Afghanistan: Kabuli Pulau
A sweet and savory lamb and rice dish, flavored with nuts, raisins and carrots.
Welcome to this cooking journey, thanks for joining me! I started this project because I was missing traveling as much as I did in my travel nurse days, so I wanted to still be able to experience and learn about other cuisines and cultures even though I didn’t have the same freedom and flexibility to take trips as often. Kabuli Pilau was such an amazing first dish to make and is actually Afghanistan’s is national dish. The warm sweetness of the cardamom, cinnamon, raisins and carrots really balanced the savory lamb, pistachios and almonds!
This dish was actually a bit more complicated than I originally thought but it was definitely worth it! It actually reminded me a lot of some of the rice dishes I had in Iraqi, which brought up some good memories. One thing I loved about making this dish was that it put together some ingredients that I never would have thought to combine before and I love that cooking all these meals will give me more ideas for flavor combinations and will allow me to be more creative and daring in my cooking!
Carrots, golden raisins, almonds and pistachios.
I also love that even with just this first dish I’m learning new techniques, tips and tricks. While I’ve certainly rinsed rice in the past, this recipe called for the rice to be rinsed until clear and then soaked for 30 minutes- this process helps remove extra starch from the surface of the rice and prevents the grains from sticking together, and also decreases cooking time! This recipe also had me soak the nuts prior to cooking, which softened them a little and gave them a nicer, more consistent texture with the rest of the dish. Lastly, the cooked nuts were wrapped in tin foil and placed on top of the cooking rice, with a towel wrapped lid placed on top! This technique allows the flavors and aromas to meld together without the nuts soaking up water and becoming soggy.
Towel wrapped lid to hold in moisture.
This dish was so yummy and filling with some really unique flavors, and I loved that I had plenty of leftovers! This was also a first cooking lamb for me and I really loved it!