ḴOREŠ (or ḴOREŠT), name of a type of dish very frequently used in Persian cuisine. It consists of pieces of meat, fried with chopped onion in cleared butter (rowḡan), butter or vegetable oil, some herbs or vegetables which are first sautéed and then added to the meat; other ingredients may consist of legumes and dried fruits. Besides salt and pepper, other spices such as turmeric and saffron are added. The outcome is somewhat like a stew with vegetables, but with less liquid. The meat traditionally is that of lamb, but it could be veal, beef, chicken, turkey or some other fowl. In the Persian Gulf regions, fish is used instead of the above meats. In some local varieties, eggs are used instead of meat.

Ḵoreš is generally eaten together with cooked white rice in the form of either čelow (see BERENJ), i.e., steamed rice, the cooking of which involves rinsing of the rice after it has been boiled and half cooked, or kata (q.v.), i.e., cooked rice without rinsing. Normally, one spreads spoonfuls of ḵoreš over a serving of čelow or else puts it on the side of a serving of čelow. One eats the ḵoreš and chelow by taking a portion of each with a spoon. The taste derives essentially from the ḵoreš. Other words used for ḵoreš are qāteq/qātoq (Turkish) and qalya/qelya (mostly in older writings).

In Kār-nāma dar bāb-e ṭabbāḵi va ṣefāt-e ān (A manual of cooking and its characteristics) by Ḥājj Moḥammad ʿAli Bāvarči Baḡdādi, the first of two cooking manuals from the Safavid period edited and published by Iraj Afšar under the title of Āšpazi-e dawra-ye ṣafawi (Cooking in the Safavid period), thirteen varieties of ḵoreš are mentioned under qalya (pp. 143-58). Nur-Allāh, the chef of Shah ʿAbbās the Great, and the author of the second manual, Mādat al-ḥayāt (The substance of life), lists twelve sour qalyas and seven plain qalyas (pp. 231-34).

Modern authors list different varieties of ḵoreš. Rišār (Richard) Khan Moʾaddeb-al-Molk, in his book Āšpazi-e Irāni va farangi (Persian and European cooking) lists ten ḵoreš (pp. 72-75), whereas Rozā Montaẓami, in her Honar-e āšpazi (The art of cooking) lists 32 varieties of ḵoreš (pp. 809-40).

The chief ḵorešes prepared nowadays are ḵoreš–e qeyma, ḵoreš-e qorma-sabzi, ḵoreš-e fesenjān, ḵoreš-e naʿnā-jaʿfari, ḵoreš-e ālu-esfenāj, ḵoreš-e bādenjān, ḵoreš-e kadu, ḵoreš-e qeyma-bādenjān, ḵoreš-e beh, and ḵoreš-e āluča, in addition to local ḵorešes used in some provinces, particularly Gilan.