Today on this gloomy and cold winter day I thought that rice pilaf might be what we need to cheer us up a little and rise our spirits up. And it did just that indeed! Deliciously flavourful and spicy, this hearty dish lands itself as a perfect winter meal!
Rice pilaf is a simple dish and recipe normally involves cooking in broth with addition of some kind of meat, vegetables and spices.While it is a staple of dining across Eastern Europe and Balkans, however undeservingly, it gets very little attention in the West.
Recalling from my childhood it was commonly made with chicken, usually served as a part of large family gathering feast. At the time I use to pick out just the meat peaces, I was not a big fan of rice.
That changed few years later, during my student days in Belgrade. As a beneficiaries of state subsidized educational system, students also had an access to subsidized meal plans. Subsidized really meant; a near zero cost to a student. Student restaurants had professional cooks on staff, ingredients were fresh, locally sourced. The amazing variety of freshly prepared and tasty dishes were offered every day. Looking back and taking it as given and normal at the time, I just realize now how fortunate and privileged we all were.
That was about the time when I really fell in love with pilaf among many other traditional and ethnic dishes.
Today’s recipe is inspired by Chef Greg Easter. The recipe is a hybrid between Russian pilaf, often bland, and Uzbek’s intense and spicy pilaf. It is the dish with deeply satisfying flavour, simply delicious!
The vegetables are cooked on fat rendered and skimmed from roasted meat drippings, while the rice is cooked in broth, that is collected from the rest of deglazed meat juices. Very simple and effective process!
Perhaps the best way to plan this dish is to roast the meat in the evening, deglaze the roasting pan, strain the juices and after cooling down refrigerate over night. With this prep work it will take only 10-15 minutes to finish it off and have it ready for serving. I might also add that besides being very tasty and easy to make dish it is also a very economical dish. This wonderful recipe that would easily serve 4-6 people would not cost more then about $15.00.
| Prep Time | 30 minutes |
| Cook Time | 60 minutes |
| Passive Time | 1 hours |
| Servings |
people
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- 1 kg pork shoulder cubed
- 360 g basmati rice or any other long grain rice
- 140 g carrots julienne
- 140 g onions chopped
- 9 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 3 tbsp fresh dill chopped
- 5 tbsp carrots julienne
- 1 Jalapeño chily pepper chopped
- 1 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 3 cups hot water for deglazing
- 3 3/4 tsp sweet paprika
- 3 tsp Coriander seeds
- 3 tsp coarse sea salt
- 2 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
- 3/4 tsp dill dried
- 1 Bay leaf
- 75 g ketchup
- 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
Ingredients
Ingredients
Marinade
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- Process all the dry spices in a spice grinder.
- In a medium size mixing bowl whisk together ground spices together with ketchup, lemon juice and vegetable oil.
- Cube the meat and add to the marinade. Massage the meat with marinade coating it thoroughly. Cover the bowl with stretch wrap in let rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 220 C (450 F) with fan assist turned on, oven rack in the middle.
- Spread the meat in a single layer on a non reactive metal baking pan (avoid aluminum). Bake for 13 minutes and then turn the pieces over, bake for another 13 minutes.
- Turn the pieces over again and bake for 7 more minutes. By now the meat should have developed a very deep color, with some black here and there. That is what you are aiming for.
- Transfer the meat to medium size mixing bowl and let cool to room temperature. At this point the meat can be refrigerated if intent is to finish the dish off on the following day, or continue if doing it today.
- Deglaze the pan with hot water, pass through the sieve two times. Let cool and again refrigerate if finishing off the following day, or transfer to fat separator, if preparing it for today.
- Pour off or remove solidified fat (If refrigerated) from the deglazed juices or broth.
- Rinse the rice in a fine mesh strainer under cold running water. Chop the garlic and onions, grate the carrots.
- Over medium high heat (8.5 out of 10) preheat a large cooking pot with a lid. Once it is very hot add the skimmed fat following with onions and carrots. Stir around and cook for about 4 minutes.
- Stir in 1 1/4 tsp of sea salt.
- Add rinsed rice and stir thoroughly.
- Add chopped garlic, stir and cook for about 1 minute.
- Add the meat and stir until fully incorporated.
- Pour in the broth, stir and let it come to a simmer. When it starts to simmer reduce the heat to medium low (3 out of 10). Place an inverted, slightly smaller ceramic plate, into the pot, creating a cover and a top weight. Put the lid on the pot and cook for about 3-4 minutes, do not stir. The simmer should be vigorous but not too vigorous to burn everything. This may take some experimenting to determine the right level of heat.
- Chop 3 tbsp of fresh dill, 1 hot pepper and julienne 5 tbsp of carrots.
- Using a pair of tongs retrieve plate from the pot and stir in: chopped dill, hot pepper and carrots. Stir thoroughly by scraping the bottom of the pot. Turn the heat off put the lid on and let rest for 10 minutes.
- Serve warm.
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