Chelo with Tahdig Recipe

A Traditional Persian Rice

In our series on traditional Iranian cuisine, you will find varied, healthy and delicious recipes.
First up, we help you prepare the special Persian rice. This is Chelo with Tahdig.

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Chelo with Kebab

Ingredients for 4 Portions

• 10-11 oz. golden or white Basmati rice
• 2  oz. butter
• 1 oz. salt
• water
• a pinch of ground saffron (optional)
• a medium size nonstick pot
• small holed pitted colander
• kitchen spoons
• clean kitchen cloth
• (flame diffuser plate if needed)

Preparation

Wash the rice and soak it afterwards for an hour before cooking, in cold water. Fill 2/3 of a medium size pot with water, add the salt and bring it on boil. (This amount of salt might seem too much, but after boiling the rice, the salty water will be drained from it.)

Drain the soaking water from the rice by pouring it into a colander in the sink. The smaller holes the colander has, the better, not to loose grains. Put the rice into the salty boiling water and let it boil for about 5 minutes. Stir the rice a couple of times with a kitchen spoon.  Before draining the hot water from the rice, take some grains out with a slotted spoon to check if they are half cooked. The texture of them must not be soft nor hard. Be careful not to overcook. Turn off the heat. Use the same colander in the sink to drain the water and set aside the rice until further preparations.

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Persian Rice Tahdig

Rinse the pot and wipe it with kitchen roll paper. Wrap the lid into a clean kitchen-cloth to make sure excess steam will be absorbed during steaming. Place the pot back on the stove, put in the butter, set medium heat and let the butter melt.  Put the half cooked rice back into the pot and shape it into a cone with a kitchen spoon. Cover the pot with the wrapped lid. Let it steam until the steam starts to come out from under the lid. Set to minimum heat and let it steam under the lid for about 30-35 minutes. If a gas-stove is used, a flame diffuser plate might be placed under the pot in this phase. Do not remove the lid during the whole steaming process!

If ready, turn off the heat, take the pot from the hob and tilt the lid. Leave it for 5 minutes. Scoop the rice from the pot with a wide spatula carefully not to disturb tahdig, the golden crust that formed on the bottom of the pot. Serve the rice on a flat serving platter. (Note that the time of steaming might be even a little longer depending on the pot used, and also depending on the type of the rice. This also influences the colour of the tahdig).

Carefully loosen the sides of the tahdig with a kitchen spoon and try to take it out in one piece. This can be done by inverting the pot while holding the piece of tahdig  with a spoon or another suitable utensil. Serve it either in the same platter or separately.

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Saffron Rice

Saffron Rice (Optional):

Take a bowl in which 1/3 of the steamed rice fits. Put a pinch or two of ground saffron in it and pour 2 tablespoons of hot water on it. Mix the 1/3 of the steamed rice in this saffron solution and mix well to obtain the typical bright yellow colour. Serve the saffron rice as a decoration over the white rice.

If you liked this recipe, you might also be interested in this article:

Marvellous Persian Cuisine

Saffron: the World’s Most Expensive Spice 

Nowruz: The Persian “New Year”

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Mona Schunk

She studied at L.C. Anderson High School, Austin, Texas, then was admitted to Texas University. She earned her Masters at Budapest Business School from Communication and Media. She has been studying the field of Iranistics since the university years and has become an internationally acknowledged researcher.

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