Pilav is very present in the Serbian cuisine, although
it is not a traditional Serbian dish but left as a heritage from the Turks. I
love it with any meat or without meat, with vegetables or in combination with
peas. Here, I will give you a recipe for pilav as I usually make it.
Ingredients:
v
chicken
red meat or chicken breast, according to what you like
v
a
large onion
v
2
carrots
v
1
big cup of rice
v
bay
leaf
v
pepper
v
salt
v
parsley
Preparation:
Cook chicken meat first. Leave it aside after cooking
toghether with the chicken broth.
Finely chop the onion and carrots and put them in a
large saucepan to fry on oil Reduce the heat and add the rice. Rice should be
previously washed ten times and left to sit for 10min. in the bowl filled with
water. Stir constantly the mixture because you don`t want the rice to stick.
Stir for 5 to 8min. then add 2 cups of water and cook until the rice is soft,
occasionally adding little broth from the pot in which the chicken was cooked.
When the rice is cooked add salt, pepper, parsley and bay leaf. You can
transfer the mixture from the saucepan into a large pot. Then add chicken meat,
previously cut into pieces, pour some water if much of it evaporated during
cooking and place the pot in the preheated oven. Cook for 15min at 180 degrees
Celsius, or even less. Pilav is ready when all the water has evaporetad. You
must take it out of the oven before it gets brown.
Pilav can be made with chicken gizzards or you can put
veal. In case you make pilav with veal, the meat must be cut into small pieces
and cooked with oil and a little water until it softens before adding it to
pilav and putting it into the oven.
