Kabuli Pulao

I had put together an entire list of recipes I wanted to try to make for the Afghanistan portion of AtWCC, but there was one conspicuous absence from the list - kabuli pulao, Afghanistan's national dish. Most of the recipes I had come across for kabuli pulao at that point seemed so complicated, and the last thing I needed was to attempt a recipe that was going to literally take all day. It just didn't seem right, though, to explore Afghanistan's cuisine without making the national dish, especially since it was something we could actually make and eat (i.e., not something with eggs or deep-fried or requiring red meat). I went back and searched some more, and I found what seemed like a doable recipe for kabuli pulao on International Cuisine, so that became the final piece of our exploration of Afghan cuisine.

The ingredients for our version of kabuli pulao (switching the meat to chicken and leaving out the apricots) were:

- 1 cup basmati rice

- 3-4 medium carrots

- 1 large boneless skinless chicken breast (about 0.75 lbs)

- 1-2 tbsp olive oil

- about 1 tbsp cumin

- 4 cardamom pods

- 2 cinnamon sticks

- 1 small box of raisins

- 2 small pinches of saffron threads

- salt and freshly ground black pepper

- 2 tbsp sugar

I intended to follow the recipe closely (since we've made a similar dish, plov, before, which has not always been the most flavorful), but my slowness moving around the limited space in the kitchen, trying to balance this with making naan from scratch, and things on the stove cooking faster than expected led to some unplanned modifications. The steps we followed were:

1. Wash rice and soak for 20 minutes. Drain and cook according to package instructions, but cut the time in half (and then drain and set aside if necessary).

[I added the amount of water the package said to, and cooked it for about 12-13 minutes instead of their recommended 20 (got sidetracked working on other prep). When I opened the pot, the rice had absorbed all the water, and it was fully-cooked instead of being half-boiled rice. As a result, I could skip the steps of draining it and setting it aside, and I didn't have to time the final simmering.]

2. Prep work - peel and grate carrots, cut chicken.

[I seriously estimated wrong for timing on this step, because I forgot just how long it takes to grate carrots!]

3. In a large skillet over medium heat, add the olive oil, and then cook the chicken until golden brown.

[The next step after this was supposed to be adding a cup of water and some salt, and letting it simmer until the meat became tender, but I was already being splashed with hot oil when I stirred the chicken and had no desire for it to become worse. Also, chicken is already more tender than lamb, so a long, tenderizing simmer wasn't as necessary. Plus, it was so much later in the night than I was expecting when I got to this point, so I didn't feel like doing that.]

4. Add the carrots, raisins, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon sticks, salt, and pepper. Stir well. Add about 1/2 cup of water, cover, and cook for a few minutes.

[The cumin was supposed to be added with the rice while it cooked, but I forgot. I added about 2 tsp here and more in the next step.]

5. Add the rice and saffron, and stir well. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

[This was where I added some more cumin and also some black pepper.]

6. Heat the sugar in a small pan over low heat until it melts, and then add 1/2 cup of water, and mix well. During this process, add (regular) water (not the water from the first sentence) a couple tbsp at a time to the rice mixture in the skillet if it's starting to stick.

[I added water a lot, at least 5-6 times, probably more. It kept sticking to the bottom of the skillet, but at least the browned bits added flavor. This step took much longer than expected, and if I were to do this again, I would start this much, much earlier. I had never melted sugar before, so when it wasn't working, I looked it up where it said it could take as long as 5 minutes, so I went to work on the naan dough, and before I knew it, it had burned, so we had to do it again. This time, it seemed to refuse to melt so we added the water early and then mixed it up. Seemed fine.]

7. Add the sugar mixture to the rice and stir well. Cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes to let the flavors meld.

[I didn't actually count the minutes, but just left it there until the naan was done.]

We really liked this! In contrast to some of the plov I've made before, this one just had so much more flavor, maybe due to the whole spices used or the saffron threads. Outside of grating the carrots and figuring out the sugar pan, none of the steps were especially time-consuming, so I could see this being something we make again (although maybe not with from-scratch bread-making at the same time). Very happy that this was how we rounded out our exploration of Afghan cuisine!