Tahchin: Persian Rice Timbale with Savoury Saffron Chicken

Photo by my husband, Z.

Below is my latest published piece for Edible Toronto’s Winter Issue. You can also view it on their website here. I am also excited to announce that I was one of three three finalists in a group of 60+ Edible magazines in the US/Canada for Best Editorial/Food or Cooking Focused for this article. 

Where The Sun Comes From

Memories of My Grandmother

By Shayma Saadat

Shameem was the given name of my paternal grandmother. Her favourite drink was Crème de Menthe, which she always drank chilled, and she was the best tango dancer in Lahore. My father tells me that the band at the Lahore Gymkhana Club would strike up the tango as soon as my grandparents entered the ballroom. They had won many tango competitions and their favourite song was Bahía Blanca. With my grandfather in his tuxedo and my grandmother in her silk sari, they would twirl around the outside of the dance floor in true Argentine style – long, elegant steps – her sari’s folds sashaying with each move. I often wonder how she did the legendary gancho, or leg hook, in her sari. I wish I could ask her, but she passed away in our home in Nairobi, Kenya, when I was sixteen years old.

We affectionately called her Mader, which means mother in Farsi. Everyone called her that. My parents, my friends, the fruit-wallah in Lahore who would save the freshest neon-orange persimmons for her, and the owner of Ajmer Bakery who kept a dozen vegetable patties aside for her every Thursday. Even our cook, Lala Ashraf, who learnt to make lasagne verde from her, called her Mader.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1916, Mader lived there for most of her life. Widowed when she was sixty, she came to live with us in Washington, D.C., but the pull of her homeland was too strong; she returned after two years. When I was thirteen I was sent to Pakistan to live with her for a few years. She taught me how to speak Farsi, paraphrased Shakespeare’s Richard II for me, and sat next to me all night when I studied for my final exams. She made sure the fruit basket in my room was always full and lunch was ready when I came back from school at one o’clock. I remember sitting with her for lunch and having our preferred dish of potatoes and aubergines made with roasted tomatoes and caramelized onions. We would chatter as our fingers scooped it all up with a chapati.

Mader had gone through a double mastectomy and had heart trouble, preventing her from standing up for long periods of time. On weekends my cousin Saadiya and I would go into the kitchen and, as Mader sat on her stool and instructed us, we would cook together. Mader loved making fresh mayonnaise. Lala Ashraf would set the mise en place on the marble counter. I would then begin to slice my knife through the tiny lemons that came from the Chinese dwarf tree in our garden and Saadiya would measure out the olive oil. Then eggs would go into the blender and Mader would guide us as oil was added, drop by golden drop, into the blender. Like alchemy, the ingredients would come together, transforming into a glob of pillowy, creamy lusciousness. And finally, we’d add Mader’s secret ingredient: a tiny dusting of brick-red smoked paprika. Lala Ashraf and Mader would spread this fluffy emulsion on soft, crustless slices of bread and add chunks of roast chicken and plump tomatoes. We would sit in our breakfast room and enjoy these sandwiches with the rest of the family, washing them down with glasses of mango squash. Saadiya was a talented baker, and there would be a slice of one of her spongy cakes with fresh fruit for dessert.

Mader’s father had passed away when she was a mere nine years old, leaving her mother with the responsibility of bringing up four daughters. Each piece of heirloom jewellery was sold so that her daughters could be educated. Mader was one of the first women in Pakistan to obtain an M.A. in economics. In addition to educating her daughters, she made sure they were also taught to cook. As a child, I always saw Mader in the kitchen with Lala Ashraf – cutting, chopping, and grinding on the marble counter from her stool. But the dishes she prepared didn’t seem like the ones her mother would have taught her. Back in the 1960s Mader had taken cookery classes from a Pakistani lady who taught Cantonese Chinese cooking, but her real interest lay in French food. She enrolled for classes at the French Cultural Institute in Lahore known as Cordon Bleu. I wonder if chefs were invited to Pakistan from this prestigious cookery school in Paris or if the instructor merely used recipes from the school to teach the students. Either way, she emerged from this school armed with recipes for Béarnaise sauce and how to make a perfectly airy chocolate soufflé.

