As an Iranian I was thrilled to see how amazing you got the tahdig. It’s a pretty stressful dish and persian moms flip over 10-12 cups of rice easily and the tahdig is amazing each time. Love the channel and hope to see you try out some persian stews as well
I am really happy to see a foreign chef cook Iranian Tahdig dishes so well. It is really nice to see the crispy and golden surface of this dish. Hoping to make Ghormesabzi by Brian chef 😁👌🤩
Told my wife that we're going to have whatever Brian's Thursday video is for dinner on Friday night. Looks like we're having three rice dishes for dinner 🤣
I'm always greatful for the "what didn't work" parts of the recipes. It makes it so much easier to make the right adjustments (and spot mistakes 😅) in your own kitchen 🤘
Better Than Bouillon is a five star product, so it's an impressive endorsement that speaks volumes about the quality of Brian's content. Well done, Brian! - and well deserved.
My wife is Persian and for 33 years I’ve been in heaven eating tahdiq, and it’s cousin Tah-cheen which is taller and often stuffed with things like chicken and plums. Great video Brian.
@@arthurinusa they can argue it with the other folks. I found it under the other spelling. I’ll just note that I have seen it spelled both ways while looking for recipes.
Watching you tackle Persian rice and tahdig is like watching someone trying to solve a Rubik's Cube for the first time: a mix of determination, slight confusion, and pure joy. Great to see your spirited attempts! Keep going! I'm a persian and proud of your work! 👍👏😊
Good sponsorship. Better than bouillon should definitely be paying you. I started using their products 100 percent because of this channel. Now I always keep the chicken and beef varieties on hand.
Same here. For whatever reason I always assumed it would be a not so good product and never wanted to try it until I started watching Brian. I am now officially a customer solely because of him.
Best sponsor ever. My absolute favorite prepared item in the kitchen. If I haven't had time or leftover trimming to make stock, BTB is an instant way to pump up that flavor.
Puerto Rican here. I love that you added sofrito rice to the mix. It looked so good too! if you liked that I suggest Arroz con Gandules. Same thing but with a little extra added too it.
The first and the third are Persian recipes, adjusted to American users' available ingredients. Very nice and really flavorful. (The lime juice and parsley are the Persian signatures). Thank you Brian . (Oh, I always use Better than Bullion, VEGAN collection)
@@CnutLongswordthat explains it, I've only ever known the Russian type of pilaf, which is very very very different than what Brian showed. I was so confused, like, how can he be so sure it's pilaf if it's nothing like any pilaf I've ever encountered ever!
Thank you for your rice pilaf recipe! I was asked to bring a side to our friend's house for dinner and I made it since I already had everything on hand. Everyone was complimenting it, even the children! You could tell they were almost surprised by the flavor 😂. I figured if I'm gonna bring a side I want it to be a banger and this didn't disappoint.
A turkish friend of mine taught me to cook rice similarly to your pilaf. She uses risoni pasta which also cooks in the same time as the rice. It ends up looking a little like a rice/wild rice mixture but with the wonderfully nutty flavour that the browned butter gives. The last trick is to place a folded clean teatowel under the lid while it sits…the towel soaks up any excess liquid so that your rice is as fluffy and seperate as possible….oh i just saw you use this technique in the last dish. Great video, thankyou, i am looking forward to trying all 3
Love to see the Iranian rice dish! I had a friend who immigrated from Iran and her mom would make it for special occasions and it was amazing every time. Everybody would fight over the crispy bits, which had a special name that I can't remember. So dang tasty
Out of all the ads on youtube (A LOT), I have never been so excited as I am for these new Better than Boullion flavors. I LOVE their vegetarian bases, and I am so exited to try the adobo and chipotle ones! 🎉 Really a top-notch video, I am so inspired by these recipes too.
Congrats on the BTB sponsorship, you deserve it. You're the reason I started using it over a year ago. We used to have a (I think) regional product that's similar but in the past decade it kind of disappeared at all the grocery stores we shop at. BTB is more expensive but def a better product. I put it in almost everything.
FINALLY got the BTB sponsorship!!!! Love that stuff, been using it for years. TBH, you using it was one of the selling points of my appreciation for your recipes. It's good stuff. Congratulations!!
As iranian-american i just want to let you know tahdig (tah-deeg) refers to the bottom of the pot (tah=bottom, deeg=pot) when making rice, its not particularly a main dish but rather what is made along with rice. There is a rice dish where the rice is the main dish which is called called tahchin (tah-cheen) which is a rice dish with yogurt, egg yolks and typically chicken mixed in. I'd recommend watching multiple videos on how to make it because everyone takes different routes to end with similar results. Also congrats on the better than bouillon sponsorship
yes I have read about this in my wonderful Persian cooking book by Margaret Shaida, so rich with stories and history as well as recipes. But I have not had the courage to try either, yet!
As a Puertorrican currently living in Puerto Rico, I have to say I have never seen this "sofrito rice" even, though we do use sofrito for most of our stewed rices. Also, our sofrito is VERY different. Poblano peppers aren't something you are going to find in Puertorrican sofrito. We use "aji dulce" (or sweet pepper in English), which is a sweet, tiny, disc-shaped pepper that has no heat, and although you may find cilantro being used sometimes (not always) in sofrito, the one herb that can't be missing is culantro (not to be confused with cilantro). We also don't really tend to add cumin. This looks more like what we simply call "arroz guisado" (stewed rice) although the flavor profile you are going for here seems closer to ingredients used in Mexican cooking which kind of misrepresents Puertorrican cuisine. Just pointing that out since you said the dish is "Puertorrican".
Culantro is actually really difficult to find in the continental US. If you can find it at all, it will most likely be at a Vietnamese oriented grocer.
