Regional
The kabab world is wider than most home cooks realize. Walk from Istanbul to Tehran along the kabab belt and you'll pass through at least a dozen distinct traditions, each with its own meat, spice profile, and serving ritual — but almost all of them using the same fundamental
Entertaining
"Mehmooni" is Persian for "having people over for dinner" — except in Iranian culture it's a more loaded word. There's an expectation of tarof (formal hospitality), an unspoken contest of who can serve more, and a strong cultural rule that no one leaves
Tools
If you spend enough time on cooking blogs, you'll come away thinking Persian kababs require a lab full of gear. They don't. We've made Koubideh, Joojeh, Barg, and Soltani platters out of friends' kitchens with the absolute minimum. Here's the list
Koobideh
You make Koubideh at home. It's good. Your friends are polite. But there's something the restaurant version has — that smoky depth, that perfect crust, that meat hangs straight on the skewer look — that yours doesn't quite hit. The recipe isn't the secret.
Skewers
You did everything right. You ground the lamb twice, you grated the onion fine, you kneaded the meat for ten full minutes until it was almost paste. You rested it in the fridge for two hours. You built a hot charcoal fire. You went to slide the skewer over the
Recipes
If you only learn one Persian recipe, learn this one. Chelo — plain saffron-steamed basmati — is the canvas every other Persian dish gets painted on. Kabobs sit on it. Stews drape over it. Yogurt scoops onto it. And buried at the bottom is the tahdig: a slab of golden, crackling rice
Recipes
You've seen this rice. Long-grain basmati, half white and half deep saffron-gold, scattered with ruby-red barberries that look almost too jewel-like to eat. It's the rice on every wedding table, every Nowruz spread, every Friday lunch where the family is gathering. Zereshk Polo ba Morgh — barberry
Recipes
If you've made our classic Koubideh a few times and you're ready to play with the recipe, this is where to start. Tabrizi-style Koobideh comes from northwest Iran — Azerbaijani-influenced, peppery, with chili flakes (Aleppo or Marash if you can get them) worked into the meat. The
Recipes
There's a reason every Persian kabab plate has a bowl of yogurt next to it. The grill gives you smoke, salt, and char. The yogurt gives you everything you need to come back from it — cool, tangy, herbal, and just thick enough to scoop with bread. Mast-o-khiar (literally
Recipes
Every Persian kabab dinner ends the same way. The skewers come off the grill, the platter empties, the tea comes out — and then comes sholeh zard, the saffron-gold rice pudding that's been chilling in the fridge since morning. It's a quiet dessert. It doesn't
Tools
If you've ever wondered why your kababs slide, droop, or split right down the middle on the grill, the answer almost always comes back to the skewer. The meat is doing what it always does. The tool isn't. At Arta we settled on three numbers — 600
Tools
The set arrives in a canvas pouch — six skewers, tied closed with a simple drawstring. There's a moment, the first time you slide them out, that feels like opening your grandfather's tool roll. That's intentional. Why a canvas pouch and not a box A