As a wife, mother and civil servant, Mader took these classes in her free time. She would often make pommes au four with a cinnamon stick wedged in the middle of each apple and serve it to her husband and two sons with a good pour of crème anglaise; a dish my father craves to this very day. Some days she would request the chef of the U.S. Consul General to teach her how to make American-style pies and casseroles in her home kitchen. And from her American tenants who were in Lahore on a Ford Foundation scholarship, she learnt how to make a perfect pot roast with golden roasted potatoes.

All the dishes Mader prepared for me when I was a child were those that she had learnt from her cookery classes. Some days there would be a zucchini gratin with béchamel, the kind that comes out of the oven all bronzed and bubbly on top, or a lemon-yellow Victoria sponge cake sandwiched together with homemade apricot jam. And my favourite, a Cantonese chicken corn soup which was stirred and stirred for hours. I loved watching her perform the last step – the whisked raw eggs being poured in, metamorphosing into strands of silk floating lightly in the soup.

As for dishes from her heritage – Pakistani or Irani – I suppose that as a working woman who didn’t cook on a daily basis she felt those were best left to the experts, the cooks in her kitchen. I have heard stories of my grandmother’s Irani ancestry, but by the time I became keenly interested in finding out more about where her family had come from, Mader was long gone. My father tells me that Mader’s grandfather, Syed Nadir Ali Shah, was a Sufi Saint from Iran. He came from a province in the northeast called Khorasan, the land of saffron and zereshk – barberries. As a young adult, Syed Nadir Ali Shah migrated from his abode in Iran to present-day Pakistan to spread the Sufi word. Whilst there, he came across a beautiful girl with hazel eyes and hair as black as licorice, and married her soon after. This woman was Mader’s grandmother. He made a home for himself in Lahore and never returned to Sabzevar, the city of his birth.

Mader had taught me how to make a béchamel sauce, and to speak Farsi, but she never shared anything about her Irani heritage with me. I wanted to know more about Syed Nadir Ali Shah: did he miss his country of birth; how did he teach his wife and children Farsi; and did he tell them that the province of his birth, Khorasan, means Where The Sun Comes From in Farsi? As I became more curious about the land that Mader’s grandfather was from, I began to research Sufism in Iran and also delve into Irani cookery. The kukus: baked frittatas, some made with fresh, verdant herbs, others with roasted aubergine; the delicate polows: rice dishes with candied orange rind, zereshk and pistachios; khoreshts: the warm stews that are simmered on the stove for hours and eaten with mounds of steaming rice. I continued to cook Irani dishes as a tribute to Mader, my grandmother who was an enigma and a fascinating woman from that era, the lady who taught my father how to make ikebana flower arrangements and who passed away silently one night at our home in Nairobi.

 I would love to have been able to create tahchin, a traditional Irani dish, with her. It is much like the Neapolitan pasta timbale I learnt to make when I lived in Rome, except that this dish is made with rice and chicken and has intense currents of saffron’s golden, musky aroma running through it. I would like to have been in the kitchen with Mader, at the marble counter in our family home in Lahore, grinding saffron threads in the mortar and pestle, adding drops of water and then seeing it all transform into a brilliant vermillion syrup. I would have watched her, seated on her stool, mixing steamed rice with egg yolks and yogurt. Then together we would add the saffron water into the rice mixture, watching the colour bleed slowly into it, a transformation from yellow to gold.

 

Finally, how wonderful it would be if Mader and I could sit down to have a meal together, like we did when I was thirteen years old, and say nosh-e-jan – bon appétit. Except this time I would pour her a small glass of chilled Crème de Menthe as a digestif.

Shayma Saadat is a Pakistani-Afghan of Irani ancestry and the author of the food-memoir-style blog “The Spice Spoon: Cooking Without Borders” (www.thespicespoon.com). She was born in Lahore and grew up in Pakistan, the U.S., Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh, and the U.K. Two years ago, Shayma moved from Rome, Italy, where she worked for the United Nations, to Toronto, where she is a Senior Policy Advisor to the Canadian government. She lives in Toronto with her husband.

