The instructions for cooking the rice wound up being incorrect for both of us, so I'm writing what we did here as well to correct it. We also added more salt throughout the cooking process and changed the garlic instructions, and were glad we did both. All our notes are in the recipe below.
Overall through this series we have learned that pretty much every country has a meat and rice dish, and that rice is very hard to cook with all the different methods! Both of us said we would make this again, and my friend used chicken and said it also was great!
Ingredients:
2 lb. boneless lamb cut into 3 inch pieces (I used beef stew meat for ease here)
2 cups basmati rice
4 garlic heads, whole (we used 2 but think 3 would be great), washed and top trimmed off to expose cloves
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large onions, sliced thinly
5 large carrots, coarsely grated
2 tbsp each cumin and coriander seeds
1/2 cup fresh barberries (I subbed currants)
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
2 cups boiling water
2 tbsp salt (we used more)
Directions:
1. Cover rice in a bowl with warm water and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large dutch oven or skillet over high heat until smoking. Salt the meat, then add to pot, browning on each side.
3. Stir in onions with a sprinkle of salt, cooking for 10 minutes until brown and soft.
4. Stir in carrots, cooking for 10 minutes until soft.
5. Stir in cumin seeds, coriander seeds, barberries and peppercorns. Stir in a pinch of salt and mix well. Add garlic heads face down on the bottom of the pan (this part was my addition and it worked well to caramelize the garlic). Reduce heat to medium and cook covered for 30 min. (We shortened the cooking time for beef to 20 and chicken by 15).
6. Wash and drain the rice until water is clear in hot water. Pour the drained rice in an even layer over meat mixture, then cover with boiling water about 3/4 inch and do not stir. Sprinkle 2 tbsp of salt and reduce heat to medium low, cover and cook for 20 min until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender.
*note- this method did not work for us, so we would either do this for 10 min then stir together and cook until the rice is soft, or mix all together from the start. Our water did not cover the rice by 3/4 of an inch either, and we both thought we might increase the liquid by .5 cup.
7. Stir everything together at the end, adjust for seasonings, and serve with garlic heads on top.
*note- we squeezed the roasted garlic out and stirred this in too, it made it taste great!
