Saffron is a delicious and popular spice that’s known for its superb flavour, taste and colour and it’s used everywhere.
The spice is derived from the stigma of a flower of the saffron crocus plant. It is one of the most expensive best spice in price per pound, ounce and you can grow the plant if you’ve favourable growth conditions in your region.
Saffron is not just one of the costliest spices in the world, that’s if not the best. It has several uses and very medicinal and has been proven clinically to have health benefits.
To get the best quality saffron, there are some quality saffron brands to get original saffron products in the USA, Kashmiri in India, Spain, Dubai, and Iran.
A very popular one is Mehr and you can also order online from Amazon, eBay, Alibaba and other quality E-commerce sites.
The fact that saffron spice is predominantly grown in the Persian and Indian regions, as well as in some parts of the Mediterranean and Morocco, most of the recipes of Moroccan, Mahatma-Indian, Mediterranean saffron yellow rice with chicken, risotto-Italian, Spanish saffron recipes with basmati rice and other Persian dishes prepared with saffron can also be found out of these culinary cultures.
Indian Saffron Rice
Ingredients
2 Cups of water for 1 Cup of rice grain
5 teaspoons of butter
1 /8 teaspoons of powdered saffron spice
a teaspoon of salt
Onions, Meat, fish and other ingredients
Preparation
Boil the water and divide it into two
Mix the saffron spice in one-half of the boiled water
Cook your meat with onion, add other ingredients and when done, sieve the water.
Pour your rice into the water you just sieved and cook
Melt the butter for a few minutes, add it to the rice, add salt and cook for 20 minutes.
Ensure the rice absorb the butter and don’t let the water dry completely.
Now, add the water spiced with saffron spice and cook for 15 minutes or till the rice absorbs all the liquid, stir a bit and serve.
Saffron Lemon Roasted Chicken
Ingredients
1 roaster chicken
1 fresh lemon
One-quarter teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper
1 large pinch saffron threads
2 teaspoons of sea salt
Preparation
Add the Cayenne pepper, Sea salt and saffron threads together in a small bowl.
Stir very well to mix everything or blend with a grinder to make it snappy.
Clean your chicken and dry the skin. Steep the chicken into the pepper pasta and rub the pepper in and out of the chicken.
You can now heat the chicken in an oven to about 350 degrees or a little more.
Cut your fresh lemon into two squeeze some juice into the chicken, and tuck both halves of the lemon in there.
Tuck the wingtips of the chicken under and truss the legs. Ensure the chicken is cool and comes to room temperature before you start roasting.
Chop your potatoes and pour in your roasting pan, toss the potato in a small amount of olive oil to prevent sticking before you start roasting your chicken and salt and pepper to it.
Roast the chicken in the oven and bake the chicken and the chopped potatoes for at least one hour.
After that, bring out the chicken from the oven and allow to cool.
Remove from the oven; transfer the chicken to a clean cutting board and allow to rest for at least 20 minutes.
Make rings with the potatoes heat for a few minutes and serve your food with green salad or sugar snap peas.
Saffron Rice with Raisins and Cashews
Ingredients
2 Cups of water 2 Cups of Basmati rice
1 Tablespoon of white sugar
3 Tablespoons of Raisins
1 TSP of ground cardamom powder
2 TSP of clarified butter
A pinch of Saffron Spice
7 cloves
1 /4 Cups of Cashews
and other ingredients
Preparations
Boil your water in a pot
Take half a cup of boiled water and soak saffron spice in it for about 10 minutes
pour the rice in the boiling water for 5 minutes
After 5 minutes, add your sugar and clarified butter and cook
Now, add the half cup of water with saffron spice to your rice, add raisins, Cloves and your cashews and mix everything well together and steam for about 10 minutes and make sure the rice absorbs all the water content and becomes soft (done)
When you feel the rice is now eatable, sprinkle the cardamom powder on it and enjoy.
Chicken and Yellow Rice with Saffron
Ingredients
3 Cups of water
2 Cups of White grain rice
Half TSP of dried parsley flakes
Half a Cup of butter
One pinch of saffron threads
Yellow food colouring
Half cup of Diced onion (You may not use all)
Teas and other ingredients
Preparations
Melt the butter by heating it in a frying pan; add the diced onion and stir very well to have a good mix.
Cook for a few minutes and stir the onion till it becomes soft. This should be for about 5 minutes, after that, lower the heat and continue cooking till the onion becomes dark brown; this could take about 15 minutes before it’s done.
Now, pour your rice and stir very well, add parsley flakes, yellow food colouring and saffron spice, stir again and cook for about 25 minutes till the food is done and there’s no water in the rice again.
You can now enjoy your yellow rice with peas, cod, fish, chicken and juice.
Many of these dishes, including saffron rice with pilaf, creamy saffron sauce recipes, casserole, chicken and saffron rice which we call Oriental, have become popular among Europeans.
For example, saffron rice and saffron chicken are more often prepared in our local dishes in the USA.
In the case of saffron chicken, for example, a traditional Moroccan dish, it is very easy to cook.
For this purpose, three to four medium-sized onions are simply halved in a pot and then diced in the pot with hot olive oil.
Ensure that the oil does not become too hot, as olive oil burns quickly and then loses the bitter content.
If the onions are nicely glazed, you can either add a whole chicken or remove the thighs and arms, spice them with ginger, Curry cumin spice, pepper and a little salt to make it tasty.
Rub the ingredients onto the chicken, and fry them.
In Morocco, for example, there are still pickled butter and a quarter of pickled lemon, but you can still have good dishes without these ingredients.
After you’ve fried your chicken, remove them from oil, put in a bowl, add a little water season it with spice again and then cook it for a few minutes under low heat to make it become simmered.
Just before the chicken is ready to be cooked, there are quartered potato crevices and peas to add to the taste. If necessary, after tasting, it can be spiced again.
The saffron spice is only added about half an hour before the end of the cooking time.
In addition to a special aroma and unique colouring, it also gives the dish an irresistible and unique taste.
If you are cooking with real saffron spice, it is important to remember that this spice is not only extremely expensive but also extremely high. So, on a serving for four people, four to five threads of this quality spice are already enough.
The ground version is slightly cheaper, as it is often simply stretched a little. It is mainly used for soups and saffron rice.
In the countries of origin, the saffron spice in the form of the threads is usually only used for meat dishes and due to the high price, it’s also only often used on special occasions.