Recipes

The Grilled Tomato — The Persian Kabab Side That Steals the Show

Shima Movahedian

26 May 2026 — 2 min read

Every Persian kabab platter at every Persian restaurant in the world has a grilled tomato on it. Most people leave it on the plate. Most people are wrong.

A properly grilled Persian tomato is half side dish, half sauce — when you crush it onto your rice with the back of a spoon, it becomes the tomato-y, slightly smoky, juice-soaked layer that pulls the whole plate together.

Ingredients

4 Roma tomatoes (or any meaty tomato; cherry skips the structure you want)
1 teaspoon flaky salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Method

1. Skewer

Thread each tomato through the stem end onto a wide flat skewer, two per skewer. Stem-end first keeps the skin from tearing under the meat's weight.

2. Grill

Same charcoal you used for the kababs, same heat. Drop the tomato skewers on after the meat comes off — let them get the residual heat. 5-7 minutes total, turning twice. You want the skin charred and blistered in patches but the flesh still holding together.

3. Salt

Pull off, salt immediately while hot. Drizzle olive oil.

How to eat it

On your plate next to the rice and kabab. Pick it up with your fork. Crush the flesh into the rice — the warm tomato juice + char + olive oil + salt + saffron rice becomes a single mouthful that hits four flavors. That's what makes a Persian kabab plate distinct from just "kabab over rice."

Why on a skewer

You could grill the tomatoes loose. They'd roll, they'd split, they'd lose juice. On a skewer they stay whole, char evenly, and arrive at the table intact for the crush moment.

Wide flat skewers help here for the same reason they help with meat: surface area to grip the tomato weight.

Variations

Grilled banana pepper alongside — alternate Roma and a sweet banana pepper per skewer. Mild heat, color contrast.
Cherry tomato cluster — for parties, skewer a vine of cherry tomatoes. Easier to grab, looks impressive.

The Persian rule

Never serve a Persian kabab without a grilled tomato. Even if it's just one. Even if you have to walk to the corner store at 6 PM. The plate isn't right without it.

— The Arta Kitchen family

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