I am always so impressed with your dedication, even to the B-roll, such as showing the chopping option for the sofrito, and all the attempts to make the tahdig in the dutch oven
I really appreciate not only the explanation on *what* to do, but also the reasons *why* you do certain things. A lot of people explain which techniques they use, but don't fully describe why they use their techniques.
Perfect timing! Upping my rice game came up this week and, I'll be trying at least the first two very soon. The towel trick I saw in your video with Ethan, helped me out yesterday. I started buying Better Than Bouillon because of your show. I can't wait to see how the Adobo one tastes in your chilli. Great lessons Chef 👌
As an Iranian I should mention that basmati rice is not the perfect rice for tahdig. It comes out a bit dry and doesn’t have the smell and flavor of the Iranian rice. Another thing is that Iranians eat this rice with chicken or other stews, the rice itself is not the main dish. If they want to make this into a whole meal, they mix eggs, yogurt (not these sweet watery yogurts in your grocery stores; preferably sour Turkish style yogurt or if you can’t find it, greek yogurt would work fine, too) and that saffron water Brian made. Then they add the strained rice into the mixture and pour it into an oiled pan. They also put some shredded chicken and barberry between the layers of that rice mixture and let it cook. It’s called tahchin. You can search it on RUclips to see how exactly it’s made. But anyways, I am so proud of you making Iranian dishes! If you wanted to cook any other Persian food, I’m here for help.
what rice is better than basmati? I'm in Australia, hopefully I can find it. I made Brian's version with basmati and it wasn't dry but a bit too oily so I will reduce the butter a bit.
Persian here Theres a dish thats really similler to the one you made its called tahchin. Its basically the same but you add yugert saffran and egg to the rice and theres a chicken mixture in between the rice layers you should defently try that one too.❤
I am really happy to see a foreign chef cook Iranian Tahdig dishes so well. It is really nice to see the crispy and golden surface of this dish. Hoping to make Ghormesabzi by Brian chef 😁👌🤩
As a seasoned home cook...it's still nice to see a professional chef goof up now and then. I don't goof up often, but when it happens it actually makes me sick at my stomach Thank you for including your goofs!❤
I usually don't like vegetable stock, but I have been using the BTB vegetable base and wow is it ever good. I have been using them all forever and I just love them. Cool to see the partnership.
This is pegado!! PR style rice always has toasty bottom rice and it's not as complicated to be honest as this video. Lots of similarities to middle eastern cooking though. I can see the influence.
That tahdig has my name all over it, even though I’ve never heard of it before. I can just tell that once I master the technique it’s going to become a staple of my diet!
Brian - your channel is by far one of my favorites. Love your approach on making "chefy" techniques more accessible to the home cook. I do have a video/series request for ya! I'm a fulltime working momma of three boys but I am on this journey to cooked *most* things from scratch and to eliminate as much processed food as possible. I've been trying to approach my week with a menu and, not full on meal prepping, but am trying to batch cook things to keep on hand or in the freezer. I'd love to hear your perspective on running your kitchen like a restaurant - things to prep on a sunday for meals throughout the week or to keep in the freezer (like carmelized onions, garlic confit, other flavor enhancer-ish things??), I've worked in restaurants as FOH, and naturally, when you go out to eat, kitchens aren't cooking everything right to order, just assembling things. Trying to wrap my head around this approach so that my weeknight dinners are much easier and much tastier than meat, grain, veg. Any sort of tips or insights would be incredible!!! thanks, brian!! 😀
This tahdig looks good. The way the Mediterranean restaurant I worked at did it was boiled it to ~80% cooked through, then let it cool down in the fridge. Then did the same steps as you.
Tahdig and kabab lamb and tomatos, it is my favourite dish. And your tahdig looks great ! 👌🏼💙 Also: in iran we usually put a layer of plain rice on top of Tahdig rice to make the whole dish at the end more balanced.
I've used Better than Buoillon for years and loved it, what a great sponsorship! I've actually been trying to expand my rice repertoire in the home, so this video came at a great time! It's cheap, decently healthy, keeps forever, goes with just about all cuisines, it's hard to beat. I'd love to see a 2.0 version of this video, perhaps adding some protein to the mix. There's infinite combinations of "chicken and rice", I'd really enjoy a couple variations vetted by you. Thanks for the great video!
Iranians are the masters of rice dishes. My first attempt at one was baghali polow, a heavy dill-based rice dish with saffron and chickpeas. The tahdig turned out perfectly, which was exciting because it was before I got serious about cooking, and was, indeed, the most complicated dish I'd ever tried to that point. Once you've had a dish like that, with a perfect tahdig, you'll have to agree. Iranians are the rice masters of the world!
I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't love tadigh (even if most of them pronounce it funny). Seriously happy to see you make it. I think the your method is legit since you should just do whatever helps you make it the way you like and I've seen the frying pan in other videos BUT I've never seen someone do the frying pan. Of course, not everyone needs to go on hard mode and put in the years to be a tadigh master. If you're curious, here's the method my family members tend to follow: We typically do it all in one pot. And the key for me (as is the case with so much Persian cuisine) is to go with low heat over a long time. Cook it in water until the rice is *not quite cooked*, remove the rice (and any remaining water), add oil to the pot, add back the rice (plus any mix-ins like potato at the bottom, coriander seeds, or dill and lima beans). You should kind of make a pyramid/mound of rice. Your towel-lid game is spot on. Only other thing I'd recommend would be pouring a bit of oil down those little holes you make. You can't be too shy with the oil. Then, just try to keep it about as low as you can for about as long as you can. It's the best and good tadigh is usually the first thing to be finished when everyone's dishing up their plate. Beyond that, one of the best parts of Persian rice is that everyone makes it their way. Especially when it comes to mixing things in or even when it's coming up with your exact method ("it only works right when i use this specific pot..."). And it comes out a liiitle different every time. There's so much room to make it special every time.
