bang out a porridge to go, a Halim to go, you know. So I kind of have that on hand and I learned this one year after Thanksgiving, because sometimes people will make Halim We’ve talked about this before definitely to use kind of like some of the turkey to make a Halim the next day. And what I experimented and at that point and I actually love doing now too is adding a tablespoon of cranberry sauce to the porridge, to the Halim, and it kind of really brightens it up. So I actually want to experiment of putting like other kinds of jam to it maybe instead of like the sugar or something like that. I might want to try it with like an albaloo what about albaloo? And see kind of like what that is. But yeah, sorry that was a long winded answer for Jackie. I’m officially hungry.
0:19:53 – Bita
I love everything about that. I love that your daughter is eating it. That’s amazing. I love that breakfast has protein in it. Anytime that a breakfast has protein in it, I think it’s great. My mother-in-law makes it and my husband absolutely loves it, like you and your daughter, and he literally because we go up and down the California coast in our current lifestyle and when we’re in Southern California he’s eating Halim from Mission Ranch Market which is very good, by the way And then when we come up, he’s eating his mom’s Halim and he literally was like gifted it. I don’t know the serendipity of the world, but we celebrated his mom’s birthday the big family brunch and afterwards she brought out this bag and she had fresh Halim in these little to go containers that she passed out to everyone that she had just made.
Oh my God, party favors!. She had party favor Halim and he was so happy – he’s like I’m the luckiest boy in the world. I have Halim everywhere I go.
0:20:59 – Beata
That’s hilarious. Yeah, well, good.
Good. I’m glad that he gets his Halim any part of the state he’s in. Yeah.
0:21:07 – Bita
I don’t really make it, but I am a big oatmeal fan. I make the traditional oatmeal. I love your porridge recipe, so thank you for sharing that and thanks for your question.
0:21:19 – Beata
Yeah, thank you, Jackie, for your question, and if anyone else has any questions, definitely let us know. We’d love to feature you on the show and with that we’ll say goodbye and we’ll see you next week. See you next time, bye, thank you, bye. Bye, everyone.
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