Here is the recipe for tahchin.

Here is the recipe for mast-o-khiar.

Comments

  1. one word:

    brilliant.

  2. Shayma my dear, I absolutely adored reading your article about your dearest grandmother, Mader Ji! What an Amazing lady who achieved so much in her time. Gosh what a sophisticated, elelgant & caring lady she was and your article took me back in time and made me reminess about my own grandmother {nanni jaan} who passed away when I was only 5yrs of age.
    Loved the recipe for tah-chin and the pictures are gorgeous! xo

  3. Beautifully written and an evocative post – what an inspiring woman your grandmother was.

    That recipe has gone straight into the must make.

  4. The story about your grandmother was wonderful. What a great woman she must have been! I can imagine how important these memories of her in the kitchen must be for you.
    This dish looks simply amazing. The flavors must be so pungent. I would love to try it sometime!
    Magda

  5. Just one word Shayma.Brilliant. I always enjoy your posts but this one is right on the top.

    And goes without saying, this is so fascinating and amazing looking dish!

  6. Your grandmother sounds like the most amazing woman and after reading this, I can see where your sense of adventure comes from! Beautifully written.

  7. Your blogs are most awaited for me……the way you put together every word feels like a painting or a poetry….Keep up the good work…..

  8. Mader sounds like she was an amazing woman and you were so lucky to have her be so instrumental in your formative years, mashallah. I’m sure she is deeply missed by your family.

    I was also reminded of my dadi who also held a master’s degree, though she passed away when I was 3, I faintly remember her reading her Little Red Riding Hood or Hans Christian Andersen. I should ask my father more about her. My nani is still here and she often shares her memories with us.

    Beautiful post!

  9. Where do I begin? The story is enthralling, the woman behind it must have been majestic!! Thanks for sharing bits of your heritage with us…..

  10. this is a wonderful (and wonderfully-written!) story. thank you for sharing it, i truly enjoyed it, shayma.

  11. Beautifully written, Thank you for sharing!

  12. I’ve heard about this dish…great that you have now shown it with pictures and a recipe. Much thanks.

  13. What a lovely insight into your grandmother’s memorable life. I can only imagine this dish is delicious, the raisins must be a great addition.

  14. Saeeda Farooq says:

    Shayma, how wonderful of you to write so lovingly about Mader, she was great lady ,truely sophisticated , elegant and witty, i have memories of her too that she was the rock of Gibralter for her two sons and their families
    Bless you
    Saeeda

  15. Javaid R. Shami says:

    Some of my fondest memories from my younger days are of Mader. Thank you, Beti.

    Cheers.

  16. Shayma joon, what a lovely post! great recipe complete with exquisite presentation!

  17. You write so incredibly beautifully, have you ever written a book?

  18. A moving piece and beautifully woven into the charming foods and recipes!! Unfortunately, people like your mader are not made anymore!!

  19. Beautiful piece, your writing just goes from strength to strength Shayma. Congrats on being published too! 🙂

  20. I adore you blog and your words. Your husband is an amazing photographer as well!

    I’ve been to Lahore once and cannot envision your grandmother doing the tango(!) there. What a different place it must have been back then.

  21. What an absolute delight to find my way here tonight…the story and the dish.
    Bravo!

  22. Shayma – I must say that you are one of the finest story tellers I know, and I love that you share your vivid childhood memories with us. As for this dish…it is one of the prettiest I have ever seen. I bet it tastes even better. Bravo! – S

  23. A brilliant post as always. Your grandmother must have been a pioneering lady in her times. Reminded me of my nani, she was also a masters degree holder, was a teacher and then a headmistress of a govt girls school in Lahore. Passed away in October. According to ammi, khala and my mamus my nano got plenty of offers from the high n mighty missionary schools of Lahore, but she stuck with the same school all her life, don’t know why.
    And she was a great cook too. Taught almost every aunt on my maternal side how to cook chinese and Italian.
    One thing I’ll always miss will be her shami kebabs. No one could and now no one ever will make shami kebabs like hers.