Brian, I LOVE Tahdig - but I have an 'extra' for you to try. Using the same amount of oil and butter in that pan, then line the entire bottom with raw thin-sliced potatoes, then your rice. 'Seal' the pan by placing a sheet of aluminum foil under the lid. You are going to love it! Promise! That thing you said about the popcorn? True!
Glad Better than Bullion finally took notice of all the free advertising you've provided through the years. Another homerun!!! Can't wait to try all of these 😋
As expected, the entire Iranian diaspora is in the comments section because you made tahdig. Love to see it! It's been hilarious seeing other foodtubers try their hand at it but failing. Appreciate you giving it a try yourself! But as my late grandmother would insist, you could always use more butter! One thing to definitely try would be havij polo (carrot rice). It's my favourite Persian dish and I haven't seen it anywhere in RUclips yet, probably because it's not as famous as koobideh or fesenjān.
Rice, pasta, and chicken base are basically what is in a box of Rice-A-Roni. I usually make R-A-R with a little bullion powder, cayenne, garlic and onion, and finish with something green like parsley or cilantro. Brian's version definitely will have better fresh flavor, but you know, sometimes we're lazy.
Ay, I make tadik all the time! You did it all right. You even picked up on the little things like adding a lot of salt to water and poking holes. That said, I do a few things differently. I soak the rice for 2-4 hours in warm water. I also blanch it for more like 5 minutes. I don't add the safron to the rice nor do I add water to the safron. I only add it to the oil on the bottom so it only make the crust colored. The tadik is the crust, not the whole rice. I also recommend using a non-stick pan for this rice. I also let it cook for like 3 hours on medium low and move it around like you do. It cannot really burn if you figure out the flame. Great instructions!
I'm glad to see BTB sponsoring you. It's an awesome product, for one, and this is an awesome channel for 2. I tend to use their vegetable base for everything, but I'm sure their chicken and beef bases are good too, along with the rest. Great video. Rice is such a tricky little F'er sometimes.
Can confirm every base they have is good. I’ve had chicken, beef, veggie, and roasted onion. The onion ones actually really great if you don’t wanna carmalize onions but want that flavor.
Confident and tahdig are not words I use in the same sentence. Haha! One of the most stressful dishes I've made, but also one with the most amazing flavor & texture payoff. Absolutely delicious!
Tahdig is the best tasting rice ever!!!!! im glad you liked it. Also its best to brine it over night, that removes the arsenic from the rice! Thats how persians make it
As someone who is Persian and comes from a family of amazing cooks, I give my stamp of approval on your tahdig; it looks spot on! Most Persian rice dishes, whether just for plain rice or ones that contain meat or vegetables have a similar cooking method and will turn out beautiful tahdig if done right. Most of them will require a deeper pot, and I would suggest using one with the same non-stick type coating that Brian used in his final successful tahdig dish (although his was a much shallower sauté pan). A cast iron dutch oven, while the right size, just doesn't work well, as he demonstrated.
Hi Bri - I am definitely going to make the Sofrito Rice first using the Better Than Boullion sofrito seasoning. I have made Tahdig and Rice Pilaf before but your techniques are promising and I will give them a try using the Bri-method. Getting the Better Than Bouillion sponsorship is awesome, and learning about their new additional flavor choices, along with the ability to use the Bri discount is wonderful! Thx!
I remember you saying the crispy rice dish was one of the dishes you were intimidated by. So glad to see you were able to pull it off. It looks delicious.
For those who don't want to break up raw pasta for whatever reason, 'chopped angel hair' is available in most supermarkets these days, sometimes called 'fideo'. Occasionally it's hidden in the spanish&mexican foods section, but I often see it in the usual dry pasta aisle.
I really appreciate you showing and talking about your failures. I've been cooking for about 10 years snd sometimes I get down on myself since social media/RUclips chefs never show the "real" side of things like this (everything is perfect the first time, no mistakes etc.), so it's refreshing to see that even a chef as great as yourself can in fact screw up.
Just discovered you Brian, my wife and I really like your content. She's also a big fan of the Better Than Bouillon product line. Much love and good luck. 😎✌
Follow up questions: 1) Any reason it’s better to give your rice a bath instead of a shower to rinse? 2) if using better than bouillon (as I do for nearly every recipe calling for stock), why use the cardboard stock at all? 3) can any of these recipes use short grain brown rice instead? The 3rd recipe calls out a specific type of rice, so probably not for that one.
The answer to your third question is that you can actually make all of these dishes with brown rice. Even the third recipe. I’m an Iranian and I have tried making tahdig with brown rice. It came out great. You should just know the cooking time of your rice. Another tip for tahdig is to add some butter to the rice and saffron mixture and fry it with ghee if you have it.
lol love your saffron rice recipe. I always made my rice in a Dutch oven. One of my favorite ways to have the bottom of the rice was to put potatoes and onions on bottom. I have made many different types of Persian rice over the years in Dutch ovens or huge restaurant style pots. Jeweled rice is a great rice to if you haven't tried it.
I can't believe it, you are the first person to show how to make homemade sofrito I cannot tell you how many dishes I use Sofrito on. When you grow up in a Spanish household you always smell sofrito thank you buddy
Thank you for the video! I love tadiq and have actually bought a Persian rice cooker. Interesting idea to make it in a pan, I used a pot before I bought the cooker. Will definitely add the pilaf to my dinner recipe list.
