I touched on sour cherries before with my Nowruz post. Iranians love sour cherries, and they love them in all forms. That means they love it in rice dishes, they love it by itself (this dish), and they even love it in their drinks!
Why? Probably because sour cherries are iconically Iranian and they sort of symbolize Iranians in a way. We’re sort of sour but we’re also sweet, and if you take enough time to know us we make everything better! Sour cherries are also very good for your body which is another reason why Iranians love them, because there is nothing that Iranians love more than curing themselves by eating. You will not meet another group of people on earth who love food more and love to point to the nutritional value food has. Iranians will tout the benefits of sour cherries by stating that it cleans your blood, helps you poop (we love foods that do that by the way), and it will help fight off cancer. Whether it does all those things, I don’t know. I don’t really care. I like it because it tastes good.
Growing up, my Mom, Aunt, and Mommon Joon would bring back 5 gallon buckets full of sour cherries that they would then preserve to have for year round. I never understood the appeal as a kid because I wasn’t a huge fan of it all, chalk it up to being a stupid kid. But once my taste buds matured and I was able to cook the dishes myself, I realized how amazing the sour cherries are and how valuable they are. If you can pull off a good albaloo (sour cherry dish) you will have Iranians breaking down your door to get their hands on your food.
The essential starting point of any albaloo dish, is a good morabah (or preserve). Morabahs are essential at Iranian breakfast and outside of morabah beh (quince preserve), morabah albaloo is the most quintessential preserve at the Iranian breakfast table. Many folks will make morabah albaloo and then use the cherries within the preserve to make albaloo polow or the juice to make a drink.
Once you make this sour cherry preserve, you’ll never want another one again. The sweet tart flavor is unique and highly satisfying.
Recipe- Morabah Albaloo
Ingredients
4 Cups Pitted Sour Cherries (Fresh)
4 Cups of Sugar
A lot of water (5 or 6 Cups)
2 Tsp. Rose Water
Method
Step 1- Pit your cherries, I advise a nice Netflix series you want to binge watch because this is tedious! I have a cherry pitter which makes things slightly less horrible.
Step 2- Pour your cherries in a large pot.
Step 4- Add your sugar and rose water.
Step 5- Now add your water
Step 6- Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and allow the preserve to thicken.
Step 7 – Depending on how thick you like your preserve to be will decide how long you cook it. It will take probably at least 45 minutes to get the cherry juice/water/whatever to get a nice syrupy viscosity.
Step 8 – Once the cherry preserve has reached your desired thickness, pour it in a jar and serve with some delicious bread and jam.
*Alternatively* You can use these preserved cherries to make albaloo polow or you can take the juice and make Sharbat-e-Albaloo which is a future post :)*
- 4 Cups Pitted Sour Cherries (Fresh)
- 4 Cups of Sugar
- A lot of water (5 or 6 Cups)
- 2 Tsp. Rose Water
- Step 1- Pit your cherries, I advise a nice Netflix series you want to binge watch because this is tedious! I have a cherry pitter which makes things slightly less horrible.
- Step 2- Pour your cherries in a large pot.
- Step 4- Add your sugar and rose water.
- Step 5- Now add your water
- Step 6- Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and allow the preserve to thicken.
- Step 7 – Depending on how thick you like your preserve to be will decide how long you cook it. It will take probably at least 45 minutes to get the cherry juice/water/whatever to get a nice syrupy viscosity.
- Step 8 – Once the cherry preserve has reached your desired thickness, pour it in a jar and serve with some delicious bread and jam.
- *Alternatively* You can use these preserved cherries to make albaloo polow or you can take the juice and make Sharbat-e-Albaloo which is a future post :)*
