Many Iranian dishes are cooked using rice, but the way of cooking them has its own subtleties. Tahchin is one such dish, which in addition to its delicious taste, has a beautiful appearance. The use of the two words “Tah” meaning bottom and end and “Chin” meaning stacking, is because the ingredients used in this dish are stacked layer by layer from the bottom of the dish to the top.

Tahchin, which can be considered a kind of rice cake, is cooked in different ways and all of them use rice, a type of meat, or a vegetable. Among the different types of Tahchin, the one cooked with chicken is the most common and popular.

Ingredients

Rice: four cups

Chicken meat: 800 grams

Onion: a large one

Yogurt: one cup (It is better to use condensed yogurt, which has a mild sour taste)

Ground saffron: two tablespoons

Egg: one

Chicken broth: one cup

Turmeric powder: one teaspoon

Oil, salt, and black pepper: as per taste

Barberry: one cup

Recipe

Soak the rice at least two hours before cooking. Chicken meat should be boneless. In order to improve the taste of the food, it is preferable to use chicken breast meat.

Soak the barberry an hour before cooking so that it gets a better color and becomes softer. Put the saffron together with three or four small pieces of ice in a container one hour before you start cooking and let the ice gradually melt and the saffron gets soaked. If it suits your taste, you can use 50 grams of butter to make the food fatter.

Put the chicken with chopped onion, salt, turmeric powder, two glasses of boiling water, and a tablespoon of oil in a pot and put it on the stove to cook. After the chicken becomes soft, remove it from the heat and keep it aside until the chicken meat cools. If the chicken meat contains bones, you can remove the bones after it has cooled. Chicken meat should be shredded.

Drain the water from the rice that you soaked earlier and put it in a pot of boiling water. Add some salt to it and wait until it is half-cooked. When the rice is half cooked, drain it and wash it with cold water.

Mix the yogurt, soaked saffron, salt, pepper, and a tablespoon of oil in a bowl. Take a quarter of it and put it aside, add the eggs to the rest, and continue stirring. If you want your food to get more color and taste of saffron, you can add saffron to the mixture along with eggs.

It is now time to steam the rice: pour a tablespoon of oil on the bottom of the pot. Combine two cups of rice with half of the egg mixture and spread it on the bottom of the pot to form the first layer of food. For the second layer, mix half of the shredded meat with the other half of the yogurt and egg mixture and spread on the first layer.

The third layer is made by mixing and spreading the rest of the shredded chicken and the rest of the rice. Finally, combine a cup of chicken broth with a quarter of the yogurt mixture that you left aside, and sprinkle it on the surface of the rice. In order for the Tahchin mixture to stick together well, gently press the surface of the rice with a skimmer.

If you want to add butter to your food, you should cut it into pieces and put it on top of the rice so that it melts while the rice is being steamed.

Cover the pot and steam the food for 1.5 to two hours. When the sides of the food become golden brown and the rice is completely soft, it is time to serve the food.

Tahchin is also cooked in the oven. To do this, the oven must be at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and the food must remain on the lowest shelf for 75 minutes. If you want to cook in the oven, cover the pot with foil.

How Is Tahchin Served?

First, drain the barberry juice and fry it together with almond and pistachio slices in a tablespoon of oil. According to your taste, you can add sugar to this mixture. You can fry these ingredients separately and mix them at the end.

Then remove the food from the stove and let it cool a bit. Place a big round dish on top of the pot and turn it upside down so that the food is placed on the dish in one mold and then use barberry mixture and slices to decorate it. Sometimes condensed yogurt is also used to decorate this dish.

Tahchin is usually served along with Sabzi-khordan (a mixture of vegetables that can be eaten raw), pickles, lettuce salad, or Shirazi salad (a type of salad made with chopped cucumber, tomato, and onion and flavored with salt, vinegar, or lemon juice). The lowest part of the food, which becomes darker in color, is called “Tahdig”. This part of the food is the most delicious and very popular among most Iranians.

Tahchin, which can be considered a kind of rice cake, is cooked in different ways and all of them use rice, a type of meat, or a vegetable. Among the different types of Tahchin, the one cooked with chicken is the most common and popular.