Pilaf with chicken and barberry
4 servings
120 minutes
Pilaf with chicken and barberry is a vibrant dish with Eastern notes, filled with the aromas of spices and the tender taste of chicken meat. Chinese cuisine is famous for its balance of flavors, and this pilaf perfectly combines the sweetness of carrots, the spiciness of garlic, and the slight sourness of barberry. Its origin can be linked to the influence of the Silk Road when spices and recipes spread across Asia, acquiring local accents. In this recipe, the cooking process is important: properly prepared rice, fragrant zirvak, and careful simmering of all ingredients create a harmony of taste. The pilaf turns out rich, warming, and cozy, making it ideal for a family dinner or festive feast. It can be served with a fresh vegetable salad or pickled appetizers that will highlight its rich flavor.
1
First, rinse the rice and soak it in warm water. Chop the onion and carrot. Carrots for pilaf are usually cut into strips, but I committed another sacrilege and ground it in a blender.
- Rice: 2 glasss
- Onion: 1 piece
- Carrot: 4 pieces
2
We heat the kazan or another container well, pour in a decent amount of vegetable oil and let it heat up, then add the onion.
- Vegetable oil: to taste
- Onion: 1 piece
3
The onion should be fried until golden, then add the meat, mix it with the onion, and brown it.
- Chicken: 500 g
4
Then add the carrots and cook everything together, stirring occasionally, for ten minutes.
- Carrot: 4 pieces
5
We add a pinch of cumin, causing a distant aroma of pilaf to waft through our kitchen.
- Cumin (zira): pinch
6
Now add 1–1.5 cups of hot water so that the contents are slightly covered by it, place a whole head of garlic in the center of the pot after removing the dry skin (no need to peel it completely!), sprinkle in the barberry berries, bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat and let it simmer until almost all the water evaporates. At this stage, you should also add whole chili peppers without cutting them; otherwise, the pilaf will be too spicy.
- Garlic: 1 head
- Dried barberry: pinch
- Red chilli pepper: 1 piece
7
After the excess water has evaporated and we have a small amount of oily broth with a rich color, we add salt and turmeric. The salt is added considering that we won't salt the rice, I personally needed half a tablespoon.
- Salt: to taste
- Turmeric: pinch
8
Now we drain the water from the rice, which it was soaked in, and carefully lay it on top of the mixture we prepared (in the East it is called zirvak). It is important not to mix the rice with this mixture but to layer it evenly on top!
- Rice: 2 glasss
9
Similarly, we carefully pour boiling water over the rice, trying not to damage the surface of the rice layer and not to stir it. The rice should be slightly covered with water. We turn the heat to maximum, freeze, and wait for the water to boil!
10
When the water is low, we add more — the rice should be almost ready this way, and only then do we reduce the heat and carefully check if all the water has evaporated underneath (I do this with a spatula by slightly moving the rice away from the edge). Once the remaining water has evaporated, we turn on the lowest heat, add a bit more cumin, cover it with a lid and leave it for about 20 minutes. After that, we turn off the heat, remove the garlic and any chili pepper if present, and mix everything well.
- Cumin (zira): pinch