Tahchin — Saffron Chicken Rice Bake with spinach
Tahchin — Saffron Chicken Rice Bake with spinach. Independently written modern Persian halal variation, with broad culinary inspiration from Najmieh Batmanglij, Food of Life: Ancient Persian and…
- 300 g basmati rice
- 500 g halal-certified boneless chicken thigh
- 200 g halal-certified plain yogurt
- 2 piece eggs
- 30 ml olive oil
- 0.3 g saffron threads
- 4 g salt
- 100 g onion
- 1800 ml cooking water
- 100 g fresh spinach
- Rinse rice and soak for 30 additional minutes, then drain. Wash and chop the spinach. Steep saffron in 30 ml measured hot water for 10 minutes. Heat oven to 180 °C.
- Simmer chicken and sliced onion in 350 ml measured water for 20–25 minutes until chicken reaches 74 °C; drain and shred. Cook the variation vegetables in 100 ml measured water for 8–10 minutes until tender, then drain.
- Boil remaining cooking water with half the salt. Cook rice for 6 minutes until partly tender, then drain. Mix eggs, yogurt, saffron water, remaining salt and 20 ml oil; fold in rice. Grease a 22 cm ovenproof dish with remaining oil.
- Press half the rice into the dish, add chicken and vegetables, then remaining rice. Cover and bake 35 minutes; uncover for 15–20 minutes until golden and the centre reaches 74 °C. Rest 10 additional minutes and cut into four portions. Cool leftover rice rapidly in shallow containers and refrigerate at 4 °C within 1 hour; use within 24 hours.
- Photo: Qomboy — Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tahchin.jpg Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 Resized and converted to JPEG; no crop. Saffron rice bake illustration; filling and added vegetables may differ.