  24. Thank you to everyone who read my story and had such lovely things to say about my grandmother. I am most grateful. x shayma

  25. Just caught up with this – what a story, what a heritage , what a woman. Something to be truly proud of. Blessings.

  26. @Sara, @Nadia and @Umair- Seems like women from that generation were more fascinating than anyone we know today. Thanks for sharing your stories with me.

    @Angharad Thank you- no, never written a book; just enjoy blogging.

  27. your grandmother is so beautiful and graceful mashallah…
    i wish that era comes back…
    tah chin looks amazing…i love rice!

  28. Shayma,
    you write like a true iranian….only someone with an iranian connection could make a blog sound like poetry 🙂 beauifully written! your grandma sounds like a wonderful woman, and last but not the least…. the dish is truly exotic and outrageously gorgeous!!

  29. btw, the golden brown effect on top….is that tardeek? my husband is half iranian and he keeps telling me how yum it is

  30. oh, i just realized, thats tah-dig in your recipe!! awesome

  31. A great post! I haven’t been able to not to link it in my blog!
    Ciao!

  32. Beautiful story and beautiful writing.

  33. love this story about your granmom – what a fascinating lady!
    I will try your recipe as well.

  34. Scheherezade says:

    Hello Shayma,

    The window you opened to your grandmother’s life was so vivid and soulful that I could almost imagine myself sitting at her kitchen table. It made me remember my wonderful grandmother, who raised me.I called her Maman Jan. She was a simple woman who married at age 14 and had my father at age 15. She was a marvelous cook and hostess and best of all she had a heart of gold. She taught me to enjoy the wonderfully fragrant and wholesome food of Iran as well as the heart warming hospitality that is so much part of the culture of the Iranian people. She passed on many years ago, but when I look at myself, her granddaughter, who has two master’s degrees, a coaching certification, and over 20 years of corporate experience, what I like about myself the most is a heart that I hope is similar to my grandmother’s. I think and honor her each time I entertain in my home and share with others some of her delicious Persian food. Tah-Chin is a favorite of mine. Your beautiful recollections about your beloved Mader’s life took me back to my childhood days with my dear Maman jan. We were both fortunate to have such majestic grandmother’s who touched our lives so deeply!

  35. Salam Shayma, Cheh mader boozorgh khobi, very informative and touching post.
    Tahchin is not a popular meal in Gilan, the Iranian province where I come from but I love it.Thanx for sharing.

  36. i cooked tah-chin last week and i loved it, it was for my first time.. deliciousaaaa

  37. Hello Shayma,

    I am so thrilled to have found your blog, you write beautifully. I might live in Italy but my favorite flavors hail from that intoxicating part of the world from lebanon to persia from iran to india. will make the tab-chin soon. un saluto da roma, alice

  38. I believe the links to the recipes are broken. This is a tasteless joke considering how terribly hungry I am right now. Please fix them when you have a chance.

    Absolutely love all your work, Shayma.

  39. What a beautiful, beautiful story, Shayma. Your relationship with your grandmother brought tears to my eyes and reminded me so much of my grandmother. You are truly a gifted writer to transport us through such an amazing time in your life – and your grandmother’s!

  40. Love the story of your grandma <3 and of course Tah-chin is my favorite food 🙂

  41. Great post however I was wanting to know if you could write a
    litte more on this subject? I’d be very grateful
    if you could elaborate a little bit more. Kudos!

  42. You ought to take part in a contest for one of the highest quality websites on the web.
    I most certainly will highly recommend this website!

Trackbacks

  1. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Taiyyaba, shayma. shayma said: (tweet'g again – time zone)- Tah-Chin, Tango in Lahore and Tales of my Grandmum-my published piece in @edibleTORONTO http://bit.ly/eNiLjg […]

  2. […] paternal grandmother, Mader, died when I was only 16 years old. She had hazel-almost-green eyes and could quote […]

  3. […] I got together for a recipe round-up celebrating this vernal equinox. I am a part of this group, thanks to my grandmother. As this imminent holiday approaches, out come the fragrant, musky saffron threads, gorgeous green […]

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    Tahchin: Persian Rice Timbale with Savoury Saffron Chicken — Silk Route food memoir by Shayma Saadat – The Spice Spoon