{"id":14990,"date":"2021-08-28T13:53:18","date_gmt":"2021-08-28T17:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=14990"},"modified":"2021-08-28T16:23:45","modified_gmt":"2021-08-28T20:23:45","slug":"tahdig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=14990","title":{"rendered":"Tahdig"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was listening to The Splendid Table, the podcast hosted by Francis Lam, and one of his guests was Naz Deravian, author of the Persian cookbook Bottom of the Pot.<\/em> I don\u2019t own the cookbook (yet) but if the recipes are a fraction as compelling as her poetic storytelling, I\u2019m already a fan.<\/p>\n

They were discussing tahdig,<\/em> the Persian saffron rice dish that\u2019s all about that crispy layer that forms at the bottom of the pot \u2013 that is, it forms if you are either a seasoned culinary genius or extremely lucky in the kitchen. (In Persian, tah <\/em>means bottom, and dig <\/em>means pot.) This delicacy is rightfully beloved among many cuisines worldwide – you may be familiar with socarrat <\/em>in the preparation of Spanish paella or Chinese gu\u014db\u0101.<\/em> Wikipedia has a page titled Scorched Rice<\/a> that includes it, but if that\u2019s not an off-putting name, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n

During Ramadan last April, I made fesenjan<\/em><\/a> with duck and decided to see how well the (meager) leftovers would freeze. (For the record, it was as successful as any reheated leftover stew-like dish, which is to say not bad at all.) So, charmed and encouraged by Ms Deravian’s narrative recounting her experience with her mother’s tahdig, I set out to try my hand at making it as an accompaniment for the revivified khoresh.<\/em> I perused a number of recipes on the interwebs and came up with my own simplified (of course) procedure. Here\u2019s how it came out: <\/p>\n

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)<\/em>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nI think I may have initiated a new personal tradition for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year that heralds the spring equinox \u2013 that is, assuming I get extremely lucky in the kitchen again!
\n 
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Persia’s answer to socarrat. Read on…. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[147],"class_list":["post-14990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-cookin","tag-persian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14990"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15034,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14990\/revisions\/15034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}