The debate about which recipe for pilaf is the most “correct”, like all similar ones, has no solution.
It is much more reasonable to try all possible options and choose the ones you like.
All national cuisines have their own characteristics and advantages, Azerbaijani cuisine is no exception.
For most housewives, Azerbaijani pilaf is preferable due to the specifics of cooking rice, in this case it is easier to cook to the required condition.
The variety of products that are served with rice is such that any foodie will find a recipe to taste.
Azerbaijani pilaf - general principles of cooking
• The peculiarity of Azerbaijani pilafs is that rice is prepared for them separately from the other components and does not mix with them even when served.
• The taste of the finished dish largely depends on properly cooked rice, since it is the main part of pilaf, occupying more than half of its volume.
• Boiled rice should not become sour during cooking and become sticky like porridge. It should be well cooked, while remaining crumbly.
• To achieve this result, rice should be steamed. When boiling rice in water, the cereal is laid only in boiling water, and boiled until half-cooked. Rice in a cauldron is brought to full readiness, languishing at the very minimum fire under the lid for half an hour.
• Before cooking, rice cereal must be washed well with cold water until it becomes clear, and then soak in slightly warm water for twenty minutes.
• Boiled rice must be washed with hot water, and part of it is separated in order to color.
• Rice is stained with saffron tincture, which is added to melted butter mixed with a teaspoon of boiling water.
• To prevent rice from being burnt while cooking up to the bottom of the dishes, lavash is spread on the bottom, smeared with oil dissolved to a liquid state, and only then rice is placed on it.
• Pita bread can be prepared independently, but to save time, it’s also suitable for purchase.
• Azerbaijani pilaf cooked with meat, fish, chicken. There is also a recipe for kids - with raisins in milk.
• Pilaf meat is fried, and then stewed with spices, spices and fruits, or meatballs are prepared from it, which are served with pilaf with sauce.
Azerbaijani pilaf with lamb
Ingredients:
• 240 grams of rice;
• 400 grams of young mutton, brisket;
• three large onions;
• 160 grams of cherry plum (yellow);
• seedless raisins - 35 grams;
• 150 ml of pomegranate juice;
• 50 grams of butter;
• 0.8 ml of saffron tincture.
Cooking method:
1. Pour up to half boiling water into a large, fairly deep pan. Cover the top of the pan with gauze folded in two layers and tie the pan with the free ends of the gauze so that it does not fall into the water under the weight of the rice. The gauze cloth should not be too stretched, but rather slightly bend. Pour well-washed rice onto cheesecloth, knead with your hands so that there are no lumps left. Put a piece of butter on top of the rice and cook, covered with a lid, until cooked.
2. Cut the mutton breast together with the seeds into small portions and fry them in a pan in their own fat with the addition of butter. It is necessary to fry over high heat so that the meat quickly becomes covered with a golden crust and does not lose juice during further cooking.
3. In a thick-walled cauldron, put onion chopped into small pieces, add washed and slightly dried raisins, seedless cherry plum, pour in pomegranate juice and, adding a little less than a quarter glass of water, simmer, covering the cauldron with a lid for forty minutes, over low heat.
4. Boiled rice and stew are served separately, in different dishes. To pilaf on a separate plate on the table put greens: young garlic, feathers of green onions, mint and watercress.
Azerbaijani pilaf with chicken
Ingredients:
• chilled chicken carcass - 900 grams;
• 300 grams of coarse rice;
• 15 grams of almond kernels;
• cherry plum - 150 grams;
• medium sized onion;
• three cloves of garlic, young;
• half a liter of milk;
• 100 grams of butter;
• ground cinnamon - 5 grams;
• 100 grams of horse chestnut;
• pomegranate juice - 250 ml;
• half a teaspoon of saffron tincture;
• ground black pepper to taste.
For pita bread:
• white wheat flour - 350 grams;
• one egg;
• a tablespoon of boiled water;
• 25 grams of butter, 65%, butter;
• fine salt.
Cooking method:
1. Stir the egg with water and salt. Add to the flour and knead a sufficiently thick dough, as for noodles, and roll it out with a layer, one to one and a half millimeters thick. Fry pita bread on both sides in a dry frying pan.
