I want to eat that most famous of Iranian delicacies: tahdig. Lots of tahdig. I am so committed I nearly wrote it down on my visa application: Itinerary? I’m going to Tahdig, wherever I may find her. And what is tahdig? To understand tahdig one must forget everything one knows about rice. Iranian rice is unlike anything you have tasted before. It isn’t boiled or steamed or thrown unceremoniously into a rice cooker. No Iranian rice is first soaked and bathed like a Hindu princess. Then it is carefully simmered just until it begins to yield but its determined character and bite remain intact. Finally it is drained and returned to the pot in a footpool of melted butter and cooked over the gentlest of heat until it is so impossibly light and fluffy that it could fill the quilts and pillows of Buckingham Palace. Each grain of rice is perfectly separate and it is served piled high like wedding confetti, adorned with with streaks of bright yellow saffron and dotted with a final, loving pat of yet more butter. But the best part of all is still to come: the tahdig. A crisp, buttery golden crust of rice that is left to scorch on the bottom of the pan to just the right thickness, the tahdig is shattered into gem-like shards and scattered on top of the rice. It crunches and crackles and splinters deliciously in your mouth as you eat. Apparently in Iran you can go to a restaurant and order a whole luxuriant dish of nothing but tahdig and I intend to do exactly that. Why did I come to Iran? I came for tahdig.
