Lenten pilaf with dried fruits. Dried fruit pilaf Prepare sweet pilaf from dried fruits and rice

Classic pilaf is prepared with meat, but there are also vegetarian recipes - with figs and dates. Options with prunes, dried apricots, and raisins are delicious. Thanks to dried fruits, the dish acquires a characteristic aroma and sweet taste with a slight sour note. In order to end up with crumbly pilaf and not ordinary porridge, you must strictly observe the proportions of water and cereal. Long grain Basmati rice is ideal for this dish. During the cooking process, it is important not to overcook it and stir constantly.

Recipe for pilaf with vegetables and dried fruits

To prepare sweet pilaf, you will need an hour of time and the following ingredients (for 6 people):

• 350 g of your favorite dried fruits;
• 350 g rice;
• 300 g onions;
• 250 g carrots;
• seasonings and salt to taste.

Thoroughly washed dried fruits are soaked in hot water until completely swollen. Peeled vegetables are coarsely chopped: carrots into cubes, onions into half rings. Next, they are sautéed in a small amount of sunflower or olive oil. Add dried fruits to the saucepan. Fry them together so that the onions and carrots are caramelized.

Rice is washed with cool water 2-3 times. Next, both the cereal and the fried fruit and vegetable mass are transferred in layers, alternating, into a baking dish. You can prepare delicious sweet rice according to this recipe not only in the oven, but also on the stove - in a thick-walled cauldron. The future pilaf is poured with salted boiling water, to which saffron and other seasonings are first added. The liquid level should be a couple of centimeters above the cereal.

Place the dish with rice in the oven, preheated to 150–180 degrees. It is important that the grate is cold. Throughout the entire process, the temperature should be maintained at the same level. The readiness of the dish is assessed by eye: the rice should be cooked and the water should evaporate. After the required time, take out the mold and cover with a lid (or towel). After 10 minutes, the dish can be transferred to a large plate and served.

Recipe for fruit pilaf with walnuts and honey

Sweet pilaf can be prepared in just half an hour. The quick recipe includes the following ingredients (for 6 people):

• 2 cups steamed rice;
• 300 g of dried fruits (dried apricots, pitted dates, prunes);
• 100 g almond kernels and walnuts;
• 30 g honey;
• 30 ml vegetable oil;
• a pinch of salt, saffron.

The rice is sorted and washed several times with cold water. Transfer it to a saucepan and pour boiling water so that the liquid covers the cereal with a margin of two fingers. The rice is salted and saffron is added for color. The saucepan is placed on the stove. Cook the rice over low heat with the lid closed. Stir the cereal from time to time so that it does not stick to the bottom. Without waiting until the rice is completely cooked, pour a spoonful of vegetable oil into it and mix everything. Cover the saucepan with a lid and remove from the stove.

At the same time as the cereal is cooked, a sauce from dried fruits is prepared. Wash prunes, dates and dried apricots thoroughly, rinse nuts and almonds. Everything is put in a frying pan. A little water is poured in there. Cover the frying pan with a lid and place on fire. When the dried fruits and kernels are steamed, the remaining vegetable oil and honey are added to them. For the next 10 minutes, the contents of the frying pan are simmered again under the lid. Serving occurs as follows: first, rice is laid out in a heap on a dish, then fruit and nut sauce is poured over it.

Pilaf “Baku”: how to cook

To prepare Azerbaijani sweet pilaf according to this recipe, use the following for one kilogram of Basmati rice:

• 100 g dried apricots;
• 70 g raisins;
• 60 g salt;
• a pinch of saffron;
• 50 ml lemon juice;
• 2 sheets of pita bread.

First you should cook the rice. The rice is washed twice, and the third time the cereal is filled with water, salt and lemon juice are added. After an hour, the liquid is drained. The rice is thrown into boiling water and stirred every 5-10 minutes. When the cereal becomes soft, turn off the heat and drain off the excess liquid. Separately brew saffron water (a pinch of spice per 30 ml of boiling water). The container with the liquid is tightly closed.

