Rice with Carrot
Zerrin on 02 4, 2009
Pilaf is the main side dish in Turkish cuisine. We serve it with meat dishes, chicken dishes, stews. Even some people eat it as a main dish. Sometimes they prefer various kinds of rice pilaf, sometimes bulgur(pounded wheat) pilaf, but mostley they have one kind of pilaf on their tables.
Unlike Chinese people, who eat rice with sticks, Turkish people eat it with spoon. Now you can understand how we love it much, we can’t wait for long to eat a bowl of rice like the Chinese.
However, in Turkey the price of rice is higher than bulgur. As a result of global warming we’ve water problem, that is our water resources are decreasing day by day, so is the growth of rice in regions of Turkey. The government prefers importing it from other countries. In parallel with this, its price is rising, too. Today, many people can still afford it, but in the future it seems it will be more expensive.
As we can still afford it, let me give a delicious rice pilaf recipe. I learnt his from my friend’s mom and since the day I learnt it, I mostly prefer this one to cook. In fact, there are several kinds of rice pilaf. I’ll add those recipes later. Now you can enjoy this one.
Ingredients
•   1 cup rice
•   1 ¾ cup water (some put 2 cups, but I think that’s too much)
•   2 tbsp butter
•   1 carrot, chopped
•   1 onion, chopped
•   1 tsp salt, a pinch of dried mint and black pepper
Wash the rice and wait it in salty hot water for some minutes (15 minutes is enough) and drain. There should be no water.
Melt the butter in a non stick pan. Put chopped onion and carrot and saute them together until tender. Now add drained rice and stir until the rice is little crackly. Sprinkle salt, dried mint and black pepper. Then add 1 ¾ cup water and stir it once. Put the lid on and cook on the lowest heat until all the water’s gone.
Do not serve this immediately, but after 15 or 20 minutes, it will be ok. Serve it with any dish you want.
Comments (11)
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Recent Comments
- dokuzuncubulut: Zerrincim, pilav tan
- torviewtoronto: Simple looks lovely
- Tes: Wow this is like wha
- Sophie: MMMMMMMM,...a deligh
- anncoo: Those meat looks goo
Wow..there r lots of similarities in turkish and indian cuisine,we also make rice with vegetables and its called Pulav or pulao…instead of butter we use clarified butter,looks yummy
You’re right my friend, we have a lot in common. We love rice, we love spices. Thank you for your comment
I love rice and pilafs – so many tasty variations. I think I should get some dried mint and try this out
How fortunate that I found this recipe right when I was wondering what I should make for dinner tonight. It’s just me and my daughter today so this was a perfect veggie dish for us. I just made this delicious rice pilaf (added almonds) and my daughter is eating it right now and all I hear is “mmm mmmm” sounds from the table. So, I’m going to join her
Thanks so much!
Thank you Daily Spud and Natasha, I’m very happy you like it.
Hey, we Thai people eat rice with a spoon too — a spoon in the right hand to scoop up the rice and a fork in the left hand to push the rice into the spoon. Eating rice with a fork or chopsticks never makes much sense to me.
Thanks for an interesting recipe, Zerrin.
Leela
shesimmers – I love such cultural information sharing. It’s really hard to reach as much as rice you want with a fork or chopsticks, isn’t it? Thank you for visiting my blog.
Hi Zerrin, great recipes just wanted to ask how do you get the rice so perfectly rounded like in the picture? Do you put it in small serving bowls straight after cooking and leave it to set? Is it eaten cold then?
Elif – just a serving style…After cooking rice, to serve it nice, put some in a small ball tightly, and then reverse it on a serving plate. Do this when you serve it, you don’t need to keep them in small balls. Thank you for stopping by.
Hello Zerrin,
You were right when commenting about my mexican rice. After reading this post I realized it. The process to cook the rice is the same, when cooking the rice this way we called white rice. Now I am hungry for rice. Yumm!
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