Zanzibari Pilau Rice

Pilau Rice is rice cooked with a lot of spices. For special
occassions like celebrations, funerals or just any gatherings.
Its mainly eatean with Kachumbari (Tomato and onion salad)
But can be prepared and eaten with any sauce. I will prepare
Kachumbari and add it here in the next weeks when i get the
time. Thanks!

Ingriedients:
4 cups of normal basmati rice or jasmine rice
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 medium size onions
5 medium size potatoes
A handful of Raisins
½ a kilo meat (chicken, beef, or lamm)
5 fresh cloves garlic
1 medium size fresh ginger
A bit of salt
1 lime

Spices
10 cardamon pods
2 sticks of cinnamon
2 teaspoon of cloves
2 teaspoons of peppercorn
4 teaspoon cumin seeds

Preparing the Broth:
Grind garlic and ginger together to make paste and put aside.
Clean your meat and cut to desired pieces, then add the Garlic/Ginger paste to it, add salt and
a bit of lime, then mix well. Put it on the cooker for a short while turning the meat occassionally, and then just before it dries up add some water (this will be roughly like 5 cups of water) and put to cook. Let it cook until the meat is tender. Once done put aside (You should have some reasonable amount of liquid (broth) now, if you feel its not enough do not despair, just add boiled water when adding your broth to your rice later on. But its better to have more Broth than water. The Broth will add that special taste to your rice than just boiled water.

Preparing the ingredients:
1. Combine whole spices and rinse a bit with warm water and put aside.
2. Cut onions thinly and put aside
3. Cut potatoes and put aside
4. Rinse rice in cold water, drain and set aside
5. Rinse raisins and put aside

Cooking Instructions:
Choose a good size cooking pot. Add vegetable oil and fry your potatoes until light brown, then put aside. Take your thinly cut onions and fry until light brown as well. Then add all your spices. And add your meat as well, mix your spices with your meat well, once nicely mixed, add the broth. Let it heat up then add your rice. Stir carefully and cover to cook (heat of medium to high but not the highest) for about 5-10 minutes. Then uncover and turn the rice from bottom to top carefully then cover it back and let it simmer for about 10minutes turning it once or twice again until dry and cooked. Last you can add your Raisins (if you like! not a must of course)

Thats it i guess!
This is how my Bibi showed me how to make Pilau! I can still recall her directing me the steps in adding the ingredients. Bibi never used measurements and so i cook without measurements, so it has been a bit tricky in preparing this recipe. But you will get the hang of it once you prepare it once or twice.

Enjoy!