2. Boil rice until half cooked in slightly salted boiling water. While the rice is cooking, remove the foam from the broth surface all the time. When the surface of the grains becomes soft, but at the same time they are slightly hard inside, discard the rice in a colander and rinse it with cold boiled water. Color the rice with saffron.
3. Lubricate the pita bread with melted butter over the fire and place it in a cauldron, oiled side up. On a pita, put one and a half glasses of unpainted rice mixed with 50 grams of melted butter, smooth. Sprinkle saffron-colored rice on top, put the remaining oil on it and set to simmer under a tightly covered lid for half an hour.
4. Heat the chestnuts in a dry frying pan well, pour over them with boiling water, remove the peel and cook until cooked over low heat in milk.
5. In the calcined oil, fry the chopped onion with chopped garlic until light, add the almonds and fry a little more. Add chestnuts, cherry plum, lightly salt and simmer for seven minutes, over low heat.
6. Rinse the chicken carcass thoroughly and rub it well inside with salt mixed with cinnamon and black pepper. The abdomen does not need to be cut.
7. Stuff the carcass with a chestnut mixture and sew tightly with culinary thread.
8. Put stuffed bird on a baking sheet and bake until cooked in the oven at 200 degrees, systematically pouring it with pomegranate juice.
9. Divide the finished chicken into portions and lay them in the center of a flat dish, and place the filling laid out from it and pour everything with pomegranate juice.
10. Serve rice separately from the meat, garnishing it with herbs.
Azerbaijani pilaf with beef
Ingredients:
• beef (tenderloin) - 600 grams;
• two and a half glasses of rice;
• 120 grams of melted butter, butter;
• two large onions;
• ground cloves - a small pinch;
• cinnamon - on the tip of a knife.
• purchased thin pita bread.
Cooking method:
1. Cut the onions into small cubes and fry them until golden brown in a pan in melted butter, seasoning with cinnamon and cloves.
2. In a separate frying pan, also in oil, fry small pieces of washed and slightly dried beef.
3. Fill the meat in a bowl or small thick-walled pan, shifting each layer to fried onions with spices. Pour in a third of a glass of water, add salt to your taste and simmer until tender.
4. In slightly salted water, boil well-washed rice until half cooked. Do not pour rice for cooking with cold water, use only boiling water. Transfer the grains to a colander, rinse. When all the moisture has gone, put the rice in a cauldron, the bottom and sides of which are lined with thin oiled pita bread, pour the remaining ghee on top and bring to readiness.
5. Put the finished rice in a slide on a plate, put the stew on top, and pour the juice released during the stewing over the meat.
Azerbaijani pilaf, dairy
Ingredients:
• round-grain rice - 0.5 cups;
• 60 grams of dark raisins;
• 70 grams of butter "Peasant" butter;
• 250 ml of milk;
• boiled water - 400 ml;
• saffron, tincture - half a teaspoon;
• thin pita bread.
Cooking method:
1. Dissolve milk in water and set to boil. In a still non-boiling milk mixture, add salt and pour rice washed with water, stir well. Boil quickly and, reducing the heat to medium, cook rice until cooked.
2. Rinse the finished rice in a colander with hot water. When all the water has drained, transfer the rice to a large sieve lined with gauze and leave to dry for a quarter of an hour.
3. Lubricate the bottom and walls of the cauldron with plenty of oil, line them with pita bread, which is also oiled.
4. Stir the rice with the washed soaked raisins, transfer everything to the cauldron and simmer for half an hour, turning on the fire to the minimum. The cauldron lid must be closed tightly.
5. On a small fire, melt the butter well, mix it with saffron tincture and pour the rice on top with this mixture.
Azerbaijani pilaf from fish
Ingredients:
• a pound of fresh sea fish;
• one and a half glasses of Khazar rice;
• 100 grams of "Traditional" oil;
• raisins - 60 grams;
• two large onion heads;
• ground black pepper;
• fine salt;
• tincture of saffron - 1 ml;
• purchased pita bread, thin.
Cooking method:
1. Clean the fish from the scales and entrails, remove all the fins and cut into small slices. Put the fish in a small bowl, sprinkle with salt and black pepper, mix well and leave for ten minutes.
2. Roll the fish pieces in flour and quickly fry in hot oil on both sides until light brown. Add onions, spassed to transparency, raisins soaked in water, saffron and over medium heat bring the fish to readiness.