I love Better Than Boullion. Have every variety in back of my fridge. Used 3 of them today meal prepping a bunch of grilled chicken breasts as salad additions for week. They are the best seasoning for sheet pan roasted chicken and vegetables. Smear a tiny bit on oiled breasts then layer breasts over potatoes and roast with other veggies like carrots, broccoli and/or green beans. Delish and oh so easy.
Going to try the rice pilaf asap. I don't have a food processor nor do I have a knife or cutting board. Could you make a follow up video to help a guy out?
If you're vegetarian then they also have a vegetarian beef and vegetarian chicken base. I recently got the beef one and man, it looks and smells SO dark and rich! Tastes good too!
I've been using Better Than Bouillon for a while now and love it. I saw it in Costco and wanted to try it and haven't looked back. Seeing you also loving it made me happy and now you're being sponsored by them which is so cool!
Interesting rice dishes. I'm from Puerto Rico, and your second rice dish looks good. I might try it for something different. It's very different to our original rice recipe using some sofrito. Sofrito to us is an important staple in many homes. The sofrito is made with cilantro, ajices dulces, recao, onions, garlic and green or red peppers or both. Add a bit olive oil and a very small splash of vinegar. Some don't use the vinegar, but it helps it to keep in the fridge longer. If not, then freeze in ice tray. Put in zip lock bag. We don't add that much sofrito to the rice because it has a very strong flavor. We mostly use long grain. Plus other ingredients. Which would make this message to long. I appreciate the recipes. I will use them as a different flavor rice. Thank you.
Thank you for covering tahdig! I have been trying to research recipes on that, and it is very difficult to translate what is necessary for success and what is just "how my mom does it". Looking forward to others with experience with this dish weighing in on tips.
I feel your pain. Growing up, there was one Christmas pastry (I'm not sure how to actually classify it) that involved rolling out a 5- or 6-inch round piece of dough, scoring it so that you could then pick up every other line and squish them together so that the other lines dropped down. Then put the whole thing in the deep fryer. They came out great whenever my maternal Sicilian grandmother made them. However, when my mom asked her mom for the exact recipe (since the ones she & I were doing were not sticking at the top), my grandmother basically said, 'What recipe, there's no recipe, it's all by eye.' Alas, we were never able to replicate the recipe to get the lines to stick. So we just decided to roll out the dough and cut it into strips about 3 to 4 inches long and
@@andrewb9942 I don't know about that one, The Italian name I was told way back when translated to turkey's head, where the strips that dropped down represented the skin from a turkey's neck (or something like that). The google translation for turkey's head come as testa di tacchino, but I don't remember what she used to call it.
For sure I will make the pilaf...it's different then the recipe I already have. The other 2 recipes look good too. Thanks for your really good demonstrations.
being sponsored by better than bouillon is like the greatest achievement a you tube chef can have
MPW and Knorr vs. Brian and BTB death match!!!
they should start giving out stars like the Michelin guide
...they chose wisely! I have used multiple jars of it since you talked about it so often. I had never used it prior to your channel.
No clue why they're still NA only, annoying as hell.
Been trying to get that stuff in germany for the past half decade.
@@hansgrueber8169 MPW?
As an Iranian I was thrilled to see how amazing you got the tahdig. It’s a pretty stressful dish and persian moms flip over 10-12 cups of rice easily and the tahdig is amazing each time. Love the channel and hope to see you try out some persian stews as well
I'm gonna make this with some chicken and lamb kabob, persian/afghani style
I get that, I made it once and prepped like it was finals exams. Planning on trying the potato version soon.
I am really happy to see a foreign chef cook Iranian Tahdig dishes so well. It is really nice to see the crispy and golden surface of this dish. Hoping to make Ghormesabzi by Brian chef 😁👌🤩
persian food is god tier and yall have truly perfected rice
Sounds amazing! Who needs strength training when you do this on the regular ;P
Told my wife that we're going to have whatever Brian's Thursday video is for dinner on Friday night. Looks like we're having three rice dishes for dinner 🤣
Rice has very little nutritional value
@@speakfreely.1776 jokes clearly cannot go over your head. If they did, you would catch them.
@@speakfreely.1776 it's okay to eat something with little nutritional value every now and then
@@speakfreely.1776 very cool thank u
Invite the neighbors!! Apparantly lots of food to go around!! :)
I'm always greatful for the "what didn't work" parts of the recipes.
It makes it so much easier to make the right adjustments (and spot mistakes 😅) in your own kitchen 🤘
Yes indeed
if the brand rep is reading comments I’m buying ten cases of Better than Bouillon right now because of this
Better Than Bouillon is a five star product, so it's an impressive endorsement that speaks volumes about the quality of Brian's content. Well done, Brian! - and well deserved.
Thanks!
My wife is Persian and for 33 years I’ve been in heaven eating tahdiq, and it’s cousin Tah-cheen which is taller and often stuffed with things like chicken and plums. Great video Brian.
Oh, I have to look up tachin. Thanks!
@@criptic453 just going by the spelling when I found the videos to make it.
@@criptic453 No, it's just "Tah-chin".
@@mcomeslast.
@@arthurinusa they can argue it with the other folks. I found it under the other spelling. I’ll just note that I have seen it spelled both ways while looking for recipes.
Watching you tackle Persian rice and tahdig is like watching someone trying to solve a Rubik's Cube for the first time: a mix of determination, slight confusion, and pure joy. Great to see your spirited attempts! Keep going! I'm a persian and proud of your work! 👍👏😊
Good sponsorship. Better than bouillon should definitely be paying you. I started using their products 100 percent because of this channel. Now I always keep the chicken and beef varieties on hand.
