Sweet Moorish Pilaf

This is an easily convertible recipe from veggie to non-veggie depending on your mood or diet preferences. I try and make sure I have at least two meat free days a week so I like the option of beefing up the protein content with nuts for meat free days, or chicken for meat days. You could go all out and add both if you like, but I usually try and not over-use nuts in case I become sensitised to that too, so I probably won't be doing that too often.

This recipe is taken from the lovely book Quiet Food, which generously considers it's contents copyright free.

Ingredients:

• 250 ml white rice
• 25 ml butter replacement or olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 600 ml vegetable stock
• 1 star anise (whole)
• 5ml tumeric
• 250 ml peas, fresh or frozen
• 125 ml chopped dried apricots (or peaches)
• 125 ml chopped dates
• 15 ml lemon juice
• 5 ml sugar
• 30 ml chopped fresh mint
• (optional) cashews or toasted almonds
• (optional) 2 chicken breasts, sliced thin
• salt, to taste

Method:

1. Gently sauté the onion in the butter until soft
2. If using chicken, fry gently until brown and set chicken aside
3. Add the crushed garlic and cook for another two minutes while stirring
4. Add the rice, stock, dates, apricots, turmeric and star anise (add chicken back back to pan now, if using)
5. Simmer for 10 minutes until almost dry
6. add the peas and steam until there is no more stock in the bottom of the saucepan
7. garnish with mint and serve

Chickpeas also work well in the vegetarian version of this recipe to add texture alongside the nuts.