It takes 1 hour to cook pilaf. Half an hour is needed to fry the meat with carrots and onions, and about an hour of cooking is needed after the rice is added to the pan. Rice should be literally “simmered” with the top layer, so keep the pilaf for at least 40 minutes after boiling the water in the cauldron, but if there is a lot of pilaf, then even an hour. After cooking, the pilaf must be mixed and insisted for at least 15 minutes.
How to cook pilaf
Pilaf meat
on a cauldron or saucepan 5 liters
Meat – half a kilo / in the classic recipe, lamb is used, which, if necessary, can be replaced with beef, veal and, in extreme cases, with lean pork or chicken
Rice for pilaf
Parboiled rice – half a kilo
Spices for pilaf
Carrots – 250 grams
Onions – 2 large
Garlic – 1 Head
Zira – 1 tablespoon
Barberry – 1 tablespoon
Turmeric – half a tablespoon
Ground red pepper – 1 teaspoon
Ground black pepper – half a teaspoon
Salt – 1 rounded teaspoon
Vegetable oil – 1/8 cup (or fat tail fat – 150 grams)
How to cook pilaf
1. Peel the onion and cut into half rings.
2. Heat a thick-walled saucepan or cauldron, pour oil (or melt fat from fat tail fat) and put onion; fry with occasional stirring over medium heat for 5 minutes.
3. Cut the meat into 2-4 cm pieces, add to the onion and fry until golden brown for 7 minutes.
4. Cut the carrots into long cubes 0,5 centimeters thick and add to the meat.
5. Add cumin and salt, all spices and seasonings, mix meat and vegetables.
6. Smooth the meat and vegetables on the 1st level, pour the rice on top evenly.
7. Pour boiling water over – so that the water covers the rice 3 centimeters higher, put a whole head of garlic in the center.
8. Cover the cauldron with a lid, simmer the pilaf for 40 minutes – 1 hour over low heat until the meat is fully cooked.
9. Stir the pilaf, cover, wrap it in a blanket and leave to sit for 15 minutes.
Pilaf on a fire in a cauldron
the number of products is recommended to be doubled
1. Make a fire, make sure there is enough firewood and a long stirring paddle. The wood must be shallow so that the flame is strong.
2. Install the cauldron over the wood – it should be exactly above the wood, parallel to the ground. The cauldron should be large so that it is convenient to mix in it.
3. Pour oil on it – you need three times more oil, because pilaf burns more easily over a fire.
4. In a well-heated oil, put the meat piece by piece so that the oil does not cool down. It is important to place the oil carefully so as not to be scalded by the oil splashes. You can use gloves or spread the oil with a spatula.
5. Fry for 5 minutes, stirring the pieces every minute.
6. Put chopped onions with the meat, fry for another 5 minutes.
7. Add half a glass of boiling water and fry for another 5 minutes.
8. Remove strong flame: Zirvak should be extinguished at medium boil.
9. Add salt and spices, stir.
10. Add some small logs to make enough for cooking rice.
11. Rinse the rice, lay it out in an even layer, insert a whole head of garlic on top.
12. Season with salt, add water so that it is level with the rice, and 2 more fingers higher.
13. Close the cauldron with a lid, open it only to control cooking.
14. Soar pilaf for 20 minutes.
15. Stir the meat with rice, cook for another 20 minutes.
Pilaf cooking tips
Rice for pilaf
For the preparation of pilaf, you can use any high-quality long-grain or medium-grain hard rice (dev-zira, laser, alanga, basmati) so that it remains crumbly during cooking. Carrots for pilaf, it is necessary to cut it, and not grate it, so that the carrots during cooking (in fact, the carrots in pilaf are cooked for an hour) do not lose their structure and the pilaf remains crumbly. Bow it is also recommended to chop it coarsely so that it does not boil. Meat and onions for pilaf must be fried until the liquid is almost completely evaporated, because excess liquid leads to a decrease in pilaf friability.
What spices are put in pilaf
Traditional – zira (Indian cumin), barberry, saffron, turmeric. It is turmeric that gives the pilaf its yellow color. If you add a little raisins and paprika to meat with vegetables, the pilaf will acquire sweetness. Add raisins like this: first rinse, then pour boiling water for 15 minutes, then chop (otherwise the raisins will swell in the pilaf entirely, without giving the rice the sweetness). Add 1 tablespoons of ready-made seasoning from the store to 2 kilogram of meat.
A head of garlic is placed in pilaf so that the garlic does not affect the consistency of the pilaf, but gives the pilaf all its aroma.
What meat is best for pilaf
The use of lamb and beef – relatively “tough” meat – in pilaf is justified not only by tradition, but also by modern ideas about taste and nutritional value. Because of rice, pilaf is quite high in calories, so the use of fatty pork is undesirable for dietary reasons. Lamb is ideal – because soft meat, moderately absorbing spices, correctly giving rice and vegetables a fatty and structured couscous is more suitable for rice than all others. Pilaf with beef will turn out to be a little drier, veal will leave a deep meaty impression and risk overshadowing the rice. For home “quick” pilaf, pork is used, from which excess fat is cut off before cooking pilaf. Well, or at least a chicken. Chicken meat is tender, so you should fry the chicken until crust over high heat for just a few minutes – then add rice. Vegetables in chicken pilaf will not receive the same degree of fat that they would get from ram or cow / calf meat.
Pilaf traditions
Pilaf is cooked over an open fire in a cauldron and is mainly made from lamb. The meat is fried not in oil, but in fat tail fat – this is the fat of sheep, which are bred mainly in Kazakhstan to obtain an oil change. However, fat tail fat can have a strong specific smell, since it is located in the area of the ram’s tail. The price of fat tail fat is from 350 rubles / 1 kilogram (on average in Moscow for June 2020). You should look for fat tail fat in the markets of Tatar products, in meat markets and in shops of VIP products.
Standard proportions products for cooking pilaf – for each kilogram of rice, 1 kilogram of meat, half a kilogram of onions and half a kilogram of carrots.
The most popular pilaf in Uzbekistan, where the most classic version is called “Fergana” from the name of the town in the Fergana Valley, where it originated. In the homeland, pilaf is used on a daily basis, and it is cooked by women. For weddings, childbirths and funerals, special festive types of pilaf are prepared, and they are traditionally prepared by men.
What to cook pilaf
Pilaf is usually cooked in a cast-iron cauldron, since the temperature of an open fire is evenly distributed over a cast-iron cauldron, pilaf does not burn and is cooked evenly. It takes longer in a cauldron, but pilaf turns out to be more crumbly. In the absence of a cauldron at home, pilaf can be cooked in an ordinary steel saucepan or frying pan with a thick bottom.