Welcome to the second post of my Tahchin trilogy series (See 1st here). The making of this Tahchin is started with poaching the chicken in a broth of assorted aromatic spices. The chicken is shredded; the aromatic broth used to parboil the rice in. As the chicken is skin-on, the broth will have enough fat (i.e. Schmaltz) and there will be no need for external fat (e.g. butter, yolks,…) to be added. This version of my on-going trilogy is plausibly closest to the traditional Tahchin; though twisted from the traditional and fairly unorthodox!
Ingredients:
3 cups Jasmine rice
4 cups of the aromatic broth (recipe follows)
1 cup Greek yogurt (plain with 2% fat)
2 TBSP maple syrup
1 TBSP rich saffron solution
½ cup barberries
Chicken from the aromatic broth (recipe follows), shredded
Aromatic broth:
4 Pounds (~1.8 kg ) chicken thighs (bone-in and skin)
2 bay leaves
2 star anise pods
12 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
20 peppercorns
1 rosemary sprig
1 large white onion
6 cups water
1 TBSP salt
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Poach the chicken by adding all the ingredients listed on the Aromatic broth to a large pot. Removed the fully cooked chicken, separate 4 cups of the broth, and strain.
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Reduce the remaining broth to ¼ cup.
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Shred the cooked chicken (when cool enough to handle) and combine with the barberries and reduced chicken broth; set aside.
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Parboil the rice in the reserved broth on high heat. Add no more salt as the amount in the broth recipe is calculated to cover the entire dish.
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Cook until the rice is almost dry but still very al-dente. Mix the cooked rice with the yogurt, maple, and saffron. Unlike other Tahchin recipes, the fat comes from rendered chicken fat.
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To assemble the Tahchin, spread half of the rice on the bottom of a 4-6 Q.t. heavy non-stick pan. The pot should be at least 10 inches (~25 cm) in diameter and 5 inches (~12cm) deep. Arrange an even layer of shredded chicken over rice and finish with the other rice half.
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Here we go!. This recipe should give you two of what you see in the picture and will feed 5 or 6. like me, you can cook the dish in two smaller 2-3 Q.t. pans or skillets.
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The cooking procedure is similar to the previous post. In brief: Cooking happens on the stovetop with a piece of cloth wrapped around the lid; it starts with 5 minutes on high and continues for 90 minutes on low. When done, the edges of the rice start to crisp up as you can see above.
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As it was mentioned in the previous post :
“Tip2: You can start sampling the rice on the side to see if it is crispy enough. Remember the bottom rice (that you can’t access) is always much darker than the side rice. So consider that.”
Here you can precisely compare the bottom and side colors.
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