Chicken Pilaf
January 22nd, 2011 in Chicken, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Total cooking time: 1h
An easy tweak to classic pilaf recipe – chicken instead of lamb – will make this dish to shine all different colors. Chicken require less time to cook, it is more lean so, let’s say it is more healthy and also faster to prepare 🙂
Using whole chicken is an option, but in this case you probably need to bone it first (unless you like to chew on bones).
Take boneless thighs, if you don’t like to spend time removing bones. Chicken breasts can be used as well, but may end up being too dry – mix them up with some other parts such us thighs or so.
Another trick to this recipe is using cast-iron pan, ideally round one. It makes rice to cook more evenly which is more important part – get soft not overcooked rice.
Ingredients:
- 1.5lb of boneless chicken meat
- 28 oz of rice
- 3 carrots
- 2 onions
- Garlic head
- About ½ cup of vegetable oil (sunflower or olive)
- Salt to taste
- Spices:
- 1 tea spoon of cumin
- ½ tea spoon of turmeric
- 1 tea spoon of ground black pepper
- 1 tea spoon of paprika
How to prepare, step-by-step:
- Prepare ingredients: any part of chicken will work here, but I’ve used boneless skinless chicken thighs:
- Pour rice to bowl or cooking pot, rinse it with cold water and leave in the water to soak:
- Warm up about 1/2 cups of vegetable oil in cooking pot (if you have a cast-iron one use it for best results). Peel onions, slice them into quarter circles and add to the cooking pot. Fry onions over moderate-high heat until golden brown, stir from time to time:
- Add chicken sliced into pieces about 1.5” inch big, fry chicken for about 5 mins:
- Add mix of spices (cumin, turmeric, ground black pepper, paprika):
- Add about 2 cups of water, bring to boil, reduce heat to it lightly simmers and let chicken cook for about 10 mins:
- Meanwhile clean and slice carrots, add them to the cooking pot. Starting from this point it is important not to stir:
- Season with salt (about 1 table spoon):
- Carefully drain free water from the rice you were rinsing earlier and add it to the cooking pot:
- Level rice so it is evenly distributed:
- Carefully add water until rice is fully covered with about 0.8 inch. Cover pot with a lid, reduce heat and cook for about 20 mins:
- Separate garlic head into cloves (you can also peel them, but I prefer to keep inner layer of skin on):
- Press garlic cloves vertically to rice, cover pot with a lid and continue cooking until rice is soft (depends on rice and cooking pot it can be 10-15 mins more):
- Then turn heat off, mix everything:
- And serve:
Great one! I made it last week and it was delish. Making another one today!
Thank you 🙂
I love plov, especially made with chicken and this one looks delicious. Thanks for sharing! But what are “boneless tights”? Did you mean boneless thighs?
Omg, thank you for pointing this shameless typo out… Of course I meant thighs.
Thanks again!