There are two options of preparation of pilaf: Central Asian and Iranian and set of variations. A basis of all recipes is a grain part, in most cases it is rice. And it is important to learn to cook pilaf so that rice was friable.
How to cope with paste and to make rice friable
The secret of friable rice is in that on its surface there was as little as possible paste. This indicator depends on a grain grade. To make tasty Uzbek pilaf, it is necessary to take the Fergana grades of a devzir or a chungar differing in a peculiar taste. The description of grades it is possible to read http://xcook.info/ris-devzira.html.
Starch badly inflates in cold water therefore wet rice (1 kg) in the water which is added some salt hot (80˚C) for 30 minutes, you can add a saffron or a turmeric for color. If grain strongly starchy, drain the cooled-down water and once again fill in rice with hot water to remove all starch.
The recipe of the Uzbek pilaf in a cauldron
It is desirable to cook home-made pilaf in a cauldron on big fire. While rice is presoaked prepare зирвак. Warm melted mutton fat (200 g) and vegetable oil (50-80 g) up to the temperature of 180 ˚C. Put steaks (1.3-1.5 kg) in fat, fry 15-20 minutes, add the onions (500 g) cut with half rings to meat fry it constantly stirring slowly. Lower the white carrots (300 g) chopped by large straws in a cauldron and fry 5 minutes, afterwards orange carrots, it will give color to rice. Fat has to become impregnated with taste and aroma of vegetables and to give this taste to grain.
In зирвак add: salt, a black pepper, cumin or caraway seeds, a dried barberry to taste, fill in with a glass of water and you extinguish, without closing a cover, 35-45 minutes. Take a garlic head, wash up and without cleaning from a peel, put on meat. Fill up the prepared rice and fill in it with hot water in such quantity that it covered rice on 3-4 cm. You cook pilaf, without closing a cover, water won't be evaporated yet. Then make a funnel in rice, fly a half-glass of water there, lift carefully lower rice upward, close a cauldron a cover, lower fire to a minimum sustain 10-15 minutes.
To make tasty pilaf it is important to sustain high, 95 ˚ above, temperature throughout all process of cooking. At traditional preparation of pilaf a cauldron isn't closed, water won't be evaporated yet, but saw that it зирвак became dense, paste, the only opportunity to improve situation and to make friable rice – to lift its temperature was formed. For this purpose it is possible to cover ware with a cover, then grain will heat up from above and paste will collapse.