Recipe for "cherry-pilaf"

NAME

     CHERRY-PILAF - Pilaf with sour cherries and lentils
     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.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 2-3 as main course)

     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

PROCEDURE

          (1)  In a 4-5 liter Dutch oven, melt most of the butter
               and slowly brown the onions.  Add the cleaned len-
               tils 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 tur-
               meric and 1 ml ground cumin if desired; add neces-
               sary  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.

NOTES

     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  peb-
     bles 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 prob-
     ably 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  care-
     fully.   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  actu-
     ally get away with canned chicken broth-but watch the salt.

RATING

     Difficulty: easy to moderate.  Time: 30-40 minutes.   Preci-
     sion: approximate measurement OK.

CONTRIBUTOR

     Stavros Macrakis
     Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
     macrakis@harvard.ARPA