Recipe: Pilaf with quince

On March 8, 69 years ago, Sergei Nikitin was born, the author of our favorite songs that everyone sings in groups, without even thinking about who composed them. By the way, he is a master not only in songwriting - Zinovy ​​Gerdt awarded him the honorary title “master of artistic pilaf”, and for good reason. We will prepare a simple swimmer, which nevertheless is not shameful both to eat and serve to a guest, in his honor.

Needed: 1 kg of rice, 1 kg of lamb, 2/3 cup of vegetable oil, 4 onions, 4 carrots, 1 quince, 1 dessert. spoon of cumin, 1 dessert. spoon of dried barberry, red pepper, salt.

Let's fry onions, meat in a cauldron...

We put a six-liter cauldron on the fire and heat two-thirds of a glass of refined oil in it so that a pinch of salt thrown into it crackles. We cut about a kilo of lamb into pieces the size of a matchbox, four onions into rings. Throw the onion into the cauldron, as soon as it acquires color, add the meat and fry everything until the meat has a light crust.

...carrots, quince

In the meantime, we clean a large quince, cut out the core and cut it into slices, and cut four rather large carrots into strips. Throw it into a cauldron, let it simmer until it reaches a point where, by gently pressing the spoon on the carrot chips, you can divide it in half. Immediately pepper everything with red pepper, salt, and add a dessert spoon of cumin and dried barberry. And when the carrots arrive, fill everything with water until it barely covers, and let it simmer for half an hour.

Let's invite rice

In the meantime, let’s wash a kilo of decent rice in 4-5 waters and lay it on top of zirvak (that’s what they call something in pilaf that is not rice) in an even layer. Now let’s increase the heat to the maximum and pour boiling water into the cauldron in a thin stream through a colander, so as not to wash out the rice, so that it covers the rice by about two fingers. As soon as the water comes to a full boil, reduce the heat a little, cover the pilaf with a lid, and let the rice drink all this water, and then stand for a while under the lid until it finishes cooking. Then cover the cauldron with a pilaf dish, carefully turn everything over and let the pilaf fall out onto the dish. Place beautiful quince slices on top and bring to the table.

And we'll pour some green tea

The only drink that goes well is green tea—alcohol is not favored in the region. Let's not make toasts, but wish all the best to the birthday boy.