If you’re a fan of pea soup I can heartily recommend the ham flavor! Add a dash of Liquid Smoke and the flavor profile is to die for!
Same here. For whatever reason I always assumed it would be a not so good product and never wanted to try it until I started watching Brian. I am now officially a customer solely because of him.
Best sponsor ever. My absolute favorite prepared item in the kitchen. If I haven't had time or leftover trimming to make stock, BTB is an instant way to pump up that flavor.
Puerto Rican here. I love that you added sofrito rice to the mix. It looked so good too! if you liked that I suggest Arroz con Gandules. Same thing but with a little extra added too it.
The first and the third are Persian recipes, adjusted to American users' available ingredients. Very nice and really flavorful. (The lime juice and parsley are the Persian signatures). Thank you Brian . (Oh, I always use Better than Bullion, VEGAN collection)
@@CnutLongsword you are right, of course. they have been sharing a neighborhood for, oh, 5000 years 🙂
@@CnutLongswordthat explains it, I've only ever known the Russian type of pilaf, which is very very very different than what Brian showed. I was so confused, like, how can he be so sure it's pilaf if it's nothing like any pilaf I've ever encountered ever!
@@dwainterussian pilaf is ripped off of uzbeks
No more plain rice in my house. Thanks Brian!
Hope you enjoy. Thanks, Ken!
Thank you for your rice pilaf recipe! I was asked to bring a side to our friend's house for dinner and I made it since I already had everything on hand. Everyone was complimenting it, even the children! You could tell they were almost surprised by the flavor 😂. I figured if I'm gonna bring a side I want it to be a banger and this didn't disappoint.
A turkish friend of mine taught me to cook rice similarly to your pilaf. She uses risoni pasta which also cooks in the same time as the rice. It ends up looking a little like a rice/wild rice mixture but with the wonderfully nutty flavour that the browned butter gives. The last trick is to place a folded clean teatowel under the lid while it sits…the towel soaks up any excess liquid so that your rice is as fluffy and seperate as possible….oh i just saw you use this technique in the last dish. Great video, thankyou, i am looking forward to trying all 3
Love to see the Iranian rice dish! I had a friend who immigrated from Iran and her mom would make it for special occasions and it was amazing every time. Everybody would fight over the crispy bits, which had a special name that I can't remember. So dang tasty
It's "tahdig". 😊
@delph.e8580 thanks! :) That was really bugging me lol
Out of all the ads on youtube (A LOT), I have never been so excited as I am for these new Better than Boullion flavors. I LOVE their vegetarian bases, and I am so exited to try the adobo and chipotle ones! 🎉
Really a top-notch video, I am so inspired by these recipes too.
Congrats on the BTB sponsorship, you deserve it. You're the reason I started using it over a year ago. We used to have a (I think) regional product that's similar but in the past decade it kind of disappeared at all the grocery stores we shop at. BTB is more expensive but def a better product. I put it in almost everything.
I love seeing trial-and-error as you perfect the process- it really encourages me to keep cooking and not be discouraged. Thanks, Bri!
FINALLY got the BTB sponsorship!!!!
Love that stuff, been using it for years. TBH, you using it was one of the selling points of my appreciation for your recipes. It's good stuff. Congratulations!!
Thanks. I was VERY stoked about it 😂
As iranian-american i just want to let you know tahdig (tah-deeg) refers to the bottom of the pot (tah=bottom, deeg=pot) when making rice, its not particularly a main dish but rather what is made along with rice. There is a rice dish where the rice is the main dish which is called called tahchin (tah-cheen) which is a rice dish with yogurt, egg yolks and typically chicken mixed in. I'd recommend watching multiple videos on how to make it because everyone takes different routes to end with similar results. Also congrats on the better than bouillon sponsorship
yes I have read about this in my wonderful Persian cooking book by Margaret Shaida, so rich with stories and history as well as recipes. But I have not had the courage to try either, yet!
That sounds extremely delicious.
As a Puertorrican currently living in Puerto Rico, I have to say I have never seen this "sofrito rice" even, though we do use sofrito for most of our stewed rices. Also, our sofrito is VERY different. Poblano peppers aren't something you are going to find in Puertorrican sofrito. We use "aji dulce" (or sweet pepper in English), which is a sweet, tiny, disc-shaped pepper that has no heat, and although you may find cilantro being used sometimes (not always) in sofrito, the one herb that can't be missing is culantro (not to be confused with cilantro). We also don't really tend to add cumin. This looks more like what we simply call "arroz guisado" (stewed rice) although the flavor profile you are going for here seems closer to ingredients used in Mexican cooking which kind of misrepresents Puertorrican cuisine. Just pointing that out since you said the dish is "Puertorrican".
Salute
💯 agreed!
I can't imagine sofrito with no spice, interesting!
Culantro is actually really difficult to find in the continental US. If you can find it at all, it will most likely be at a Vietnamese oriented grocer.
😂
I am always so impressed with your dedication, even to the B-roll, such as showing the chopping option for the sofrito, and all the attempts to make the tahdig in the dutch oven
I really appreciate not only the explanation on *what* to do, but also the reasons *why* you do certain things. A lot of people explain which techniques they use, but don't fully describe why they use their techniques.
Perfect timing! Upping my rice game came up this week and, I'll be trying at least the first two very soon. The towel trick I saw in your video with Ethan, helped me out yesterday. I started buying Better Than Bouillon because of your show. I can't wait to see how the Adobo one tastes in your chilli. Great lessons Chef 👌
The adobo one in Chili is 👻👻👻
As a persian I am proud of you making polo... =) good job.
