What rice is needed for pilaf? The best, right rice for pilaf: a list with names, brands. How to properly prepare rice for pilaf so that pilaf does not stick together and is crumbly? Do I need and how to soak rice for pilaf? Which type of rice is best for

04.09.2019 Soups

We wash the beef well, cut into large pieces and dry slightly with kitchen paper towels.

Peel the onions, chop them coarsely.

Carrots must be cut into large pieces. If you cut it finely, then it will simply boil down and turn into porridge.

It is better to take carrots and garlic for pilaf when ripe, not young.

Young carrots are more tender and watery, with long stewing, as required by the recipe for Uzbek pilaf with beef, it will boil down and turn into gruel. Ripe carrots have the most intense flavor, it retains its shape better during the cooking process.

Ripe (old) garlic has a distinct taste, which means that the dish with it will turn out to be more saturated and aromatic than with a young vegetable.

It is advisable to cook beef pilaf at home in a thick-walled saucepan, or better in a cast-iron cauldron, so that the ingredients do not burn during frying and stewing (I cook in it).

In this case, dishes with a non-stick coating are not a very good option, since such a coating does not tolerate high temperatures well, begins to crack and fall off. The non-stick coating does not tolerate mechanical stress when stirring the dish with a spoon or spatula.

The ideal option is to take a cauldron from cast iron... It keeps warm well, allows the dish to simmer slowly. On the contrary, in aluminum dishes, heat is poorly retained, therefore, it will not be possible to bring the second to condition by languishing. To cook the pilaf evenly throughout the entire volume, take a spherical cauldron, not a flat one. The spherical cauldron is evenly heated by fire from all sides. The lid of a good cauldron should tightly cover the pot.

Choose the size of the cauldron based on the number of servings and, taking into account the fact that rice increases in volume during cooking. Our pilaf is designed for 6 servings, so a cauldron with a volume of 7 liters will be optimal.

Pour vegetable oil into the cauldron and heat it well over high heat.

In the bubbling oil, carefully spread the chopped meat and mix immediately. Otherwise, it will stick to the walls of the cauldron. Besides, boiling little "seals" the meat fibers, preventing them from losing their juiciness. Fry the meat for about 10 minutes.

Add coarsely chopped onions to the meat. We mix.

After a minute, put in the chopped carrots.

Next, lay out all the prepared spices and put salt. In the list of ingredients for the recipe for crumbly pilaf with beef, we indicated the most popular spices used in Asia - turmeric, cumin, barberry. However, you can add other spices that perfectly set off the taste of beef - red chili, coriander, allspice and black pepper, mustard seeds, ground nutmeg, thyme.

Fill the meat with vegetables with two glasses of water. Cauldron, close the lid, reduce the heat and simmer the meat and vegetables for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, put well-washed parboiled rice in a cauldron. The better you washed the rice, the more starch you removed from the surface (starch makes the grains stick together during cooking). Starch is ideally washed off if you pour hot water over the grains and drain it immediately. The procedure is repeated several more times (4-5) until the drained liquid becomes transparent. Many cooks claim that in order to properly prepare rice for pilaf, it must be soaked in cold water for 30-40 minutes.

Professional culinary experts claim that how tasty and crumbly pilaf will turn out depends on the variety of selected rice.

The most suitable cereal is one that is able to absorb liquid, fat, flavor and aroma of the spices used well. Real rice for pilaf should keep its shape perfectly, not boil over, not stick together in the total mass. After all, we do not plan to cook risotto, the ideal pilaf is crumbly.

Therefore, chefs advise in this case to purchase brown long rice or red, which has undergone minimal processing (steaming, grinding) and retained a maximum of useful substances in the composition. It is brewed for an average of 25-30 minutes. Such varieties of rice as Rubin, Samarkand and Devzira are known, bred by breeders directly for cooking pilaf. Elongated white parboiled rice (like Jasmine or Basmati), which has a golden-transparent color, is also not bad.

You can buy a mix of two types of cereals in the store - parboiled and wild rice. As a last resort, use long polished white rice. But keep in mind that it is inferior to brown and golden parboiled rice in terms of the content of valuable substances, and it only takes 15 minutes to cook it.

Attention!

Make sure that the rice in the purchased package is whole, not chopped, so that there are no impurities of debris.

In any case, give preference to long-grained groats, and set aside round (for example, Krasnodar variety) or chopped groats for cooking porridge, soups, Italian risotto.

