# Buhara Rice (A Special Turkish Rice)



## bidiboom (Feb 3, 2010)

Ingredients :

2 glasses of rice (preferably jasmine)
1 kg. chicken thigh or drumstick (with or without bones,but certainly without skin)
3 - 4 carrot (medium size)
1 can of boiled chickpea (net 400gr of boiled chickpeas)
30-40 chestnuts (shelled)
½ - 1 glass of liquid oil (preferably sunflower oil)
2 tomatoes (medium size, grated or chopped)
1 tablespoonful tomato paste
1 teaspoonful black-pepper 
1 teaspoonful cinnamon
1 teaspoonful ginger
1 teaspoonful allspice
7-8 cloves 
salt (amount is up to you)

Instructions :

Preparation of the ingredients ;

1. Get the chestnuts shelled. 
2. Put the tomato puree and tomato paste (by first mixing well the tomato puree and paste with a little bit water), chicken meat, and 2lt.of water in the pressure cooker and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, to get them well cooked. If you will cook the pilaf later, you should get it warm again before use.
3. Peel the carrots and chop them in half-a-finger length and width.
4. Wash the chickpeas.
5. This is the last step must be taken half-an-hour earlier to the last stage; rest the rice in a warm, salty water. Half-an-hour later wash the rice thoroughly (and gently) to wash out the white water of it.

Last stage ;

1. Put the liquid oil and carrot sticks in a wide deep pot and by stirring gently, cook for 10 minutes.
2. Get the heat to the lowest level and pull the carrots to the sides to make a ring of carrots on the base of the pot, put the well cooked chickens right at the middle of the pot, in the carrot ring.
3. Put the chestnuts over the carrot ring and around the meat.
4. Put the chickpeas on the chicken meat and spread.
5. Put the rice over the chickpeas and spread.
6. Sprinkle the spices and salt.
7. Pour the hot chicken extract you got by cooking the chicken meat in pressure cooker. If necessary add more hot water just to surface the rice layer, no more.
8. Get the heat level high and when it starts to boil, get to the medium level and cook at that level until it loses its water. Then get the heat level to the lowest level and dry the pilaf by cooking at this level for 5minutes more.
9. Cooking phase is over. Now, by putting a paper or a towel over the pilaf and right under the lid, keep for half-an-hour more, to let the paper or towel get the excess steam.
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* You can keep the pilaf in the pot for a couple of hours at this state, and before service, you can get it warm on the oven at the lowest level of heat.
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10. Whenever you want to make the service of it, you will need a wide pan, because this pilaf is serviced as a dome of pilaf, meat at the top, carrots and chestnuts around, making a crown. Get the lid of the pot and put instead the pan, inside turned down to the pilaf. Hold the pot and pan fixed and turn the pot upside down over the pan carefully and put the pan and the pot altogether on the table. With anything hard (like the handle of a big knife or a scoop) hit everywhere on the bottom of the upside-down pot. Slowly get the pot up and by shaking gently, let the stuff stuck inside drop. If still there are some stuff stuck inside, with the help of a spoon get them gently and put over the pilaf dome properly.
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Tips :

* To use just the meats of chicken is better, for the bones take a lot of space in the pot.
* You can cook this pilaf without the spices as well and it still will be delicious. But if you use spices, besides their benefits on health, you get a taste beyond imagination  Those spices are good not for just this rice, but they fit very well to all of the rice recipes.
* If you get the chestnuts from the freezer, its better to wait for them to thaw, for otherwise it will get the temperature down in the pot. But still its ok if you get them out of the freezer in the last minute.
* I can't give a specific amount of water, for it depends on the shape of the pot or the ingredients you use (like bony or lean meat). Generally speaking, the water level must be same with the rice level at the beginning.
* You may use another kind of meat, but you may have to cook them more. I prefer chicken thigh or drumstick for it's a soft and delicious part of chicken. 
* Instead of chickpeas, you may use pinenut (first by frying them like you do with carrots) in a less amount, bot notice that the amount of the meal will decrease. 
* The meats touching the bottom of the pot will be fried a little bit. Its ok, for it adds a color and taste more to the pilaf.
* After cooking, if you cover the pilaf with paper, use a couple of layers of it, for one single layer wont be enough to absorb all of the excess steam.
* If you dont wash the rice thoroughly, the starch inside will make your rice sticky. At last, you get one pilaf block, instead of in seperate particles.
* Also if you dont get the water and at last point, the steam of the rice, the excess water or steam inside turns the rice to something sticky.
* To cover the pilaf with a towel, here is a technique ; get the lid, put the towel inside the lid flat, catch the edges of the towel from outside of the lid. Put the lid back on the pot. Over this way you will get the towel stretched right under the lid and the towel wont touch the pilaf itself.


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## mozambikchef (Feb 4, 2010)

WouWW to much info!!
you gotta make it simpler!!!  yinede eline saglik!!


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## gnnairda (Aug 7, 2009)

Nice one, I'm sure my family would like something like his. Thanks for the recipe. i've been meaning to use my allspice for quite some time.:chef:


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## bidiboom (Feb 3, 2010)

seni gidi seniii  so you are a Turk right  
Turk or not, nice to see someone saying "yine de eline saglik".. sweet


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## bidiboom (Feb 3, 2010)

gNnairdA (how on earth could you find this nick! not to be disrespectful I tried hard to get the upper and lower caps correctly.. I will get used to in time anyway 

allspice really has a beautiful flavour, but when they get tohether, all those spices.. ooooo! 

I hope you love it


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## mezzaluna (Aug 29, 2000)

Bidiboom, I have two measurement questions: you show "2 glasses of rice (preferably jasmine)". I want to know...

1. Is the rice raw? (I presume it is, but please confirm)

2. A "glass" is not a measurement I'm sure of. (In recipes I've read in French, a glass is the same as 6 ounces by volume. I checked this when a French friend visited my home in the States; I wrote down several conversions at the time.) From the rest of the ingredients, that seems reasonable, but I'd like to know.


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## bidiboom (Feb 3, 2010)

Mezzaluna, thanks for reminding this point.. it is sure important..

1. Rice is raw at the beginning, you cook with the instructions later.
2. 1 glass of water=200ml... that big.

Is it clarifying? If not please go ahead, ask, I am here


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## gnnairda (Aug 7, 2009)

I think when he says glass he meant cups


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## bidiboom (Feb 3, 2010)

Ah yes  you call them cup right? I meant those glasses we drink water or something.. is it cup? We call the tea or coffee cups "cup"..

The one I use is the one below exactly.. a 200cc.glass :

zuccaciyeburada,Züccaciye,Toptan Züccaciye,Paþabahçe | Ürünün Büyük Resmi


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## bidiboom (Feb 3, 2010)

and by the way, I am not a he, I am a she


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## phatch (Mar 29, 2002)

Well, that's hard to tell on the internet.:blush::blush:


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## ishbel (Jan 5, 2007)

If Turkish cooking is similar to Greek instructions, then as long as the 'glass' is always the same size, the measurements work out!

When I lived in Greece, I was taught to cook 'by the glass'!


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