Lean pilaf

Step-by-step cooking

1. Step 1:

   

   How to make lean pilaf? Prepare the necessary ingredients. You can take long-grain rice, but I advise you to use special steamed rice for pilaf. It holds its shape well and does not boil. Instead of the spices specified in the recipe, you can use others to taste or replace everything with a ready-made mixture of spices for pilaf.

2. Step 2:

   

   Rinse the rice thoroughly until clear water.

3. Step 3:

   

   Wash and dry the prunes. It is better to take seedless prunes right away. If there are bones in your dried fruits, take them out. Usually, if the prunes are too dry, it is advised to pour boiling water and leave for 10 minutes. I had just such a prune, but I did not fill it with anything in addition, only washed it well first in cold and then in hot water. The time that the pilaf will be prepared and infused will be enough to steam it and soften it

4. Step 4:

   

   Peel the carrots. Carrots can be cut into strips or grated on a coarse grater, it does not matter.

5. Step 5:

   

   Peel the onion. Usually, onions are added to pilaf in crushed form (step 7). To do this, it needs to be cut into small cubes. However, I prefer to add a whole onion, which I remove from the finished dish.

6. Step 6:

   

   Peel the garlic head from the upper layers of the husk and rinse.

7. Step 7:

   

   Heat the vegetable oil in a deep frying pan or saucepan. Lay out the carrots (and onions, if you want to add them in chopped form) and fry over medium heat until the carrots are soft (and the onion is transparent). Instead of a saucepan, you can cook pilaf in a cauldron.

9. Step 8:

   

   Add paprika, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper to the carrots. Mix everything quickly.

10. Step 9:

    

    Pour in the washed rice and prunes. Mix everything thoroughly with the carrots.

11. Step 10:

    

    Pour boiling water into the pan, put the whole onion, if it has not been added before.

12. Step 11:

    

    Simmer on low heat under the lid for about 30 minutes. In the finished pilaf, all the excess moisture will boil off, the rice will swell, absorb part of the water, the total volume of the dish will increase 2-2.5 times.

13. Step 12:

    

    5 minutes before cooking, stick a whole head of garlic into the almost ready pilaf. Then turn off the heat and let the pilaf brew for 10-15 minutes under the lid.

14. Step 13:

    

    After that, it can be spread out on plates and served to the table. Bon appetit!