Rice cooker pilaf

The main tool we Chinese use for eating is chopsticks. Even though we can now eat delicacies from all over the world, we also use knives and forks, but chopsticks are still the main tool. Even though there are many dishes called "hand-pulled rice" and "hand-pulled lamb", we still use chopsticks when eating. Hand-pulled rice is more common in northern my country, but now we don’t need special tools, we can make it with an electric rice cooker. How to make pilaf in a rice cooker?

Pilaf is a dish from Central Asia and West Asia. It is called polo in Uyghur, palaw in Persian and pilav in Turkish. It is mainly popular among Uyghur, Kazakh, Turkmen, Uzbek and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang, my country.

The main ingredients are fresh mutton, carrots, onions, vegetable oil, mutton fat and rice. The authentic pilaf from Xinjiang usually does not contain cumin powder, hawthorn or soy sauce, and halal dishes are not allowed to contain alcoholic cooking wine. However, you can add your favorite ingredients according to the quality of local ingredients and your personal taste.

There is also a touching legend about pilaf. According to legend, more than a thousand years ago, there was a doctor named Ibn Sina. In his later years, he was very weak and no matter how much medicine he took, it did not help. Later, he studied a kind of rice and used it as a diet therapy. He selected beef, mutton, carrots, onions, vegetable oil, mutton fat and rice, added water and salt and simmered them on low heat. This kind of rice has the characteristics of color, taste and fragrance, which can really stimulate people's appetite. So he ate a small bowl of it every morning and evening. Half a month later, his body gradually recovered. People around him were very surprised and thought he had taken some magic medicine. Later, he passed this "prescription" to everyone, and from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred, it became the pilaf commonly eaten by Uyghurs today. We will not investigate whether this legend is true, but it is true that pilaf is a very nutritious food. Vegetable oil, butter, onions, carrots and rice are all supplements containing multiple vitamins, especially carrots, which are called "little ginseng" and "ground ginseng". Of course, meals made with such ingredients are nourishing. Cut the ribs into small pieces, slice the bacon, shred the carrots, slice the green onions, and mince the ginger for later use. (The bacon is something I created based on the local eating habits. There isn’t much fat in the ribs, so adding some fat makes them taste better. If you don’t have bacon, you can also add some fresh pork belly)

Turn on the fire, heat the pan and pour in cooking oil, using a little more oil than usual for cooking.

When the oil is hot, add the bacon and stir-fry to fry the fatty meat and release the oil inside.

When the bacon turns slightly golden brown, pour in the ribs and stir-fry over high heat to remove the moisture from the ribs. When the water in the ribs is almost gone, add chopped green onion, minced ginger, and salt. The amount of salt you put in depends on your taste. Since I used bacon, just a little salt is enough.

When the salt tastes like salt, pour in the shredded carrots and continue to stir-fry so that the ribs can continue to absorb the flavor. At this time, you can cover the pot to allow the ribs and carrots to absorb the flavor (as long as they absorb the flavor, the meat does not need to be fully cooked).

When you open the lid of the pot again, you can smell the fragrant aroma, then turn off the heat. Rinse the rice in the rice cooker and drain the water. Add the fried pork ribs, carrots, etc. into the rice cooker and mix the rice with the meat, carrots, etc. thoroughly. Add cold water, just enough to cover the meat. Press the cooking button and wait patiently.

After the rice cooker's cooking button jumps once, press it again to cook. After this time, simmer for a while and the fragrant pilaf will be ready.

If you don’t like bacon, you can leave it out and just use spareribs. The meat does not need to be fully cooked when frying, the purpose is to absorb the flavor.

If you have children at home, you can simmer it a little longer in step 6. This way the carrots in the pilaf will be very soft and more suitable for babies to eat.