As an Iranian I should mention that basmati rice is not the perfect rice for tahdig. It comes out a bit dry and doesn’t have the smell and flavor of the Iranian rice. Another thing is that Iranians eat this rice with chicken or other stews, the rice itself is not the main dish. If they want to make this into a whole meal, they mix eggs, yogurt (not these sweet watery yogurts in your grocery stores; preferably sour Turkish style yogurt or if you can’t find it, greek yogurt would work fine, too) and that saffron water Brian made. Then they add the strained rice into the mixture and pour it into an oiled pan. They also put some shredded chicken and barberry between the layers of that rice mixture and let it cook. It’s called tahchin. You can search it on RUclips to see how exactly it’s made. But anyways, I am so proud of you making Iranian dishes! If you wanted to cook any other Persian food, I’m here for help.
what rice is better than basmati? I'm in Australia, hopefully I can find it. I made Brian's version with basmati and it wasn't dry but a bit too oily so I will reduce the butter a bit.
Persian here
Theres a dish thats really similler to the one you made its called tahchin.
Its basically the same but you add yugert saffran and egg to the rice and theres a chicken mixture in between the rice layers you should defently try that one too.❤
I am really happy to see a foreign chef cook Iranian Tahdig dishes so well. It is really nice to see the crispy and golden surface of this dish. Hoping to make Ghormesabzi by Brian chef 😁👌🤩
As a seasoned home cook...it's still nice to see a professional chef goof up now and then.
I don't goof up often, but when it happens it actually makes me sick at my stomach
Thank you for including your goofs!❤
I usually don't like vegetable stock, but I have been using the BTB vegetable base and wow is it ever good. I have been using them all forever and I just love them. Cool to see the partnership.
This is pegado!! PR style rice always has toasty bottom rice and it's not as complicated to be honest as this video. Lots of similarities to middle eastern cooking though. I can see the influence.
That tahdig has my name all over it, even though I’ve never heard of it before. I can just tell that once I master the technique it’s going to become a staple of my diet!
Brian - your channel is by far one of my favorites. Love your approach on making "chefy" techniques more accessible to the home cook. I do have a video/series request for ya! I'm a fulltime working momma of three boys but I am on this journey to cooked *most* things from scratch and to eliminate as much processed food as possible. I've been trying to approach my week with a menu and, not full on meal prepping, but am trying to batch cook things to keep on hand or in the freezer. I'd love to hear your perspective on running your kitchen like a restaurant - things to prep on a sunday for meals throughout the week or to keep in the freezer (like carmelized onions, garlic confit, other flavor enhancer-ish things??), I've worked in restaurants as FOH, and naturally, when you go out to eat, kitchens aren't cooking everything right to order, just assembling things. Trying to wrap my head around this approach so that my weeknight dinners are much easier and much tastier than meat, grain, veg. Any sort of tips or insights would be incredible!!! thanks, brian!! 😀
This tahdig looks good. The way the Mediterranean restaurant I worked at did it was boiled it to ~80% cooked through, then let it cool down in the fridge. Then did the same steps as you.
what does the cooling step do?
Ive been using Better Than Bouillon for years because of you Bri! The most deserved sponsorship ever.
Tahdig and kabab lamb and tomatos, it is my favourite dish. And your tahdig looks great ! 👌🏼💙
Also: in iran we usually put a layer of plain rice on top of Tahdig rice to make the whole dish at the end more balanced.
I've used Better than Buoillon for years and loved it, what a great sponsorship!
I've actually been trying to expand my rice repertoire in the home, so this video came at a great time! It's cheap, decently healthy, keeps forever, goes with just about all cuisines, it's hard to beat. I'd love to see a 2.0 version of this video, perhaps adding some protein to the mix. There's infinite combinations of "chicken and rice", I'd really enjoy a couple variations vetted by you. Thanks for the great video!
Wow I’m Iranian and very impressed how you made that rice tahdig. You used all the techniques Persian moms use to make perfect tahdig❤
Iranians are the masters of rice dishes. My first attempt at one was baghali polow, a heavy dill-based rice dish with saffron and chickpeas. The tahdig turned out perfectly, which was exciting because it was before I got serious about cooking, and was, indeed, the most complicated dish I'd ever tried to that point. Once you've had a dish like that, with a perfect tahdig, you'll have to agree. Iranians are the rice masters of the world!
I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't love tadigh (even if most of them pronounce it funny). Seriously happy to see you make it. I think the your method is legit since you should just do whatever helps you make it the way you like and I've seen the frying pan in other videos BUT I've never seen someone do the frying pan. Of course, not everyone needs to go on hard mode and put in the years to be a tadigh master.
If you're curious, here's the method my family members tend to follow:
We typically do it all in one pot. And the key for me (as is the case with so much Persian cuisine) is to go with low heat over a long time. Cook it in water until the rice is *not quite cooked*, remove the rice (and any remaining water), add oil to the pot, add back the rice (plus any mix-ins like potato at the bottom, coriander seeds, or dill and lima beans). You should kind of make a pyramid/mound of rice. Your towel-lid game is spot on. Only other thing I'd recommend would be pouring a bit of oil down those little holes you make. You can't be too shy with the oil. Then, just try to keep it about as low as you can for about as long as you can. It's the best and good tadigh is usually the first thing to be finished when everyone's dishing up their plate.
Beyond that, one of the best parts of Persian rice is that everyone makes it their way. Especially when it comes to mixing things in or even when it's coming up with your exact method ("it only works right when i use this specific pot..."). And it comes out a liiitle different every time. There's so much room to make it special every time.
Brian, I LOVE Tahdig - but I have an 'extra' for you to try. Using the same amount of oil and butter in that pan, then line the entire bottom with raw thin-sliced potatoes, then your rice. 'Seal' the pan by placing a sheet of aluminum foil under the lid. You are going to love it! Promise! That thing you said about the popcorn? True!