Spread the rice evenly over the surface, add a little more salt. Put the bay leaf, insert a whole head of garlic in the middle, stick the peeled cloves around the edges. Pour in water, its level should be 2 cm higher than rice.

According to cookbooks, the optimal ratio should be 1 part cereal, 3 parts liquid.

We close the cauldron with a lid and cook pilaf over low heat until tender. Usually direct cooking lasts 20-25 minutes from the beginning of boiling water (depending on the type of rice). After this time, the rice should completely absorb the water.

Then turn off the fire and leave the dish to simmer in a hot cauldron for another 15-20 minutes. During this time, slightly harsh cereal grains will acquire the desired consistency, but will not boil over. If you continue to cook rice until cooked on fire, eliminating languor, then the cereal may lose its shape, become too soft.

In Uzbekistan, there is a word "shavlya", which is a scornful term for sticky porridge with rice, which only vaguely resembles real pilaf cooked in a cauldron.

Since the rice is cooked faster in the middle than at the edges, every 5-7 minutes, you need to open the lid and collect the rice along the edges to the middle. This will cook the rice evenly. But do not stir the dish too thoroughly, so as not to destroy the integrity of the grains.

That's all, now you know the real recipe for pilaf with beef and you can cook it yourself at home. Rather, invite your family and guests to the table!

At home, it is customary to serve it like this: rice and carrots are laid out on top of a large dish, and pieces of meat are placed on top. The garlic is left whole, and very large pieces of meat are cut into portions. Top the dish can be sprinkled with chopped herbs - dill, parsley, green onions.

In Central Asia, next to pilaf, a large plate of herbs is certainly placed on the table. It is also combined with a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, seasoned with a small amount of vegetable oil.

If the dish turned out to be very fatty (for example, if it was cooked with lamb and fat tail fat), then simply chopped vegetables should be served without greasing them. Uzbeks eat pilaf with national flatbread.

At the end of the meal, hot green tea (no sweets) is placed on the table - this drink is optimally combined with such fatty and hearty food as pilaf.

Before starting cooking, we will prepare all the products necessary for pilaf. The main ones are shown in the first photo. The meat I use for this is different, depending on what is available and what taste you want to get. Lamb, chicken, pork are ideal. I use parboiled rice.

We wash the carrots under running water, clean and wash again. Then we cut it into small pieces, approximately as in the photo. Peel the onion, wash it and cut it into small cubes, as in the picture.

Rinse the meat under running water, dry it with napkins and cut it into cubes about a centimeter by centimeter in size.

Meanwhile, put a saucepan with a non-stick coating or a cauldron over medium heat, pour a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil into it. When the oil heats up properly, send the sliced \u200b\u200bmeat into a saucepan, add some salt and fry it until golden brown.

Add prepared onions and carrots to the meat, continue to fry until the carrots are soft and the onions are golden. If there is almost no oil left, add a little more during frying.

Fill vegetables with meat with boiled water so that it covers the food by half a centimeter, add the seasoning for pilaf of the brand that you like and two peeled cloves of garlic (please note that you do not need to squeeze the garlic through the garlic press!). Simmer with a closed lid over low heat, if it is beef - 40-50 minutes, pork or lamb - 30-40 minutes, chicken is enough to simmer for 15-20 minutes.

After that, add the prepared long-grain parboiled rice to the saucepan. And to prepare it is very simple - we wash it and fill it with water one and a half or two hours before cooking, so that it swells slightly and cooks faster. When the rice is in the saucepan, add more water to cover the rice slightly and add a little more salt to your taste. In this form, we keep the dish with the lid closed over medium heat for 10 minutes, after which we change the heat to slow, keep it for another 10-15 minutes (depending on your stove). The main thing during cooking - after adding rice, open the lid only once - at the time of changing the medium heat to slow, otherwise you will get rice porridge instead of pilaf. We turn off the stove and ideally, cover the saucepan with a towel, leaving it on a warm burner, and hold the pilaf in this form for 20 minutes before serving, so that the pilaf reaches the required state. Now our dish is ready, you can serve it to the table. Bon appetit to you and your family!

