Cherry Almond Pilaf

Submitted by Shannon Cooks

"Beautiful cherry pilaf that is lightly sweetened. The cherries will stain the rice a light pink color - it looks so pretty! Cilantro is known as coriander outside of the USA."

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 8
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 1 cup tart cherries
• 2⁄3 cup water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup basmati rice, rinsed and drained
• 3 tablespoons sliced almonds, lightly toasted
• 1 teaspoon ground cilantro

directions

1. Pit cherries over a medium saucepan to save as much juice as possible.
2. Once pitted, heat cherries, water and sugar to a boil.
3. Reduce heat and simmer cherry mixture for 20 minutes.
4. Drain cherries, reserving juice in a clear glass measuring cup. Save cherries for later.
5. Add enough vegetable broth to the cherry juice to equal 2 cups of liquid. Set cherry/broth liquid aside and discard leftover vegetable broth.
6. Melt butter in a large skillet. Add rice and stir to coat in melted butter.
7. Pour in the cherry juice/vegetable broth mixture and bring to a boil over medium high heat.
8. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until rice is tender and all of the liquid is absorbed. Check the skillet occasionally and stir to make sure that the rice doesn’t stick to the bottom.
9. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, fold in cherries and cilantro.
10. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with toasted almonds.

Reviews

[UmmBinat]

Tasty and different with a cool look. I did play around with this somewhat as I had purchased dried tart cherries but as had regular fresh cherries that weren't fully ripe (in other words, somewhat tart) too I also incorporated fresh. The dried tart cherries are very yummy but not too tart. I added less sugar to the rice and none to the cherries, sea salt to taste in water, no broth, I dropped in some slightly crushed regular cherries to the cooking rice to give it pink colour which I did take out before serving. I used fresh cilantro as that is also what I had on hand. I'm very glad I tried this recipe and dried tart cherries for the first time. I served this with recipe#35132, recipe#318237, and recipe#96978 for a tasty meal. Made for Visiting Iran(Persia) in June 2012!

 

[Chef Beaner]

tasted great recommend to everyone!