Baked Beef Stew (Tas Kebabı) With Pilaf

Today we have a dish that falls under the category of my favorite main dishes. The most beautiful feature of this recpie is that it is cooked in the oven. However, for those who do not like to chop onions, of course, it does not contain onions. It only takes 1 minute to put the meat in the oven. Roasting your rice and baking it again takes around 10 minutes. From the point of view of the effort spent, a delicious meat dish comes out in 11 minutes in total, and the rice is ready with it.

If you are going to consume the meal alone, you can plan it for 2 people, and if there will be a few more varieties on the table, you can plan it for 4 people. Of course, it is possible to increase the amount according to the number of people. In this case, you should also enlarge the ovenware you use.

This is a recipe that can be changed a lot. It's one of the recipes I use as a base. There is no limit to the changes you can make on it. Let's start with the meat, if you wish, onions, potatoes, etc. You can increase the amount and variety by adding vegetables such as You can use chicken or turkey meat. In this case, the cooking time will be shortened. You can make your pilaf with bulgur pilaf, garnish, chickpeas, corn, dill, pine nuts+currants, etc. You can spice it up. You can use the water you added for the last pilaf as meat or chicken broth.

You should calculate the amount of water you use well so that the rice does not become mush. For those who cannot understand the recipe, I will try to explain a little more clearly here;

In the first place, after closing the meat in the tray, we add 5 glasses of water to the tray (it can be hot or cold, it doesn't matter). At the end of 50 minutes, we start to prepare the pilaf. It takes about 10 minutes. In other words, after a total of 60 minutes (1 hour), we take the tray out of the oven. During this period, the 5 glasses of water we added in the first place are reduced because it evaporates. Mine had about 1 cup left. Use your judgment here, don't try to empty the water and measure it. Both the meat in the bowl can spill, and you can burn your hands because it is hot while you are trying to prevent the meat from spilling.

The rice I use normally takes 1.5 cups of water to 1. Since it will be cooked open in the oven, there is evaporation, so I almost double the amount of water I normally use and use 2.5 cups of water. I already had 1 glass of water left in the tray. To complete this to 2.5, I add another 1.5 cups of hot water. If your rice holds, for example, 2 glasses of water, you should use 3.5-4 glasses of water in total.

The container you will use to cover the meat can be metal, glass or porcelain, the important thing is that it can be used in the oven, and that it is in a size that fits the meat perfectly. If it is too big, there will be no place in the tray where you can cook the rice. Therefore, before starting this work, place the small bowl upside down in the middle of the tray and check if there is room for the rice.

I put 2 stones as weight on it. But if you wish, you can use another baking dish as a weight. But make sure that what you use as a weight does not cover the tray. If it is closed, some of the evaporated water will hit here and condense and drip back into the tray. This will change the amount of water remaining in the tray and make it difficult to estimate. We put the weight in order to avoid the buoyancy of the water. If you do not use weights, the middle pot will rise and the meat will be scattered in the middle. It does not need to be closed tightly, some water can get into the meat from the bottom, just keep the meat in the bowl. While pouring the water, press down on the bowl with your hand so that the bowl does not move.

Do not be intimidated by what I have told you at such long. These are just a small precaution to prevent newcomers from getting busy :)

Enjoy the recipe...

Bon appetit...