Iranian Recipe: Tahcheen

Tahcheen means “arranged at the bottom of the pot” in Persian.

It’s a very delicious dish made with chicken, rice, eggs, yogurt and saffron.

It can be considered as a good meal mixed of all nutritional groups , also a good cuisine to be served for guests.

Ingredients: (4 servings)

♥ Chicken breasts, 1 kg (2 lb)
♥ Long grain rice, 500 grams (1 1/2 lb)
♥ yogurt, 300 grams (1 lb)
♥ saffron, 1/2 teaspoon
♥ large onions, three
♥ 3 eggs (yolks only)
♥ cooking oil and butter
♥ salt
♥ black pepper

Directions:

Start by washing rice and soaking it in warm water (with added salt) up to 2 hours. Then filter out the water.

Wash and cut chicken, remove skin, put it in a pot with some water, add one of onions, turmeric, salt and a touch of saffron and let it cook until the meat softens. You cook the chicken untill the time you be able to remove bones with ease. Take it out, drain and chop it and set aside.

Chop two other onions into thin slices and fry in oil until slightly golden. Then add the chicken to it and fry in onions for 2 or 3 minutes.

In a medium size pot, half filled with water, boil the rice for a few minutes, until the rice is half crunchy half soft when you chew on it. Take it out, drain it and set aside. You may want to wash off the rice in a stringer, if you used excessive amounts of salt to soak the rice.

In a big bowl Beat the yogurt until it is smooth. Dissolve saffron in half a cup of hot water. Add saffron, salt, pepper and egg-yolks to the yogurt and mix very well. Then mix the cooked rice with it. Stir in one direction untill all rice take the yellow color of saffron.

Pour several spoons of oil and several spoons of the yogurt mix into a non-stick pot.

Add a thick layer of rice and flatten using the back of a spoon. Add a layer of chicken on top followed by the rest of rice. Again flatten the rice. Spread several more spoons of the yogurt mix on the rice. Add some more butter on top, close the lid, put the heatsetting at high for a minute or so until the rice starts steaming.

Turn the heat setting to low and let it cook for about an hour and a half to two hours. The lower the heat and the longer the cooking time, the crustier and darker the bottom layer becomes. Careful not to burn it.

P.S: For those who are vegetarian, they can use potato instead of chicken. Plus you can use less oil if you like. The foto is what i cooked last week. Click to see it larger..