Persian Saffron Rice - A 24 hour process

Ingredients

• 1 cup Basmati rice
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• pleanty of salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 3-4 pieces of saffron
• potato or uncooked chapathi or cooked naan, or yogurt  for "taadig"

Steps

1. Wash the Basmati Rice 5-6 times in water until the run off is clear
2. Soak the rice in salted water for a whole day, about 22 hours. The water must be very salty. Say like tablespoon on salt for every 2 cups of water that you use for soaking.
3. Drain the water out of the soaking rice
4. Bring to boil the drained salty water and add extra water to make sure there 3 cups of water boiling for every cup of rice
5. Add the rice to boiling water and cook for 10-15 minutes(depending on the rice) until the rice is cooked but not mushy. The rice should still have a bit of bite to it and not fully cooked.
6. When done dump the rice into a strainer to strain out the water.
7. Take 2 spoons of the boiling water and mix well with the sugar and saffron and keep aside
8. In a non-stick cooking pot, heat on high and drop the butter and the oil. 
9. When hot add 1/2 cup of water and stir well till the oil and water mix
10. Then poor the liquid out to a bowl, leaving a little bit of it in the bot
11. Layer the bottom of the pot with items for taadig. i.e. slices of potato, uncooked chapathi or a couple of spoons of yogurt mixed with couple of spoons of rice.
12. Then put the rice back into the pot on top of the taadig layer in a mound. 
13. Put some vertical holes into the mound for the rice to breath
14. Pour the water/oil mixture around the rice
15. Pour the saffron water on the rice.
16. Cover the pot with lid wrapped with towel
17. Turn the heat on Medium-High for 5 minutes
18. Then to Medium-Low and cook for 1 hour
19. Remove from heat and immediately immerse the pot in cold water to stop the cooking
20. Scoop out the rice in the bowl
21. Then cover the pot with a plate and invert pot to get the taadig out of the pot
22. "Taadig" is the crusted layer at the bottom and is considered a delicacy by itself