3. Boiled rice until cooked in slightly salted water, rinse, slightly dry. Color a third of the saffron rice and transfer all the rice to a bowl, lined with oiled pita bread. At the bottom of the cauldron is plain rice, and painted on top.
4. In the center of saffron-stained rice, make a small indentation into which put the fish stewed with fruit. Cover the container tightly with a lid and bring the pilaf to readiness at the very minimum fire for 8 minutes.
Azerbaijani mutton pilaf with beans
Ingredients:
• thin purchased pita bread - 1 sheet;
• 600 grams of lamb (loin);
• 1 glass of Basmati rice;
• bitter white onion - 1 large head;
• 80 grams of dry white beans;
• 70 grams of raisins "Kishmish";
• 65% butter - 100 grams;
• a small pinch of cinnamon and black pepper;
• 1 ml of saffron tincture;
Cooking method:
1. In well-melted butter, fry the chopped onion head to a light amber color. Add to the onion slices of mutton fried until rosy, add a third of a glass of boiled cold water, salt. Add saffron diluted with two tablespoons of water and stew the meat until cooked.
2. Rinse the rice cooked until half cooked in hot water and dry in a colander.
3. Boil beans soaked in water until soft, drain the water and mix with dried rice.
4. Rinse the "Kishmish", pour hot water for ten minutes, then drain the water, and a little let the raisins on a small fire.
5. On the bottom of a thick-walled pan or cauldron, lay a thin pita bread, put butter, add saffron tincture and quickly bring on the stove to a fried crust. Pour in rice mixed with beans and bring them to a cooked place under a closed lid.
6. Put ready rice on a large flat dish. On the one hand, put the meat stewed with spices, and on the other hand, stewed raisins and lavash laid out from a cauldron.
Azerbaijani pilaf with meatballs
Ingredients:
• 700 grams of brisket (lamb, beef);
• five small onions;
• one and a half cups of long-grain rice;
• 120 grams of traditional oil;
• 15 ml of 3% vinegar;
• 1 tbsp. l tomato paste;
• 0.5 tsp granulated sugar;
• one milliliter of saffron tincture;
• black ground pepper, small table salt.
Cooking method:
1. Peel the meat from excess films, rinse it with cold water and, having cut into small pieces, twist it twice in a meat grinder, installing a large grate in it. Twisting the meat a second time, together with it, pass through the meat grinder two peeled onions.
2. Add a little salt to the minced meat, slightly pepper, knead well and remove for half an hour in the cold.
3. From the minced meat with wet hands, form small balls and fry them until golden brown in melted butter.
4. In a separate pan, fry the chopped onion, add tomato paste, a tablespoon of boiled water, vinegar, granulated sugar, a little salt and a pinch of ground black pepper. Stir thoroughly and continue to fry, constantly mixing for two minutes.
5. Pour meat balls with cooked tomato sauce and simmer them in the sauce over low heat for 8 minutes.
6. Pour the washed soaked rice with boiling water and boil until cooked. Drain, rinse the cooked rice with hot water and discard in a colander.
7. When all the water has come down, color the third part of the rice with saffron, and put the remaining white rice on the dish with a slide and pour it with dissolved hot oil.
8. On top of the white rice, lay the painted part of it, and lay the meatballs along with the sauce around the pilaf.
Azerbaijani pilaf - tricks and useful tips
• If you do not have saffron tincture, you can replace it with a small pinch of turmeric.
• Rice, if possible, select varieties "Osman" or "Khazar". However, if there is none on sale, follow simple rules: rice grains should be large, whole, pot-bellied. The color is white, possibly with a slightly pinkish tint.
• Boiled rice in Azerbaijani pilaf is never served hot, the temperature should be sufficient to melt the butter, but no more.
• Those who cook pilaf with ghee should definitely consider that there is a risk of over-softening rice grains, please do not forget about this.
• Saffron tincture can be prepared by yourself. To do this, pour a tablespoon of ground saffron 200 ml. vodka and insist for a month. After that, shake well and leave again for a week. Gently pour the finished tincture into a dark, well-closing container so that the sediment does not fall into it. Seal tightly and store it only in the refrigerator. This tincture can be used not only for the preparation of Azerbaijani pilaf, it can tint dough or cream with it.
