Afghani Lamb and Rice Dish

Submitted by COOKGIRl

"Known in Afghanistan as quabili pilau, this is a delicious and festive dish. A combination of several quabili recipes that I found online and made my own, my inspiration coming from an Afghani family in town that operates a food cart from which they sell the most delightful Afghani food. This is truly a perfect example of the best fusion of Asian and Arabic ingredients."

 

• Ready In: 1hr
• Ingredients: 15
• Serves: 5-6

ingredients

• Meat

• 1 lb ground lamb
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, for sauteeing
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons sugar

• Rice

• 1 1⁄2 cups long grain basmati rice (NO substitution)
• 3 cups lamb stock, reserved from boiling the meat, adding water to make 3 cups total if necessary
• 1⁄2 teaspoon saffron thread, soaked in a small amount of boiling water
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1⁄3 teaspoon cardamom powder
• salt & freshly ground black pepper

• Garnish

• 2 -3 medium carrots, peeled and cut up into matchsticks
• 2⁄3 cup raisins
• fresh cilantro

directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Soak saffron threads and set aside.
2. Meat: In a large pot in plenty of water add the ground lamb, 2 T. of the onion and salt and pepper. Bring to boil and cook meat for about 15-20 minutes or until meat is no longer pink. Drain meat and reserve all the cooking liquid. Set meat aside. (It is very important to save the liquid as this will be used to cook the rice.).
3. Rice: In pan combine the reserved lamb stock, the rice, the saffron threads-straining the threads but including the soaking water, cinnamon, ground cumin, ground coriander and the cardamom powder. Cover, bring to boil and simmer 20 minutes or until grains are tender.
4. While the rice is cooking saute the carrots with the sugar on medium heat in a little bit of oil about 5 minutes, being careful not to burn. Next add the onion and raisins and saute another 2 or 3 minutes until carrots are slightly tender but still firm, onions are soft and raisins have plumped up. Set aside.
5. Lightly oil an oven proof casserole dish. Spoon half of the carrot mixture on bottom of casserole, followed by part of the meat mixture, then some of the rice, layering the ingredients so that you end up with rice on top. Cover and bake about 25 minutes in low oven.
6. Remove casserole dish from oven. Garnish with the remaining carrot/raisin mixture and fresh cilantro sprigs. Season with salt if necessary.

Reviews

[nmansab]

Very bland - This may be because we normally have spicier food (pakistan descent).

 

[kolibri]

Nice dish with hint of those eastern flavours. Lamb is pretty fatty though, so if you wanted go get rid of some of it, you could cool down the cooking liquid and remove the fat off the top.

 

[currybunny]

This was a very nice dish, lovely subtle flavours. The thought of boiling meat makes my blood run cold, but I did it anyway and it turned out fine! We ate this with a yoghurt sauce and a carrot salad - thanks for posting!

 

[Laura2of7]

Let me start by saying that I was looking for a recipe that would use a cup of lamb stock that I already had from boiling some lamb bones saved from another dinner, so making a new stock wasn't an issue for me. Also, I'm not from Afghanistan (or anywhere in the Middle East, for that matter), so I hope I'm not offending anyone's food tradition. So, forgive me when I say that I couldn't bring myself to boil the ground lamb.<br/>I did make this recipe, using all of the ingredients listed, but I first browned everything in a large saute pan, including the spices and the rice, and then cooked the whole thing on top of the stove. I glazed the carrots in a separate skillet, using a little honey instead of sugar, and then stirred them in at the end. Oh, and I didn't have any saffron, so I just skipped it.<br/>It all turned out pretty tasty. I'm still learning to appreciate the flavors of the Middle East, so wasn't sure about the cinnamon. But it does seem to go well with the rice and raisins, so I'll be less reluctant the next time I make this. And, the next time, I'll finish it off in the oven. I'll still probably brown the ingredients before turning them into the baking dish, because I just can't see how water boiled with some ground meat would make that big of an impact on the flavor of the rice.<br/>Anyway, the spices were nice and not overpowering. The proportions of meat to rice to vegetables was good. (I did need to add some additional liquid at the end.) Some of the water could be replaced with chicken broth if you don't have a lonely jar of lamb stock sitting in your refrigerator. And be generous with the salt. Unless the rice is well seasoned, I can see how this might turn out "bland". A dollop of yogurt or sour cream would be a nice garnish.

 

[UmmBinat]

4 1/2 stars. This is subtle flavoured. I made this with extra lean ground beef as I can not get ground lamb right now! I added some extra cooking oil for which I used canola to give it more fat content. After boiling the meat I added some butter to it as well and fried it a little to give it more flavour. I used sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. I used dark raisins and grated the carrots and just cooked them less as I forgot they were meant to be matchsticks. It would be better as matchsticks but time consuming. I would cut down the ground cardamom per preference a little another time. This was served with an grilled Afghan style chicken, fresh Afghan salad which I will be posting shortly and Balkan (thick) yogurt. Made for Ramadan Tag 2010.