Lay lavash coated with vegetable oil in two layers on the bottom of the pan. Place rice on top, thoroughly mixed with saffron water. Cover the pan with a lid and place in an oven preheated to 150 degrees. While the rice is “ripening” (and this will take an hour and a half), prepare a sweet sauce from dried fruits. Wash dried apricots and raisins and place them in a frying pan. Simmer them in a small amount of water, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes. For shine, you can add a little vegetable oil to the fruit at the boiling stage.

Serve the dish on a large plate. First, lay out all the rice. The pita bread that was at the bottom of the pan is cut. These crusts are used to decorate a rice mound and the edge of the dish with softened dried fruits. Azerbaijani style pilaf is ready! Bon appetit!

Calories: Not specified
Cooking time: Not indicated

Sweet pilaf with dried fruits, the recipe with photos of which I offer, is very tasty and can be prepared during Lent. The rice turns out aromatic and crumbly, but the spices in the recipe are typical for Indian cuisine: ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, a little pepper and cloves. As a result, we get delicious crumbly rice of bright yellow color, spicy, with many shades of taste, juicy raisins, sweet and sour dried apricots and apples. To prepare pilaf according to this recipe, it is better to take whole spices: cinnamon sticks, clove buds, cardamom boxes and peppercorns. Add whole cinnamon, and remove the grains from the cardamom pods and grind them together with the rest of the spices in a mortar. The aroma will be simply divine, in no way comparable to ground spices that are sold in bags.
For this dish you need long grain rice, basmati or jasmine varieties.
You can also cook it.

Basmati absorbs oil well, does not take up much water and cooks quickly. Pilaf from this rice turns out crumbly and tasty. You can choose dried fruits to suit your taste and add figs, prunes, dates, and different varieties of raisins.

Ingredients:

- basmati rice – 1 cup;
- cinnamon – 1 stick;
- whole cloves – 3-4 buds;
- black peppercorns – 5-7 pcs;
- cardamom – 2 boxes;
- ground ginger – a third of a teaspoon or 0.5 teaspoon of grated fresh;
- water – 2.5-3 glasses;
- salt – 0.5 teaspoon;
- sugar – 4 tbsp. spoons (more/less possible - to taste);
- apples – 3 pcs;
- any vegetable oil – 3-4 tbsp. spoons;
- raisins – half a glass;
- dried apricots – 100 g;
- turmeric – 1 teaspoon;
- small carrots – 1 piece;
- small onion – 1 piece;
- garlic – 2 cloves.

How to cook with photos step by step

Peel carrots, garlic and onions. Rinse the rice until clean (three times is enough). We cut the carrots into strips, the onions into medium-sized cubes, and chop the garlic cloves as finely as possible.

We sort out the dried fruits for pilaf and wash them several times. Pour boiling water over dry, hard raisins for five minutes; if they are soft, then there is no need to steam them. We do the same with dried apricots - pour boiling water over the thick ones, then cut them into smaller pieces. Immediately cut the soft one into pieces.

Open the cardamom pods and pour the grains into a mortar. Add cloves and black pepper there. We grind everything.

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan or saucepan. Throw in a couple of onion cubes – if the oil bubbles, it’s hot enough, you can throw in the whole onion. Fry it lightly until transparent. Add carrot sticks, simmer in oil for several minutes until the carrots are saturated with oil.




Add ground spices, ginger and a teaspoon of ground turmeric to the pan with vegetables. Warm up for a minute.

Sprinkle rice on top of vegetables and spices. Stir, make the fire stronger.

Evaporate the water and lightly fry the rice, stirring constantly so that it is evenly saturated with oil and spices.

We do not peel the apples, just cut out the middle and spoiled areas. Cut into small pieces. Together with steamed dried fruits and a cinnamon stick, add to rice with vegetables.

Salt to taste and add sugar. You can cook unsweetened rice with dried fruits, then the amount of sugar should be reduced to 1-1.5 tbsp. spoons and add more oil.

Pour in two and a half cups of boiling water. Increase the heat to maximum and wait until the rice absorbs all the water. Do not cover with the lid yet.

As soon as the water is level with the rice, reduce the heat to the quietest setting. Cover the rice with a lid. Cook for 15-20 minutes until the rice is soft. If necessary, add water, but little by little, so that the rice does not become watery and overcook.

