Pilaf with Cheese and Crawfish

Recipe from Kate Logan

2507 views

Cooking time: 35 min

Servings 3

A wonderful and very fragrant dish of oriental cuisine - pilaf. The fragrant rice dish is so delicious that nowdays is cooked all over the world. Today we would like to offer a recipe for pilaf with crayfish meat and cheese. Crawfish can be replaced with fish, crab or lobster, depending on what you have available. This recipe is a bit like homemade risotto. Cheese will give the dish a creamy tenderness, and spices and crayfish will give a sharp sea salty taste. Try it yourself and you won't be disappointed.

Rice

1,2 lbs.
Crawfish

1,2 lbs.
Hard cheese

8 oz.
Bulb onion

1 pcs.
Carrot

1 pcs.
Black pepper, salt

to taste
Bay leaf

2 pcs.
Dill weed

2 pcs.
Paprika powder

0,5 teaspoons
Vegetable oil

2 tbsp.

Calories

546 kcal
Protein

12 g
Fat

43 g
Carbohydrates

345 g

First, you need to wash and cook the crawfish. Place the crawfish in a deep container, such as a bucket or basin, fill with water and salt. Let the crawfish stand in such water for 20-30 minutes. Take a rosary and clean the crawfish well with it to get rid of particles of sand and silt. Move the crawfish into a deep saucepan, pour water again and salt to taste, add a little pepper, ground or peas, 2 bay leaves, a sprig of dill and, if desired, you can add half a teaspoon of lemon juice. Simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes with the lid on. Open the lid after that and cook the crawfish until the shell turns bright red or orange. Remove the crawfish, transfer to a separate bowl with tongs, let them cool slightly and then clean. Strain the broth through a sieve and leave for now.
Wash, peel with a knife and grate the carrots on a fine grater. Also wash, peel and finely chop the onion or, like the carrots, grate on a fine grater, cut the celery into small pieces. Brush a frying pan with olive or vegetable oil and fry the onions and carrots until golden brown. Then add rice. Rinse it (to rinse the rice, place it in a small bowl and cover with running water, rinse and drain the dirty water. Do the same a few more times until water becomes more or less transparent.) Fry the rice in a pan until golden-brown, stirring constantly so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.
Now add the broth, that remained after cooking the crawfish. Bring to a boil and cook over low heat. After 25 minutes, add garlic chopped into thin slices to the pilaf. Cover with a lid and let the dish simmer for another 15 minutes. When the pilaf is almost ready, there will be literally a couple of minutes left and quite a bit of liquid, add a little grated cheese. Mix everything until smooth. Cover the pot with a lid and let it stay for 15-20 minutes. Pilaf is ready to serve. You can leave a few crawfish unpeeled from the shell and add them cooked as a side dish. Enjoy your meal!

Pay special attention to the shells and legs when cleaning crayfish, it is there that silt and dirt accumulate, which subsequently give the meat an unpleasant river flavor. The shells are well cleaned with a toothbrush, but the process takes a long time, not everyone has the patience.
Serving crayfish is best surrounded by greens or light vegetable salads. You can eat the dish hot, warm and even cold. During storage, crayfish will not lose their rich taste and savor.