I love cooking and venturing into the deep when trying out recipes but there are a few recipes that I even tremble at the thought of trying them. Some of you may wonder how one can get scared of cooking pilau, but trust me, it was a real fear. Fear, mainly because I don’t want to fail. Perfectionist much?
Anyway, thanks to my dear friend Nixx and the many bridal showers I have attended, I can say I felt confident enough to make pilau this past Sunday. You may question the relation between pilau and bridal showers. Well, in the past two bridal showers we’ve held for our friends we decided to cook food instead of the usual bitings and on these occasions I got chance to see how to prepare pilau.
Enough with my stories and onto the recipe.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of rice
3 cups of hot water
1/4 kg of meat – boneless is preferred
1 medium sized white onion chopped
An inch of ginger root finely chopped/grated
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Pilau Masala;
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp cinnamon sticks
1 tbsp cloves
About 7 cardamon pods
1 tsp black pepper powder
I didn’t have the store bought, already mixed pilau masala but since I had whole spices in my spice rack, I decided to make my own masala.
Side Note: Masala – a combination of various spices.
There are various ways of making the masala mixture but I chose the easiest. I’ll take time and write a detailed post on spices and making masala. I put all the spices in my little grinder. For the cardamon I removed the seeds from the pods first. Grind till you get an almost fine powder then add the black pepper and set aside.
Heat the vegetable oil in a sufuria. Add the onions and the ginger.
Let the onions brown, this will aid in giving the rich colour in pilau.
Once browned, add the tomato paste and salt.
Add the meat and mix.
Cover and let the meat cook. Keep stirring to prevent it from sticking onto the pan. (I should invest in non-stick sufurias)
Once the meat is cooked add the rice and the masala.
Mix it all up.
Add in the hot water and slightly cover the sufuria.
Let the rice simmer till almost all the water evarporates. Turn off the heat and cover the sufuria for about five minutes then serve.
Serve with chilled kachumbari.
I was extremely proud of myself. Thank you Nixx.
It’s safe to say, I will be making pilau more often.
PS: Garlic is also used but I had ran out of garlic. You can add 3 grated cloves into the onions.
Well done! Looks very tasty I omit the use of tomatoes due to having grown up in Pilau land aka Mombasa where swahili pilau doesn’t call for tomatoes; one of the reasons is because the tomatoes make it go bad quicker. The only variation of pilau I make is vegetarian using peas as opposed to meat/chicken. Try making swahili pilau where the spices are very lightly ground and soaked in water and then sieved before being added to the meat/oil mixture to make it softer (they never use finely ground pilau masala) It is also cooked with meat on the bone and whole potatoes are sometimes added. The meat is boiled unless if very tender and the stock used in place of the hot water, it gives it a very nice taste. Well done on your first time I can almost smell the spices.
Trying this one tonight… wish me well.
It didnt work 🙁 Can u say pilau mama Nyawira!!!!
Woi!!! Lemme retry the recipe and see what could be wrong.
I have never had any luck with pilau and after a few failed attempts decided it wasn’t for me. So I tried this recipe shingo upande, thought it was beginners luck, tried it again and then a third time and I couldn’t believe it! I must say this has become a favorite family meal. Thank you!
Wow!Thanks for proving that it’s not beginner’s luck and I’m also glad that it has become a favourite family meal. Thank you!!
my boyfriend will, definately b happy. il try for him
Hey Cerah, enjoy making it for him.
how should i measure pilau masala
Hi? I suggest working with ratios. In case you are using the already mixed pilau masala and let’s say you use 3 tablespoons for two cups of rice, when making more rice let’s say 6 cups you just triple the amount of masala. Personally I use the proportions as per the blog post.
[…] my successful try at making pilau I have been more confident thus made different variations of it. I’ve tried with chicken and […]