Pilaf With Sour Cherries And Lentils

* Exported from MasterCook *

Pilaf With Sour Cherries And Lentils

Recipe By : Stavros Macrakis Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
Serving Size : 1 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Pulses And Grains

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
400 g Basmati rice (*)
2 peeled onions (thinly sliced)
100 g red lentils (*)
200 g sour cherries (*)
500 ml chicken or meat broth (*)
60 g unsalted butter
turmeric, cumin, salt

1. In a 4-5 liter Dutch oven, melt most of the butter and slowly brown the
onions. Add the cleaned lentils and fry a bit; then the same for the
cleaned rice. Stir constantly, browning the rice without letting it stick.

2. Add the cherries and 550 ml liquid made up of cherry liquid, stock, and
water. Add 1-5 ml turmeric and 1 ml ground cumin if desired; add necessary
salt (depending on the saltiness of your broth).

3. Bring to a boil, stir with a fork, cover tightly, and let cook over the
very lowest heat for about 20 mins.

4. Fluff up the rice with a fork (never a spoon) and add the remaining
butter to the bottom of the pot.

5. Raise the heat slightly for 5-10 mins to form a crust on the bottom
(with the right technique, this should be possible without this step...).

6. Serve, making sure to include a bit of crust in each serving.

Author's Notes:
This Pilaf with sour cherries and lentils is a Persian-style dish,
although I cannot vouch for its authenticity. It is rich enough to eat for
dinner by itself; as a side dish, it might be good with a spiced grilled
chicken or a lamb stew. It is a composite of recipes from cookbooks and
from a Iranian Jewish family I know. Following the recipe are some important
notes (*) on ingredients.

An excellent side dish is yoghurt, possibly flavored (like the Indian
raita) with one or more of: fresh chopped herbs (parsley, coriander, mint),
some salt, some spice (paprika, black pepper, black onion seed, or coriander
seed), olive oil, and lemon juice. Even better than yoghurt as a base is
strained yoghurt, also called Lebany Spread or Lebanee, available
commercially in New England from Columbo or Anoosh (look in
Armenian/Arab/Greek stores). Basmati or Patna rice is a particularly
flavorful and long-grained rice from India or Pakistan. Any Indian store
and many ``natural foods'' stores carry it. It is well worth the premium
price (about $1.10 a pound); ``Texmati'' is apparently the same strain grown
in Texas, but does not have anything like the same taste. Inspect and clean
it before using - there are often unhusked grains and occasionally pebbles
mixed in. Then rinse in two changes of water and drain thoroughly. If you
cannot get Basmati, use a good-quality unconverted long-grain rice (Alma,
Carolina, but NOT Uncle Ben's!). Red lentils are about half the diameter of
ordinary brown lentils. Do not substitute brown lentils, which will
probably not cook fast enough. Red lentils are available in Indian, Middle
Eastern, and some ``natural foods'' stores. They often contain largish
pebbles, so inspect them carefully. Rinse to get rid of dust, and drain.
Red lentils are also very good by themselves, simply boiled with a few
spices and served with butter. Sour cherries (in the Middle East, v/w + i +
s/sh + n + e/a/ino: Greek Vissino, Slavic and Turkish Vishne/a, Arabic
Wishna) are available fresh for about one week a year. Most sour cherries
go into cherry syrups, pies, and preserves. Canned sour cherries are quite
good. You will usually find them in the home pie-making section of your
market, near the canned blueberries and baker's supplies, or with the canned
fruits. There are occasional stones. (That is, pits, not rocks!) Middle
Eastern stores will often have sour cherry preserves, which are too sweet
for this recipe. Almost any stock or broth will work in this recipe.
Chicken or lamb is most appropriate - in the latter case, used rather
dilute. This is one of the few recipes where you can actually get away with
canned chicken broth - but watch the salt.

Difficulty : easy to moderate.
Precision : approximate measurement OK.

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