Serve lean rice pilaf with apples and dried fruits to the table immediately, hot. It does not need any additives or additions, but if the taste seems too sweet, you can add lemon or lime juice. Bon appetit!

When I learned how to cook regular pilaf, one day I decided to try and experiment. That is, cook sweet pilaf. Now every time Lent comes, I take this recipe out and enjoy it.

The main thing is the proportions, the right dishes in which this yummy will be prepared, and everything will be wonderful. I cooked in a cauldron, over a fire, and in a slow cooker. And each option was gorgeous in its own way!

Cooking time: it all depends on what we are cooking in (gas, electric stove or multicooker, etc.)


Complexity: yes, not as simple as a salad. But for me personally, the difficulty is only in one thing - not to miss the right moment!

Ingredients

2 glasses of water

2-3 handfuls of raisins

100 grams of dried apricots

a packet of spices for sweet pilaf

Progress

My rice was white. Because with the red one I’m experimenting with, the result would be a completely dark pilaf. I just diluted it slightly with red and filled it with cold water.

And then after 15 minutes I drained the water. If it’s all solid, keep it in water even longer (actually I filled it with warm water this time).

Don't forget to rinse the rice in advance! Then, when it has swollen a little, drain the water. This is how it should be, as in the photo.

Now - cutting. If the dried apricots and prunes have already become softer, you need to cut them arbitrarily. This time I had a lot of prunes. Next time I'll add more raisins.

Now grease the bottom of the bowl with softened butter. And then arrange all the prepared ingredients along the bottom.

Prepare the spices and pour them into the bowl.

Having leveled everything in the bowl, pour in the rice and level it too.

If you've been bored with traditional rice dishes for a long time, hurry up and add recipes for rice with dried fruits to your cookbook. You will want to cook these unusual dishes again and again! We offer a selection of 4 step-by-step recipes for rice with dried fruits for every taste.

Rice recipes with dried fruits

Sweet rice with dried apricots, dates and raisins

Ingredients:

• Carrot (1 pc.)
• Long grain rice (1 cup)
• Ground black pepper (a couple of teaspoons)
• Pitted dates (150 g)
• Onion (1 head)
• Raisins (1 cup)
• Vegetable oil (1.5 tablespoons)
• Dried apricots (150 g)
• Salt (2 teaspoons).

How to cook fluffy fruit rice with dried apricots and raisins

1. Soak the rice (it is best to use the crumbly variety) for twenty minutes. Then drain the liquid and place the cereal in a saucepan with salted water. Cook until done.
2. Thoroughly wash the dates (can be replaced with prunes), dried apricots and raisins. Pour hot water into different bowls and leave for ten minutes. Thanks to this action, you will achieve softening of the fruit, and the unpleasant astringency will go away.
3. Finely chop all the dried fruits. Grind the peeled carrots using a grater - both medium and large nozzles will do. Peel the onions and cut them into halves of rings.
4. Sauté onions and carrots in vegetable oil. There is no need to fry the vegetables too much, just let them brown slightly.
5. Place dates, raisins and dried apricots in the same pan. Fry together with onions and carrots, adding salt and spices to taste (saffron and cinnamon are very good in this dish).
6. Next comes the rice. We evaluate the taste of the dish - if necessary, add a little more salt and spices.
7. Stir everything thoroughly and steam a little.

Finally, sweet rice with dried fruits is ready to be served!

Rice with shrimp and prunes

• Mayonnaise (half a cup)
• Salt (to taste)
• Shrimp (100 g)
• Rice (half a cup)
• Prunes (40 g)
• Lemon juice (a couple of teaspoons)
• Apple (1 pc.).

How to cook rice with shrimp and prunes

1. Soak the prunes in a bowl of warm water. After one hour, drain the water and cut the dried fruits into large slices.
2. We wash the shrimp. Cook in salted water for 3-4 minutes, then peel and immediately sprinkle with lemon juice.
3. My apple. Cut off the skin and remove the core, chop the pulp into strips.
4. Boil the rice (don't forget to add a little salt to the water). Place in a colander and rinse with chilled water.
5. Once cooled, the rice can be placed on a serving plate. Lay out the shrimp and apple straws and pour mayonnaise on top. Pieces of prunes will serve as an elegant decoration and add piquancy to the dish.

