National Dishes of the World

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Pilau
Photo: Mizu basyo at Japanese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Pilau

Rice cooked with beef and a blend of cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves – the festive dish of the Swahili coast.

Eaten in: Comoros, Kenya, Tanzania

Prep
20 min
Cooking
1 h 30 min
Total
1 h 50 min
Servings
6

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About the dish

Pilau is rice cooked in a fragrant broth together with meat – usually beef, sometimes goat or chicken – and a spice mix called pilau masala: cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper. The onions are fried for a long time until deeply browned, which gives the rice its brown colour and rich flavour. The dish reached the Swahili coast with traders from Arabia, Persia and India, and today it is a fixture of weddings and holidays. Pilau is always served with kachumbari, a tomato and onion salad that freshens the warm spices.

Main ingredients

  • basmati rice
  • beef
  • onion
  • garlic and ginger
  • pilau masala
  • potatoes

Comoros: Called pilaou in the Comoros – spiced rice with meat, a must at weddings and big celebrations.

Kenya: Rooted in the Swahili cooking of the coast (Mombasa, Lamu), it is now made all over Kenya for weddings, holidays and Sunday lunch.

Tanzania: In Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam it is a must at Eid celebrations and wedding feasts.

Recipe

Pilau

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/pilau

Ingredients

6 servings

6 servings

Method

  1. Cube the beef, cover it with 1.2 l of water, season with salt and simmer, covered, for about an hour until tender; keep the broth.

  2. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, soak it for 20 minutes, then drain.

  3. Dry-toast the cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and pepper and grind them to a powder in a mortar.

  4. Slice the onions and fry them in the oil in a wide pot for 15 minutes until dark golden.

  5. Add the grated garlic, ginger and ground spices and fry for a minute, then add the meat and diced potatoes and fry for another 5 minutes.

  6. Stir in the rice, pour in 900 ml of hot broth (topped up with water) and season with salt.

  7. Cook, covered, over very low heat for 20 minutes until the rice has absorbed the liquid, then turn off the heat and leave for 10 minutes before serving with kachumbari.

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