To prepare Uzbek pilaf, you must have:

1) cauldron - the more the better

2) juicy lamb

3) fat tail fat (not just sheep fat, namely fat tail fat) - if pilaf is used as a snack for alcoholic beverages, then it is better not to accept it :-)))

5) carrots, the less juicy - the better for pilaf (ideally, yellow carrots are used)

6) zira - without which we cannot imagine the taste of Uzbek pilaf (it has a slightly nutty smell, which intensifies when rubbed or roasted)

7) turmeric - a seasoning that gives more yellow color to the dish

8) barberry (dry)

9) short chilli pepper

10) rice - ideally a variety of "devzira" or "lazarus"

11) raisins - ideally, of course, "quiche-mish"

12) garlic - our Ukrainian one is just right

A little about rice ...

Unfortunately, in our country, there is no such abundance of rice varieties as, for example, in the countries of Central Asia, and all that can be found is a very rich selection of steamed / non-steamed, polished / unpolished, long-grain / round-grain varieties. As a result, when cooking pilaf, the question always arises: "... what kind of rice should I use?"

Once upon a time I had a guest who lived in Uzbekistan for a long time and he decided to treat me to pilaf, and he cooked it from ordinary round-grain rice, while the pilaf turned out to be very crumbly and tasty. After a while, I tried to reproduce the same thing from round-grain rice - but nothing came of it ...
I have heard and read a lot about the fact that pilaf is prepared from ordinary round-grain / long-grain non-steamed rice, there are a lot of reviews that if the rice is "steamed" then pilaf from such rice turns out to be "oak", etc. etc..
And the most important argument for opponents of "steamed" rice is that according to the technology of cooking pilaf, rice must be steamed with steam at the end for 20-30 minutes.
The very technology of steaming rice was developed by the US military more than 50 years ago, which greatly facilitated the process of cooking such dishes as pilaf, because the steaming process affects the starch in the kernel of the grain and therefore the rice remains crumbly during cooking.
In my recipe I will try to cook Uzbek pilaf using steamed rice from TM Zhmenka.

A little about the cauldron ...

Pilaf cannot be cooked in thin-walled pans. it must cook in its own juice, and of course this cannot be achieved in a dish that does not heat evenly, so a regular flat-bottomed saucepan will not work.
To prepare pilaf, it is necessary to use dishes with a rounded bottom and thick walls - a cauldron. Some of my acquaintances prefer to cook pilaf not in a cauldron, but in a roaster or on an ordinary cast-iron frying pan. This is done by those who do not have a cauldron, I have one, and its capacity is 6.5 liters, which is enough for making Uzbek pilaf.

A little about spices ...

Zira - without her it is impossible to imagine the taste of Uzbek pilaf, I will accept it twice, at the very beginning and at the end (but more on that later).
Turmeric - needed to give a yellowish tint and aramata (because it contains essential oils).
Barberry is a spice that gives sourness and aroma to pilaf.
I would especially like to pay special attention to the chilli pepper, which increases appetite and adds spice to the dish. It is used fresh, ground and dry. It is very important to carefully apply it fresh in the stitching because The seeds and inner plates are considered the most burning part of hot peppers. I will use dry red peppers while making zirvak.

Well, let's get started ...

As a Ukrainian, I cannot accurately describe the preparation of Uzbek pilaf and all the processes that will take place ... In my previous description of the preparation of pilaf (), I made a number of mistakes, which my classmate Igor helped me to correct (thanks to him for that). The main mistake in cooking pilaf is that many people think that meat with carrots should be stewed over low heat for about an hour (with spices, of course) .... The very concepts of "stew" and "fry" are very different from each other, because .to. when stewing, the meat gives off its juices and becomes less juicy when frying. When preparing pilaf, it is very important that the frying process itself does not turn into a different process, and for this you need to use maximum fire to heat the cauldron, evaporate water from the onion as much as possible - this is achieved due to the very hot oil on which the onion is fried.
Well, and the last thing - not any cold water ... In previous times I had it and used it because of which the taste of meat and its aroma were disturbed. This time I will do without cold water. Fried meat in vegetable and animal (fat tail) oil (fat) with carrots is "zirvak", one of the components of pilaf. Another component is fig.
A properly prepared zirvak is a guarantee of delicious pilaf. You can even stretch the process of cooking pilaf in time and first cook zirvak, and then after a while (hours / days) add rice to it. Zirvak keeps well in ordinary refrigerators. But I prefer to cook everything at once ...

