Abgoosht Recipe (Dizi): Persian Lamb and Chickpea Stew
Abgoosht is a Persian lamb, chickpea and white bean stew that is eaten as two separate courses from one pot — first the broth, poured off and soaked into torn bread, then the solids, mashed to a coarse paste and eaten with flatbread, torshi and raw onion. The name means “meat water”. When it is cooked and served in the individual stone crock it is traditionally made in, the same dish is called dizi. Almost every problem people have with abgoosht comes from not knowing it is served in two parts, so that is where this guide starts.
How Abgoosht Is Actually Eaten
This is the part that gets left out, and it is the whole character of the dish.
- Strain the broth off. When the stew is done, tip the liquid out into a separate bowl, leaving the meat, beans and potato behind in the pot.
- Eat the broth first, as tilit. Tear flatbread into a shallow bowl, ladle the hot broth over it, and let it sit a minute until the bread goes soft. That is the first course.
- Mash the solids. Everything left in the pot — meat, chickpeas, beans, potato — gets pounded with a goosht-koob, a blunt masher, into a thick, coarse paste. This is goosht-koobideh.
- Eat the paste as the second course, scooped up with more bread, with raw onion, fresh herbs and torshi alongside.
One pot, two courses, in that order. If you serve it as a single bowl of soup with lumps of meat in it, you have made something perfectly edible that is not abgoosht.
Abgoosht or Dizi?
Same food, different vessel. Abgoosht is the dish. Dizi is the thick stone or clay crock it is cooked and served in, and by extension the name of the dish when served that way — often dizi sangi, stone dizi. In Iran a dizi sara is a restaurant that serves little else.
The crock is not decorative. Its walls hold heat so the stew keeps bubbling slowly for hours, and it arrives at the table still hot enough that straining and mashing at the table makes sense. A heavy Dutch oven gets you most of the way there.
Ingredients
Serves 4, with bread.
- 1½ lb bone-in lamb — shank, neck or shoulder. Bone in, not boneless.
- ½ cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
- ½ cup dried white beans, soaked overnight
- 1 large onion, quartered
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and halved
- 1 medium tomato, quartered, plus 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 3–4 dried limes (limoo amani)
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- Salt and black pepper
- A pinch of cinnamon (optional, regional)
- 8 cups water
To serve
- Flatbread — sangak, barbari or lavash
- Torshi, raw onion wedges, fresh herbs
- Dried mint, crumbled over the broth
Method
1. Soak the pulses overnight
Chickpeas and white beans both, in plenty of cold water, at least 8 hours. Drain and rinse. Skipping this does not just add cooking time — unsoaked pulses cook unevenly and some stay chalky however long you give them.
2. Start the meat and pulses together
Put the lamb, drained chickpeas, white beans, quartered onion and turmeric in a heavy pot with the water. Bring it to a boil and skim the grey foam off the surface for the first few minutes — this is the difference between a clear broth and a cloudy one, and the broth is half the meal.
Lower to a bare simmer, cover, and cook 1½ to 2 hours.
Meat and pulses go in at the same time, and nothing acidic joins them yet. That is deliberate — see below.
3. Pierce the dried limes and add them
Dried limes are hollow and they float. Pierce each one two or three times with a knife tip or a skewer so the broth can get inside and the flavour can get out. An unpierced dried lime bobs on the surface contributing almost nothing.
Add them now, with the tomato, tomato paste, salt and pepper. Simmer another 45 minutes.
4. Add the potatoes
Potatoes go in for the last 30–40 minutes only. Any earlier and they disintegrate into the broth and thicken it into sludge.
The stew is ready when the meat pulls from the bone with no resistance and the beans crush easily between two fingers. Total time is around 3 hours.
5. Strain, mash, serve
Strain the broth into a bowl. Pull the bones out of the solids and discard them, and fish out the dried limes — by now they are bitter and spent. Mash everything else to a coarse, spreadable paste.
Serve the broth first with torn bread and crumbled dried mint, then the paste with bread, onion and torshi.
Why the Acid Goes In Late
Dried limes, tomato and tomato paste all arrive after the beans have had an hour and a half on their own. That is not fussiness.
Acid reinforces the pectin in bean cell walls, which slows them from softening. Add dried limes at the start and you can simmer chickpeas for four hours and still find them grainy. It is the same principle behind salting beans late, and the reason gheymeh takes its dried limes in the second half of cooking rather than the first.
Give the pulses a clear run at the start, then introduce the sourness once they are nearly there.
On Dried Limes
Limoo amani are whole limes dried until they are hard, hollow and rattle when you shake them. Many producers blanch them in salted water first and finish them in the sun; others let them dry on the tree. They are not interchangeable with fresh lime or lemon juice: drying turns the brightness into something darker, slightly fermented and faintly bitter, and that bass note is what makes abgoosht taste like abgoosht.
- Pierce them, every time.
- Take them out at the end. Left in, the bitterness keeps leaching and will take over the pot.
- Black ones have simply been dried longer than tan ones, and either works here. If you are new to them, start with three rather than four.
- If you only have omani lime paste, use about a tablespoon and add it in the last half hour.
What Can Go Wrong
- Beans still hard after hours. Acid went in too early, or they were never soaked. Nothing recovers it on the day.
- Cloudy, muddy broth. The foam was not skimmed, or it boiled hard instead of simmering. Keep it at a bare tremble.
- Bitter. Dried limes left in too long, or too many. Three to four is plenty for this quantity.
- Watery paste. Not enough broth was poured off before mashing. Strain more thoroughly — the paste should be thick enough to scoop with bread.
- Potatoes vanished. They went in at the start. Last 30–40 minutes only.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main ingredients in abgoosht?
Bone-in lamb, dried chickpeas, dried white beans, onion, potato, tomato, turmeric and dried limes (limoo amani), simmered together in water for around three hours. Bread, torshi and raw onion are served alongside rather than cooked in.
What does abgoosht mean?
Literally “meat water” — ab is water and goosht is meat. The name describes the broth, which is poured off and eaten as its own course before the solids.
What is the best meat for abgoosht?
Bone-in lamb shank, neck or shoulder. The bone and connective tissue are what give the broth its body, so boneless meat makes a noticeably thinner result. Beef shank works if lamb is unavailable and needs a little longer.
What is the difference between abgoosht and dizi?
They are the same dish. Dizi is the stone or clay crock it is traditionally cooked and served in, and the name is used for the dish when it is served that way.
How do you eat abgoosht?
In two courses from one pot. Strain the broth off and eat it first poured over torn flatbread, then mash the remaining meat, beans and potato into a coarse paste and eat that with bread, raw onion and torshi.
Can I make abgoosht without dried limes?
You can, but it will taste like a generic lamb and bean stew. The dried lime is the defining flavour. A tablespoon of omani lime paste in the last half hour is the closest substitute; fresh lemon juice is not, because drying creates a darker, slightly fermented note that fresh citrus does not have.
Shop the abgoosht ingredients
Goaldees (also searched as Goldis) stocks the pantry side — dried limes, torshi and dried mint — shipped from California. If you would rather not spend three hours at the stove, the canned Persian meals guide covers the ready-made options, and the Persian stew guide explains where abgoosht sits among the khoreshts.
Shop the abgoosht ingredients
The Goaldees pantry items this recipe needs — dried limes for the broth, and the torshi and dried mint it is served with.
