Bring into your life a bit of the enchanting east with its heady aromatic spices, scorching hot, hearty food and, of course, a special atmosphere surrounding the very act of cooking such food, similar to a sacrament. In other words, make a delicious pilaf.
Uzbek pilaf
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of lamb;
- 1 kg of white rice;
- 1 kg of carrots;
- 4 onions;
- 2 dry hot peppers;
- 2 heads of garlic;
- 1 tbsp. cumin and dried barberry;
- 1 tsp coriander seeds;
- salt;
- 300 ml of vegetable oil.
Wash the lamb, pat dry with a towel, or discard in a colander. Cut it into large cubes. Peel the vegetables and cut: three onions into thin half rings, carrots into long strips 5-8 mm thick. Heat vegetable oil in a cauldron or heavy-walled saucepan. Throw in the remaining whole onion, fry it well and discard.
Place the chopped onion in a bowl and fry until golden brown over high heat for 7 minutes. Transfer the meat to it and fry, stirring occasionally, until the pieces of lamb are crispy. Add carrots there and simmer for 10 minutes.
Pour the spices into the cauldron, salt the contents (zirvak), reduce the cooking temperature to medium and simmer until the orange straws are soft for about 10 minutes. Boil water and pour it over the meat and vegetables so that it covers them by 2 cm. Dip hot peppers there. Reduce heat to very low and simmer the fragrant fry, covered, for 1 hour.
Rinse the rice in several waters and spread it evenly over the zirvak. Add more boiling water to a level 3 cm above the cereal. Wait until most of the water has been absorbed, and press the peeled garlic heads into the rice, but not cut into wedges. Make several punctures in the pilaf with a sharp knife to the bottom, close the dish with a lid and bring the dish to readiness in half an hour.
Turkish pilaf
Ingredients:
- 300 g of chicken giblets;
- 1, 5 Art. rice;
- 500 g of tomatoes;
- 1 purple onion;
- 50 g of pine nuts;
- 20 grams of parsley and fresh basil;
- a handful of dried berries (cherries, raisins, currants);
- 70 g of ghee;
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper;
- salt.
Wash the rice and soak it overnight in twice as much cold water. Heat the pine nuts in a dry skillet. Chop the parsley and basil finely. Free the onion from the "shirt" and chop with a knife. Cut the giblets into smaller pieces and fry in a large saucepan or cauldron in ghee. Stir in the onion and cook over low heat.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water, remove the skin and grate the pulp on a fine grater. Mix it with cooking giblets, sprinkle with pine nuts and salt. Let the mixture simmer over high heat, add the swollen rice and pour boiling water over your finger above the cereal level. Keep the dish at the lowest temperature under the lid for another 20-25 minutes. Pepper the pilaf, stir with the berries and serve.