... the process has started

1) At the very beginning, we unpack the rice, rinse it in several waters so that the water from the rice becomes transparent. This will wash away the excess starch content, which causes the stickiness of the rice itself. Next, pour it into a container (pan) with very salted warm water and soak it for about two hours (usually at least an hour).

While the rice is steeping, there is time to prepare the main ingredients for the zirvak: meat, fat tail fat, onions and carrots. Cut the meat into small pieces (about 1.5 cm square), cut fat tail fat into even smaller pieces (about 0.5 cm square), cut the onion into thin (even very) half rings, cut the carrots into strips (not very thick slices) ...

2) We put the cauldron on the gas stove and heat it up at the maximum temperature so that all its walls are heated to the maximum. Put finely cut pieces of fat tail fat into a well-heated cauldron and fry it, stirring only once (this is what Stalik Khankishiev advises in his book "Kazan, Mangal and Others - Men's Pleasures"). Pieces of fat tail fat give about 85% of their own fat, which must be combined with vegetable oil (in this case, I will add about 200 g of vegetable oil) and heat it until a haze appears. To remove foreign odors from the oil, it is advised to put a peeled small onion into it and fry it until black appears. By the way, one of my friends, instead of a whole onion, at this stage uses only one plate of an onion. After the onion is fried, remove it from the cauldron and further ...

It is very good if, together with the lamb pulp, we have a bone (... and not one) or, say, a bone from a shank. We lower it to the bottom of the cauldron and fry it very quickly until the yellowish color of the stone itself appears - thereby we will add aroma to the hot oil and as a result the zirvak will be even tastier. Do not forget to put the fried bone aside :-)

3) Put onion cut into half rings in a cauldron and fry it until golden brown. Add finely chopped pieces of meat to the onions and fry them a little with the onions over very high heat (the main thing here is not to overdo it with fire).

The meat has not yet cooked very well. It is very important not to stew it - namely, fry it ...

4) We put the carrots in the cauldron, fry them and mix with onions and meat, reduce the heat and add boiled water so that the carrots are covered by about 1 - 1.5 cm .. And then it's time to add spices: cumin (1 tablespoon), barberry (1 tablespoon), turmeric (1/2 tablespoon), a whole head of garlic (peeled from coarse husks) and peppers (1-2 pieces). This is the net - zirvak, but it is not ready yet. To do this, bring it to a boil and reduce the fire to a minimum, but so that the water evaporates from the zirvak itself, which we cook for 40 to 60 minutes.

Zirvak should be slightly salty because rice must absorb excess salt; for this, it is necessary to put about a heaped tablespoon of salt in the boiling zirvak.

Finally, we are done with the zirvak, now we wait 40-60 minutes depending on the fire, meat, cauldron and its heating properties ... And now we turn to the most important thing - we lay the rice.

5) Drain the washed rice and carefully lay it out on top of the zirvak (no need to interfere).

6) Add boiled water so that the rice is completely covered and over high heat we wait for it to evaporate. The water should be completely evaporated and the rice should be steamed. At this stage, you need to be extremely careful so as not to boil the rice itself and not cook it. try the rice, if ready, then cover the cauldron with a lid, you can cover it with a towel and let it brew for 20-30 minutes.

Which rice is best for cooking Uzbek pilaf - steamed or regular?

I never cook parboiled rice! it is oak, no matter how much you cook it ...
long grain steamed
Basmati!
The best rice for pilaf ..)
Pilaf in nature
Basmati rice 700 g
Meat beef 1 kg
Carrots (large) 4 pieces
Bulb onions 4 pcs
Garlic 5 pcs
Seasonings and salt

The recipe "Pilaf in nature !!!"

In a cauldron, we ignite the oil, throw in a piece of onion, fry it and throw it away.
We throw the meat (for an amateur - lamb or beef, or all together), along with the meat I put cumin and a teaspoon of black pepper.
Fry the meat until golden brown and put in coarsely chopped onions (about the same as meat), again fry, m everything until golden
color (what color will the onion be of this color pilaf and it will turn out),
then put the KNIFE CUT carrots (you can put a little more carrots than
meat) and fry the zirvak for about an hour over low heat, stirring all the time.
Then we put well-washed rice, salt, cumin, stick 5 or 6 heads of garlic into rice, one bitter pepper, fill it all with water for two
finger, put on high heat until boiling, and then very slow - for about half an hour.
Then I take it off the fire, wrap it in something warm for half an hour - and the pilaf is ready.
I cook from steamed.
And in Asia they have special varieties.
Real Uzbek pilaf (or very similar to it)
meat 1 kg
onion 1 kg
carrots 1 kg
rice 500 g
water 1 l
vegetable oil 2 cups
garlic 2-3 heads
cumin 2 tsp
ground red sweet pepper 1 tbsp. the spoon
barberry 1-2 tsp
turmeric 1-2 tsp
salt

