Potato Tahdig Recipe
Servings: 4 people
Ingredients
- 2 Potatoes medium
- 3 cup rice
- 1 tsp Salt
Instructions
- Rinse the potatoes and let them dry. Then, as shown in the picture below, cut them into thin layers. They should be thin enough to fry well. Tahdig (whether of bread or of potatoes) had better be of a thin layer.
- Soaking the rice: Clean the rice well, then rinse it several times and soak it in water for a few hours. If you're short of time (say 10 minutes), you'd better soak the rice in warm water.
- Boiling the water: In a non-stick pot, pour some water and put it on the heat. The amount of water should be enough for two knuckles to be above the rice. Bring the water to a boil.
- Pour the rice in the boiling water.
- Add some salt. As for 3 cups of rice roughly one tablespoon of salt will be enough. Stir a bit so as not to let the rice grains stick together.
- Draining the rice: Having half-cooked the rice, remove it from the heat and pour it into a drain. Rice grains ought not to be too soft, but rather firm. Do not put the lid on the pot. (cook until al dente)As for testing, when you take a grain of rice and place it under your teeth, the inside should still be slightly firm while the outside is cooked. Never allow the rice to cook and soften completely since in the next step they're going to steam and soften nicely.As a general rule, depending on the quality of rice it takes 3 to 5 minutes to get half-cooked. Of course, the cooking time depends on the grade of the rice and the gas heat; some sooner, some later (and some never these days!).
- Pour the rice into the strainer.
- To make potato tahdig, put a non-stick pot on low heat and pour some oil into it. As for a small pot, about 5 tablespoons would be enough. Once the oil is hot, place the slices in the bottom of the pot. You'd rather cover the entire bottom of the pot with slices, but don't worry if a small portion remains empty since those small parts would be well filled with rice. Fry them on both sides and sprinkle with salt.
- Having fried them, pour the cooked rice on it (and let them be steamed together on a low heat). Put the lid on the pot and wait for the rice to cook and tahdig form on the bottom of the pot.The time to steam rice depends on its quality, but generally it takes some 40 to 60 minutes for the rice to cook and the tahdig to form. In the first 5 minutes, turn the heat up a little bit (just a little) as to let the tahdig form, then turn the heat down so that the rice gets steamed.
- After the required time, remove the lid and test the rice. If it's cooked evenly, it means it's ready. If you feel it's not cooked yet, put the lid on immediately so that the steam doesn't escape.
- When your Persian rice with potato crust is ready, put it in a dish and then separate tahdig from the pot, cut it and put it in the dish (as a garnish).
