The case for a crispy bottom

Many dishes around the world, from tahdig to bibimbap, have a crusty finish. Food is much better with a crunchy base – case closed.

The crunchy edges and layers of a well-cooked dish are very satisfying to consume. Source: Benito Martin

There are not many common threads when it comes to global cuisines. From Asia to South America and, of course, Australia, food is so diverse and different – revealing the cultural history of the country that it originates from.

But when it comes to crunchy bottoms, the world is in perfect harmony and agreement: foods with crispy and crunchy bases are worth flipping out your elbows and fighting for.

If you love dumplings, you'll surely have tried what Americans call potstickers, but to me are guo tie, 鍋貼. Loosely translated as “sticking to the pot”, the hallmark of a great potsticker is its nice, crunchy foundation, all golden-brown from the heat of the pan.

These dumplings 'stick' to the pot and have a brown, crunchy foundation. Source: China Squirrel

During family dinners at my house, all of us kids hovered over the freshly made potstickers, hoping that a rogue dumpling would have accidentally fallen apart and lost their filling, leaving only the crispy base (this would be rare, my mum is a perfectionist when making dumplings of any kind). My dad had longer arms than my sister and he would always get to them quicker than us which drove us wild. He still does it now and I still tell him off, but his excuse is that when it comes to our family’s dumplings, you don’t have to be polite or courteous – you snooze, you lose.

For Mahshid Babzartabi, a cooking instructor specialising in Persian and Iranian dishes, a crispy bottom comes in the form of tahdig. As Babzartabi tells me, 'tah' means bottom and 'dig' means pot. “Tahdig is the love of life for most Iranians,” she says. “I never ever came across anyone who doesn't like tahdig and it is best when it’s super crispy – there is so much pleasure in biting into something crispy and even a badly made tahdig (if there is such a thing) is irresistible.”

This Persian rice dish produces a glorious, golden crust. Source: Simon Griffiths and Ebrahim Khadem Bayat

“[At] every Persian family table, there is always a fight over tahdig but usually the best part goes to the father of the house. Back in the olden days, in order to reduce this fight over tahdig, parents used to tell kids if you eat too much, your wedding night will be very wet and rainy and so kids would sacrifice their tahdig to their parents. This is a common joke,” says Babzartabi.

“There are different versions of tahdig, but the best and most common one is [made with] rice itself," she says. The grains catch slightly on the bottom of the pan and produce a delicious golden crust when the dish is flipped and shared among family and friends. To nail tahdig, cook the bottom layer for at least 45 minutes on a "low low heat", and add oil to the bottom of the pot before you flip the rice dish, she advises.

"You can also make tahdig by [using] thin layers of lavash bread, sliced potatoes, grated potatoes and also lettuce.”

A crispy bottom in Taiwan’s dynamic food scene extends well beyond dumplings and to rice, much like the aforementioned Persian speciality dish eaten during celebrations.

There is so much pleasure in biting into something crispy and even a badly made tahdig (if there is such a thing) is irresistible.

Although there is not a specific dish like tahdig in Chinese cooking, Chinese people do love to slightly char the base of their rice when cooking it on the stovetop to achieve a slightly crunchy bottom and this is called 'ga'. There is a lot of risk pushing rice to this point, asking science to lend a hand via what is known as the Maillard reaction, where reducing sugars and amino acids interact to brown, crisp and even burn food (but that would not be a good ga or tahdig as both Babzartabi and I agree upon. My mum and I are big fans of a crispy bottom and we have paid the price of pushing it too far and throwing away pans after hours of soaking and failing to remove the burned rice from the bottom).

For Aram Yun, pastry chef at Melbourne cafe, Streat, nurungji is the equivalent of what tahdig is to Iranians. If you have eaten at an authentic Korean restaurant, you will surely have eaten bibimbap served in a stoneware pot. Besides warning you not to burn your fingers when handling the pot, your waiter will suggest you let the rice settle before you mix your bibimbap, so a crispy bottom is achieved.

Thanks to the way grains sizzle in a hot stone pot, bibimbap ends up with a nice crunchy base. Source: Lee Chan's World Food Tour

“Nurungji is crispy rice. At the end of cooking rice, the remaining moisture at the bottom of the rice 'cooker' disappears and the rice at the bottom of the pot turns golden brown at an instantaneous high temperature. We call this part nurungji. Nurungji is crunchy and crispy. We eat this as a snack," says Yun. “I liked nurungji. I remember going to the kitchen with my brother to scrape and eat the nurungji that was stuck to the bottom of the pot."

She also mentions sungnyung, which is produced by mixing water and boiled nurungji to create a congee-like dish.

"Koreans eat this to help with digestion and to stop the strong smells of garlic still lingering in your mouth. On days when my brother and I snuck into our kitchen, my parents couldn’t eat sungnyung because we finished all of the nurungji. My mum only found out at the end of the meal and we all laughed together. It was a good memory for me,” says Aram.

Tahdig, ga and nurungji, no matter what you call it, life is better on the crispy side.