Glad Better than Bullion finally took notice of all the free advertising you've provided through the years.
Another homerun!!!
Can't wait to try all of these 😋
As expected, the entire Iranian diaspora is in the comments section because you made tahdig. Love to see it!
It's been hilarious seeing other foodtubers try their hand at it but failing. Appreciate you giving it a try yourself! But as my late grandmother would insist, you could always use more butter!
One thing to definitely try would be havij polo (carrot rice). It's my favourite Persian dish and I haven't seen it anywhere in RUclips yet, probably because it's not as famous as koobideh or fesenjān.
Great video Brian!!!! The Persian rice was absolutely fascinating
Rice, pasta, and chicken base are basically what is in a box of Rice-A-Roni. I usually make R-A-R with a little bullion powder, cayenne, garlic and onion, and finish with something green like parsley or cilantro. Brian's version definitely will have better fresh flavor, but you know, sometimes we're lazy.
Ay, I make tadik all the time! You did it all right. You even picked up on the little things like adding a lot of salt to water and poking holes. That said, I do a few things differently. I soak the rice for 2-4 hours in warm water. I also blanch it for more like 5 minutes. I don't add the safron to the rice nor do I add water to the safron. I only add it to the oil on the bottom so it only make the crust colored. The tadik is the crust, not the whole rice. I also recommend using a non-stick pan for this rice. I also let it cook for like 3 hours on medium low and move it around like you do. It cannot really burn if you figure out the flame. Great instructions!
I'm glad to see BTB sponsoring you. It's an awesome product, for one, and this is an awesome channel for 2. I tend to use their vegetable base for everything, but I'm sure their chicken and beef bases are good too, along with the rest. Great video. Rice is such a tricky little F'er sometimes.
Can confirm every base they have is good. I’ve had chicken, beef, veggie, and roasted onion. The onion ones actually really great if you don’t wanna carmalize onions but want that flavor.
It makes me feel better to know you don’t always get it right the first time! Thanks for being transparent! ❤
Don’t forget to put the pan partially in some cold water in the sink before flipping the tahdig out. It helps it release.
True
Thanks
The rice pilaf recipe literally works, I’m not a chef and it was delicious. Thank you for the recipes, I’ll try the other 2 soon.
I just made it too. Best rice I ever had.
Confident and tahdig are not words I use in the same sentence. Haha! One of the most stressful dishes I've made, but also one with the most amazing flavor & texture payoff. Absolutely delicious!
Tahdig is the best tasting rice ever!!!!! im glad you liked it. Also its best to brine it over night, that removes the arsenic from the rice! Thats how persians make it
As someone who is Persian and comes from a family of amazing cooks, I give my stamp of approval on your tahdig; it looks spot on! Most Persian rice dishes, whether just for plain rice or ones that contain meat or vegetables have a similar cooking method and will turn out beautiful tahdig if done right. Most of them will require a deeper pot, and I would suggest using one with the same non-stick type coating that Brian used in his final successful tahdig dish (although his was a much shallower sauté pan). A cast iron dutch oven, while the right size, just doesn't work well, as he demonstrated.
Hi Bri - I am definitely going to make the Sofrito Rice first using the Better Than Boullion sofrito seasoning. I have made Tahdig and Rice Pilaf before but your techniques are promising and I will give them a try using the Bri-method. Getting the Better Than Bouillion sponsorship is awesome, and learning about their new additional flavor choices, along with the ability to use the Bri discount is wonderful! Thx!
I remember you saying the crispy rice dish was one of the dishes you were intimidated by. So glad to see you were able to pull it off. It looks delicious.
I love seeing Brian discovering the magic of Concón 13:48
I'm definitely gonna make the sofrito rice from this video, that sounds perfect to go with my braised beef enchiladas!
Hardest working thing in Brian's kitchen - other than Brian - has to be that Dutch oven. Definitely the MVP.
For those who don't want to break up raw pasta for whatever reason, 'chopped angel hair' is available in most supermarkets these days, sometimes called 'fideo'. Occasionally it's hidden in the spanish&mexican foods section, but I often see it in the usual dry pasta aisle.
yes it is in Indian supermarkets as well.
You could also use orzo, which is pasta the size and shape of rice grains.
@@stillhuntre55 orzo is what i usually use when making a pilaf.
Pilaf was FANTASTIC! Thank you! I’ve looking for a box alternative for a long time.
I really appreciate you showing and talking about your failures. I've been cooking for about 10 years snd sometimes I get down on myself since social media/RUclips chefs never show the "real" side of things like this (everything is perfect the first time, no mistakes etc.), so it's refreshing to see that even a chef as great as yourself can in fact screw up.
Just discovered you Brian, my wife and I really like your content. She's also a big fan of the Better Than Bouillon product line. Much love and good luck. 😎✌
Follow up questions:
1) Any reason it’s better to give your rice a bath instead of a shower to rinse?
2) if using better than bouillon (as I do for nearly every recipe calling for stock), why use the cardboard stock at all?
3) can any of these recipes use short grain brown rice instead? The 3rd recipe calls out a specific type of rice, so probably not for that one.
The answer to your third question is that you can actually make all of these dishes with brown rice. Even the third recipe. I’m an Iranian and I have tried making tahdig with brown rice. It came out great. You should just know the cooking time of your rice. Another tip for tahdig is to add some butter to the rice and saffron mixture and fry it with ghee if you have it.
@@yektasabeti4795 hey thanks! I look forward to trying it out
lol love your saffron rice recipe. I always made my rice in a Dutch oven. One of my favorite ways to have the bottom of the rice was to put potatoes and onions on bottom. I have made many different types of Persian rice over the years in Dutch ovens or huge restaurant style pots. Jeweled rice is a great rice to if you haven't tried it.
