Persian style slow-cooker chicken Biryani

In this post, I cooked the Indian favorite dish lamb biryani in slow-cooker. In the current post, using the same method, I cook the Persian favorite dish; Tah-chin(yogurt custard baked rice); in the slow cooker. I cook my Biryani with a whole chicken flavored with tarragon and lime. The Tah-chin custard is not so spicy as usual and only has saffron and sugar. I also found that there is no need to use egg yolks cause it does not make any difference



Ingredients:

1 medium whole chicken
bunch of tarragon
salt and pepper to season
1 lime
1/4 cup vertebrae oil
1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 cups of basmati rice, divided
1 TBSP sugar
salt and pepper
1 TBSP rich saffron solution
1 cup low fat (or 2%) Greek yogurt

I put plenty of tarragon underneath the skin

then pat dried with a paper towel and seasoned with salt and pepper

In a smoking hot pan, I browned the skin and drizzled some lime juice on the cavity side

I put the bird in the crock pot

I saute the onion in the same pan

Then added 1 cup of the rice to toast. The other half the rice should be boiled, semi-cooked and be drained.  See here for instructions on Persian style rice cooking

Then added sugar and saffron

I added some water; just enough to mix all the ingredients

The put it off the heat and added the yogurt; my drained rice was also ready to go!

I uniformly poured the saffron rice on the bird

To finish up, I layered the semi-cooked layer of rice. The two different textures of rice is the crux of the matter!
The lower layer is in contact with direct steam and will be soggy if is not raw. The top layer is almost in no contact with steam and will remain grainy if it is raw!

Then , I covered the top with parchment paper and heavy object to ensure that no steam escaping  

I cooked overnight with the low heat