Broad bean and dill pilaf
- Judith Du Plessis
- Jan 30, 2021
- 3 min read
This is an all time fave of mine: Broad bean and dill pilaf. It's vibrant, fresh and full of flavour and colour.
If you don't have broad beans you can use peas. I used frozen broad beans and put them into a bowl of boiling water for a few minutes to defrost them. I then drained them before de-podding. I does take a fair amount of time to de-pod them, but it's definitely worth the effort as the skins can be a bit tough. I tend to try and palm this job off on Nick, but he was having none of it last weekend so I turned it into a peaceful time out for me with some music and a beautiful glass of Bourgogne Aligoté
When I first read the recipe in Moro I thought "Pah, who needs to soak rice, I'll skip that step" - After a few times of making it I tried soaking the rice and it does makes a big difference, it turned out perfectly. If you don't soak the rice it takes more time and water to cook it.
Broad bean and dill pilaf - serves 4
75g unsalted butter (I used 25g butter & 1tbsp rapeseed oil)
6 spring onions thinly sliced including the green leaves
A pinch of allspice
150g basmati rice
500g podded broad beans (I use 350g as I found 500g too many)
1 medium bunch fresh dill roughly chopped
1/2 small bunch parsley roughly chopped
Sea salt and black pepper
Pan with a lid & greaseproof paper
Optional: Serve with 200g Greek yoghurt thinned with 2tbsp milk and seasoned with 1/2 clove crushed garlic & pinch of allspice
Step 1: 3 hours ahead of when you want to cook
Put your rice in a bowl and cover it with cold water, rub it with your fingers until the water becomes cloudy with the starch. Pour off the water and repeat until the water in the bowl is clear and no more starch is coming off, this will likely be 3-5 times. Pour off the water and cover the clean rice in the bowl with warm water and stir in 1tsp of salt. Moro cookbook explained that the the salt stops the rice breaking up and soaking reduces the cooking time by half. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for at least 3 hours.
Before you cook prepare your "cartouche". This is a disc of damp greaseproof paper that you'll lay over the top of the cooking rice before you put the pan lid on, this stops the steam escaping. You can follow the process shown on this Youtube video with very strange dramatic music, or you can take my simple approach and draw round the base of your pan on the greaseproof paper and cut out the circle!
I used a combination of butter & rapeseed
oil to fry my spring onions as I prefer to eat less butter. Heat your butter or butter & oil over a medium heat in a pan which has a tight fitting lid.
Gently fry your spring onions and allspice for ten minutes, this will make them taste sweet. Stir in your drained rice and coat it in the butter/oil.
Now add the broad beans and 2/3 of the chopped parley and dill, stir well. Cover the rice by 5mm of water and season with salt and pepper. I took this photo to show you how much water I put in mine.
Lay your damp greaseproof paper over the rice mixture and bring to boil over a medium to high heat. When it comes to the boil put a lid on the pan and cook quite fast for 5 minutes. Now turn the heat down to medium low for another 5 minutes. Don't peak during this process or you'll let the steam out!!
Now take the lid off and reveal your pilaf!!! Sprinkle the rest of the chopped dill and parsley on and serve. We served ours with fried fish with preserved lemons and olives.
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