Pilaf with chicken, dried apricots and raisins

• Basmati rice (4.5 cups)
• Garlic (4 heads)
• Chicken meat (1 kilogram)
• Vegetable oil (1.5 cups)
• Onions (4 heads)
• Quince (1 fruit)
• Carrots (3 pieces)
• Salt (to cook's taste)
• Dried apricots (1 handful)
• Spice mixture for pilaf (turmeric / barberry / paprika / cumin)
• Chili pepper (1 piece)
• Black raisins (1 handful).

How to cook pilaf with chicken, dried apricots and raisins

1. Wash and soak the basmati in warm water (dissolve a little salt). Leave the rice for about 3 hours.
2. Cut the chicken into small slices.
3. We clean and chop the vegetables: carrots into bars, onions into thin half-rings. We also peel the garlic.
4. Divide the thoroughly washed quince into 8 slices, remove the core and discard. Dried fruits also need to be washed thoroughly; they do not need soaking.
5. Heat sunflower oil in a cauldron. Place a small onion and wait until it turns black (this is necessary in order to absorb excess smell).
6. Now add the chopped onion. Brown, stirring occasionally, then add the chicken. Fry until golden brown and all the liquid has evaporated.
7. When the oil becomes transparent, add carrot sticks. Continue frying for ten minutes, do not forget to stir occasionally.
8. Salt and season the contents of the cauldron. Pour boiling water over it.
9. As soon as the liquid boils again, throw in the quince pieces, whole dried apricots, garlic and chili.
10. At the moment of the next boil, reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about forty minutes, then you will need to remove the hot pepper (under no circumstances throw it away!).
11. Rinse the soaked rice. Place on zirvak (gravy), increasing the heat to maximum. Carefully pour boiling water to a height of 2-3 centimeters (it is advisable to use a slotted spoon), later you can add a little more water.
12. Add the chili we already know and wait for it to boil. Later, reduce the heat to medium power. As the water “flows”, cover the dishes with a lid and reduce the heating power.
13. When all the liquid has boiled away and the rice is half cooked, scatter the raisins and cover the dish with a linen towel. Cover with a lid and leave to simmer for another half hour, then turn off the stove and let the pilaf “rest” while wrapped.

Dessert rice with nuts and dried fruits

• Hazelnuts and cashews (a quarter cup each)
• Granulated sugar (300 grams)
• Butter (one and a half tablespoons)
• Dried apricots and prunes (50 grams each)
• Dried cranberries (quarter cup)
• Long grain rice (400 grams)
• Salt (to cook's taste)
• Dark and light raisins (50 grams each).

How to cook rice with nuts and dried fruits

1. We wash dried fruits in hot water. Their composition is selected according to personal taste - for example, you can add dried apples, cherries and / or pears.
2. Roast the nuts in a hot frying pan. We remove all the husks.
3. Wash and then boil the rice in boiling water with added salt. We bring it only until half-ready.
4. Now you will need a cauldron or a thick-walled cast iron saucepan. Melt the butter together with the sugar.
5. We lay out dried fruits and nuts - they will have to slowly caramelize for 4-5 minutes.
6. Add rice, adding a little boiling water at the same time. Set the heat to minimum and simmer the sweet pilaf for about a quarter of an hour.
7. Mix thoroughly before finishing cooking. We taste the rice with dried fruits for sweetness and make adjustments if necessary.

Enjoy your meal!

Azerbaijani pilaf is a real national dish of the country of the same name. There are a lot of recipes for preparing it. Some people like a spicier version, while others like this dish with a lot of meat. But dried fruits leave no one indifferent, be it a person trying it for the first time or a sophisticated gourmet. Now let's move from words to action. Now we will tell you all the details of preparing the dish.

pilaf with dried fruits

What is necessary? For preparation you will need the following ingredients:

Three glasses of long grain rice;

One kilogram of meat (lamb or pork);

Salt and pepper to taste;

Three hundred grams of ghee;

Two medium onions;

Three hundred grams of raisins;

A pinch of saffron;

Three hundred grams of prunes;

Two level tablespoons of sugar;

One egg;

Three tablespoons of sour cream;

One tablespoon of flour;

Three hundred grams of dried apricots.

How to cook?

