Topic: 'Desi style' gorgeous rice pilaf - highly adaptable

[digital donkey]

This is much nicer than typical BIR rice in my opinion, and can be adapted to your needs - for example, add pre-cooked meat, toasted almonds, pre-cooked mushrooms, chick peas or pre cooked potatoes. This is just a basic starting point. The brown strands of onion create a nice contrast as well as giving some nice pockets of onioniness.

Requires a wide based (ideally) non-stick pan with a sealed lid. I use one from Aldi in the Crofton range which I've had for years. I noticed it back on the shelves again a couple of weeks back if anyone wants to hunt one down.

If the lid on your pan has a hole, stuff it with scrunched up aluminium foil.

Ingredients:

1 cup (250ml) basmati rice.

430ml hot chicken stock (make with 2 chicken stock cubes if you don't have fresh stock. I use Aldi stock cubes as they are nice and yellow so they give a bit of colour)

1 medium onion cut into thin slices

1 heaped tsp garlic/ginger paste

1 cup of frozen peas (or any other fairly dry additional ingredient)

Large piece of cassia bark
1.5 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 large bay leaf or equivalent

4 tbsp veg oil or ghee

1/4 tsp clove powder
1/8 - 1/4 tsp green cardamom powder (depending on preference)


1 - Soak the rice for at least 30 minutes in cold water. It can be left to soak for a few hours if you want. When preparing to cook, thoroughly wash the rice with cold water and a sieve over a large pan or bowl until the water runs completely clear (most starch is gone). Leave the sieve to stand over the pan and continue with stage 2.

2- Add cinnamon, cumin, mustard seeds and bay leaf to hot oil and sizzle. Add onion and cook until golden and heavily caramelized.

3 -While onion is cooking, make up the stock. Add the clove powder and cardamom powder to the stock and incorporate*. Taste the stock for saltiness - it should be much more salty than you'd want for, say, a soup, because it will be incorporated into the rice.

4 - Add the rice, and toast in the onion and spices until golden and giving off a delicious aroma.

5 - push the rice to one side and throw the frozen peas on to the pan. Aim the flame at the peas and warm them through. Add other ingredients at this stage, as desired.

6 - Add the hot stock to the pan, quickly bring to temperature and stir briskly to incorporate everything, then place the lid on the pan and transfer to the smallest hob on the smallest flame. Set a timer for 17 minutes.

Pick the whole spices from the pan, separate the grains and then replace the lid and rest for a further ten minutes.


*You can use whole cloves and cardamom pods at the initial oil stage if you want, but this is my preference

[Peripatetic Phil]

Although a picture without a recipe is (IMHO) at best "vanity publishing" and at worst totally pointless, I do think that in this case your recipe could benefit from the inclusion of a photograph or two of the final dish.

** Phil.

[digital donkey]

I can't find anything else at the mo but here's ones from ages ago.

Thanks for your input

[Peripatetic Phil]

May I say (without wishing to seem disrespectful) that it looks a tad greasy to me ?  The image below is what I try to aim for in a pulao

[digital donkey]

No disrespect taken. This is an old photo, and perhaps was more moist than it would be nowadays. I have reduced the amount of stock in the past few months to get a drier consistency. I doubt the rice pictured is a pilaf though, owing to the green and red flecks - it doesn't look like it's been toasted in oil, unless you just meant you like a drier texture. A basic boiled rice will always be drier looking than one cooked in oil and stock with meat and other things added to it.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Not a pilaf but a pulao; whole spices fried in ghee for five to ten minutes, then rice added and fried for a further two minutes, then water (and salt) added and cooked until almost dry.  Food colouring added for last 20 minutes of drying phase.

** Phil.

[digital donkey]

Looks nice anyway

[Peripatetic Phil]

Thank you.  Compliment much appreciated.
** Phil.