MA! Leave me alone for the next 15 minutes! New Dawg B video just dropped!
MOM! Im watching BRI!!!!!!!!! Get OUT of my ROOOOOOOOOM
I can't believe it, you are the first person to show how to make homemade sofrito I cannot tell you how many dishes I use Sofrito on. When you grow up in a Spanish household you always smell sofrito thank you buddy
That kichen is way too clean, I don't like it LMFAO
Thank you for the video! I love tadiq and have actually bought a Persian rice cooker. Interesting idea to make it in a pan, I used a pot before I bought the cooker. Will definitely add the pilaf to my dinner recipe list.
The Tahdic recipe was spot on. Thanks, Brian. I served the rice with some barberries. It was absolutely delicious.
I love Better Than Boullion. Have every variety in back of my fridge. Used 3 of them today meal prepping a bunch of grilled chicken breasts as salad additions for week.
They are the best seasoning for sheet pan roasted chicken and vegetables. Smear a tiny bit on oiled breasts then layer breasts over potatoes and roast with other veggies like carrots, broccoli and/or green beans. Delish and oh so easy.
Never knew about the angel hair in the rice. Looking forward trying it tonight
Thank you for your lovely compliment. I hope my recipe was able to help you in your cooking..
How did I not see this?!
CONGRATS ON 1 MILLION! 🎉🎉🎉
Omgahhh! 🤤 All these rice dishes look so good! Gonna try the rice pilaf first! I lurve rice pilaf!
The last rice looks amazing!😋🤤❤💛💜
Going to try the rice pilaf asap.
I don't have a food processor nor do I have a knife or cutting board.
Could you make a follow up video to help a guy out?
You are always inspiring and these rice offerings don't fail. Glad to hear Better Than Boullion has a mushroom offering as well.
If you're vegetarian then they also have a vegetarian beef and vegetarian chicken base. I recently got the beef one and man, it looks and smells SO dark and rich! Tastes good too!
Love your rice recipes, my sister and I are always trying to one up each other with rice dishes. I am going to win this one!
Made the Rice Pilaf last evening. Friggin PHENOMENAL!!! Thank you.
I started using better than bouillon because of you, glad you got a sponsorship!
So now I understand why my mom had better than bouillon in the fridge. You just leveled up my cooking game a bit.
I've been using Better Than Bouillon for a while now and love it. I saw it in Costco and wanted to try it and haven't looked back. Seeing you also loving it made me happy and now you're being sponsored by them which is so cool!
Your amazing!
Love all your videos 😊
Interesting rice dishes. I'm from Puerto Rico, and your second rice dish looks good. I might try it for something different. It's very different to our original rice recipe using some sofrito. Sofrito to us is an important staple in many homes. The sofrito is made with cilantro, ajices dulces, recao, onions, garlic and green or red peppers or both. Add a bit olive oil and a very small splash of vinegar. Some don't use the vinegar, but it helps it to keep in the fridge longer. If not, then freeze in ice tray. Put in zip lock bag. We don't add that much sofrito to the rice because it has a very strong flavor. We mostly use long grain. Plus other ingredients. Which would make this message to long. I appreciate the recipes. I will use them as a different flavor rice. Thank you.
Man, great job!! They all look great, but that last dish is inspired!
I made the first one. It was delicious. I never thought of adding onion and garlic in rice.
Thank you for covering tahdig! I have been trying to research recipes on that, and it is very difficult to translate what is necessary for success and what is just "how my mom does it". Looking forward to others with experience with this dish weighing in on tips.
I feel your pain. Growing up, there was one Christmas pastry (I'm not sure how to actually classify it) that involved rolling out a 5- or 6-inch round piece of dough, scoring it so that you could then pick up every other line and squish them together so that the other lines dropped down. Then put the whole thing in the deep fryer. They came out great whenever my maternal Sicilian grandmother made them. However, when my mom asked her mom for the exact recipe (since the ones she & I were doing were not sticking at the top), my grandmother basically said, 'What recipe, there's no recipe, it's all by eye.' Alas, we were never able to replicate the recipe to get the lines to stick. So we just decided to roll out the dough and cut it into strips about 3 to 4 inches long and
@bikeny Interesting. Sounds like the Italian pastry crostoli, or "krostule" as my Croatian gramdmother would make.
@@andrewb9942 I don't know about that one, The Italian name I was told way back when translated to turkey's head, where the strips that dropped down represented the skin from a turkey's neck (or something like that). The google translation for turkey's head come as testa di tacchino, but I don't remember what she used to call it.
Awesome, especially the tips on the Tahdiq! Thanks as always.
These are great tips brian! Thanks for sharing!
You did a great job at making Tahdig 👍 really impressed
I can't wait to try your tahdig! I had given up on making this dish but your technique looks like it really works!!!
Very impressed with the TAhdig!
The way you describe each ingredient and its role in the dish is so informative. You're definitely a professional chef. 👌😋♥️
It's Lorn's commentary for me every single time! Go, Lorn!
For sure I will make the pilaf...it's different then the recipe I already have. The other 2 recipes look good too. Thanks for your really good demonstrations.
Thank you for your lovely compliment. I hope my recipe was able to help you in your cooking.
Made the first recipe tonight. Absolute banger. 10/10
Just found this guy and made the rice. New subscriber! What are great chef!!
Congrats on the new sponsorship! About time cuz you've been touting this product in almost all of your vids.
Pasta in rice is new to me and cooking videos is >50% of what I watch. Very neat!
You nailed it Like any other recipe you made respect ✊