Sweet pilaf with raisins, the recipe for which we will describe below, will be an excellent breakfast or dinner for the whole family. So, let's start cooking.

Rice should be washed well and soaked in cold water for some time, preferably at least three hours. Afterwards it should be boiled until approximately half cooked in salted water. In a bowl with a deep bottom, beat the egg and sour cream, add flour and thus get a dough. You need to cut it into squares and place it exactly along the bottom of the cauldron in which the pilaf will be cooked.

Spread the rice evenly on top, pour over melted butter or milk, as you prefer, and set to simmer over medium heat. While it's cooking, let's prepare the meat. Take a piece of lamb, cut it into pieces and fry a little with onion, cut into rings. Add this meat to the rice. Stew prunes and dried apricots separately and serve with pilaf for taste.

Options

Sweet pilaf with dried fruits is becoming increasingly popular, and there are many options for its preparation. Often turmeric, chestnut or grapes are added to the usual recipe. Sweet pilaf with raisins turns out to be very tasty, the recipe for which we will describe a little later. Sometimes nuts are added to this dish, and together with dried fruits they create an unusual combination of taste and add piquancy to the pilaf.

By the way, dried fruits can be stewed separately, as we described above, or you can add them directly to the rice when you boil it.

Sweet pilaf with dried fruits is not necessarily made in Azerbaijani style. There are other options. We will tell you one of them now.

Pilaf with raisins in Bukhara style

To prepare the dish, we will need:

1 kg of rice;

300 grams of butter and fat;

Two onions;

600 grams of carrots;

A glass of raisins;

Preparing the dish

First you need to fry the onion in highly calcined fat, after cutting the vegetable into rings or half rings. Once the onion turns red, remove it from the oil. Next, you need to let the fat heat up again, after which you need to add carrots, chopped into strips. Then you should mix everything thoroughly. You need to fry until the carrots change color. Next, you need to pour water into the cauldron and wait for it to boil. Then add salt and raisins.

Cook over low heat until it swells, then increase the flame and add the rice. If the cereal is not completely covered with liquid, then you need to add it. By the end of cooking there should be no water left at all. When the rice is almost ready, you need to turn the heat down to low, add the onion that we removed earlier, and steam for another 25 minutes.

Pilaf with raisins

To prepare this dish you need to take the following ingredients:

Half a glass of rice;

A third of a glass of raisins and the same amount of dried apricots;

Two glasses of milk;

Butter to taste.

Cooking process

What about dried fruits? Rinse the dried apricots and raisins well; if the dried apricots are large, they can be cut into pieces. Wash the rice thoroughly, place in a deep container, pour water level with the level of the cereal. Heat well in the microwave for about four to five minutes, turning on full power. Pour milk into rice and mix with dried fruits. Then you need to cover with a tight lid and heat at the same oven power for about three to four minutes. Then mix the rice with dried apricots and raisins. After this, warm it up again under the lid closed for the same time. The finished food should be allowed to brew. Before serving the dish, you can add a little butter. Sweet pilaf with dried fruits is ready!

Pilaf with prunes

Prunes alone can be used as dried fruits for pilaf. For this dish we will need:

200 grams of prunes;

400 grams of rice;

Salt and sugar to taste.

How to prepare the dish?

Rice must be boiled until completely cooked. Soak prunes in moderately hot water. Then you need to strain the liquid and cut the fruit into small pieces. Place prunes, butter into the cooked rice, add salt and sugar to taste. Next, you need to mix everything well in a cooking vessel (a pot will do). Then you need to close the lid well and put it in the oven over moderate heat for twenty minutes. Sweet pilaf with prunes can be served with butter.

Conclusion

In fact, to obtain a delicious food you do not need special knowledge and skills honed over the years. Do you know what the main rules for creating a delicious dish are? If not, then they will become known to you now. The first is cooking with pleasure. The second is maintaining proportions. Sweet pilaf with dried fruits is a delicious dish, but the process of preparing it is long and painstaking, requiring step-by-step steps. However, as you understand, the result will exceed all expectations, because with this dish you can please not only your family, but also your guests, decorating your holiday table with it. If you have never tried sweet pilaf with dried fruits, then be sure to cook and try this dish!