Rice must be soaked in hot water, lightly salted, for 40 minutes. Cut the onion into thin half rings and fry until golden brown. Then add the meat, cut into cubes of any size, and fry until the juice comes out. Cut the carrots into thin strips and put at the end. If the carrots are overcooked, then the pilaf turns out to be fragrant and golden. Then pour water, bring to a boil and make the smallest fire. Add all the spices: salt, cumin, red bell pepper, barberry, turmeric and garlic. Garlic should be put in whole heads. Do not be afraid, there will not be much, the garlic will give the pilaf an extraordinary aroma, if you peel the garlic into slices, all the aroma will evaporate from them. By the way, about the aroma: zira is the most basic spice in pilaf, without it you won't be able to get real Uzbek pilaf, no matter how hard you try. Uzbeks also add chickpeas and raisins to pilaf. But this is optional. Zirvak (refried onions with carrots, seasoned with herbs and spices) should be cooked for 45 minutes. Then drain the water from the rice and carefully pour it into the zirvak. Do not stir! You just need to crush the rice with a slotted spoon so that the water covers it. Then, over medium heat, you need to evaporate all the water. After all the water has evaporated, with a slotted spoon you need to collect all the rice from the walls in one slide (so as not to stick and not irrigate), make several depressions in the rice to the bottom, sprinkle it on top with zira again and close it tightly with a lid. Steam for 30 minutes on the smallest fire. At the end of the pilaf, gently mix the whole, after taking out the garlic (it must be peeled at the end and sprinkled with pilaf). If your rice is crumbly and soft, then you did everything right.

Rice ordinary
Steamed is much better.
But this is only in pilaf, and if it is just rice, then ordinary, long-grain rice is better.
Steamed. The Uzbeks steamed rice themselves, and we cook it from the purchased one.
Steamed, it doesn't stick together
Krasnodar round-grained. There should be 2 fingers of water above it. Parboiled rice has an unpleasant odor. which spoils the taste of pilaf very much. None of the long-grain rice sold in our stores is suitable for pilaf - it is very fragile and tastes nasty. Krasnodar has a neutral taste.
Not necessarily steamed, regular rice can be used. the main thing. do not ruin it when cooking.
I cook with steamed rice. Round turns into porridge ...

Not every housewife can boast of the ability to cook real Uzbek pilaf. The correct pilaf is certainly a fire plus a cauldron with meat, a lot of onions and carrots, as well as rice intended only for pilaf.

Cooking real pilaf in a cauldron is a pleasure.

Modern housewives have added their preferences to the correct recipe. The fire was replaced with a stove and oven, meat with poultry, and rice for pilaf with steamed rice. I would like to offer you a Russian variation of pilaf cooking - from steamed rice with chicken.

Diet pilaf from steamed rice with chicken in a cauldron turns out to be super crumbly, as they say: "Rice to rice". Suitable for lunch for all family members.

To make chicken pilaf, take the ingredients listed.

Use chilled chicken. Vegetables need to be peeled.

Chop the chicken into pieces. For pilaf, take legs, wings and white meat.

Chop the carrots into large strips or cubes.

Cut the onions into large cubes.

Fry the onions and carrots in a cauldron in vegetable oil, and first fry the onions until golden, and then add the carrots.

Fry the chicken separately in vegetable oil. Salt well.

Carrots and onions must also be salted and then combined with chicken.

Stew the chicken, onions and carrots in your own juice. Season with pilaf spices. Mix well.

Pour steamed long grain rice into the cauldron. The groats should cover the chicken and vegetables.

Pour boiling water over the rice over two thumbs. Salt well.

Close the cauldron with a lid. Bring the pilaf to a boil. Switch the heating mode to low heat. Simmer pilaf with chicken over low heat for at least 45 minutes. During the cooking process, add garlic to pilaf. Divide the head into teeth and "insert into the cap" pilaf, as shown in the photo.