How to Make Lentil and Raisin Rice With Meatballs

This pilaf needs to spend sometime to really comes correctly out of the kitchen but this elaborated rice deserves to have its own place among rice recipes available on the Internet.

Ingredients

• 350 to 400 grams rice
• 400 grams minced meat (lean for healthier diet).
• 100 mililiter spoonful of green lentils
• 150 mililiter cup sultanas (raisins)
• 30 grams; broken yellow peas softly powdered.
• 10 grams bread crumbs, softly powdered.
• 2 large onions.
• 1 large potato
• 1 tortilla
• Sunflower oil or olive oil

Steps

1. Use Basmati / long grain rice to make this dish.

Meatballs

1. Puree the onions until smooth.
2. Add onion to meat and knead them with hand till mixed.
3. Add turmeric, salt and black powdered pepper to the mixture and knead again. By now the meat should be completely smooth.
4. Add broken yellow peas powdered (using a small mill) and the bread crumb (optionally) to the mixture and knead until fully mixed together and pasty. You should have some 560 grams of meat mixture.
5. Decide for the size of meatballs from ten grams each to maximum 14 grams to make 40 or more meatballs.
6. Fry the meatballs. Using the frying pan, fry them on your preferences. Make sure they are cooked inside.
7. Keep the meatballs warm until ready-to-serve.

Lentils

1. Wash the lentils.
2. Add water, leaving about 2cm depth, to cover the lentils.
3. Add a small amount of salt to the lentil water.
4. Cook lentils in a 750 watt microwave oven for 5 minutes, or on the electric hub for 10 minutes. Note : The lentils should not be fully cooked. They should be soft but firm to the tooth.
5. Rinse the lentils with hot tap water in a sieve.

Raisins

1. Cut the second onion in half and slice it.
2. Fry onion until golden with some oil, using the frying pan. You can add a trace of turmeric during frying. Empty onions in a dish; set it aside.
3. Wash raisins with warm water. Remove raisin stems, if needed.
4. Add some more oil to the frying pan. Heat oil and pour raisins in and stir for a minute or two without stopping. When all the raisins become swollen and oily, immediately take the pan off the hub. Avoid burning raisins by overheating.
5. Add raisins to the fried onions in the dish; set them aside.

Rice

1. Fill the casserole dish with water until the water is just a bit over half full.
2. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons salt to the water. Don't worry about excessive salt at this stage. Bring the water to the boil on the hub at 9.
3. Wash the rice and rinse.
   • Add the rinsed rice to the boiling water (adding good rice to boiling water makes the rice lumping together).
   • Set the kitchen timer for 5 minutes.
   • Use a wooden spoon and stir gently just to separate rice lumps into grains. Once separated leave the rice keep boiling, until the 5 minutes ends. Note : Be carefull; if you stir more, then the rice grains will become broken.
   • Take the boiling rice from over the stove.
   • Reduce the hub to 2 to keep it warm.
4. Drain the rice in a colander. Taste the rice. If the rice is too salty, rinse the rice with the cold water.
5. Add cooked lentils, fried raisins and onions to the rice in the colander or any other appropriate pan. Stir gently to mix them.
6. Put the empty casserole dish on the hub. Increase the heat to 8. Add oil to cover the bottom of the pan.
7. Carefully, add 1 or 2 teaspoons of water to the sizzling oil. Be very careful when doing this as the oil could spatter.
8. Add either potato slices or tortilla to put at the bottom of the casserole dish.
   • If you like tortilla put it on the sizzling oil wait for a minute; turn it back for another minute. Then add the rice and raisin and lentil mixture over it.
   • If you choose potatoes, wash and peel the potato. Slice it from its larger cross section into the chips (not sticks) of 3 to 4 millimeters thick. Fill the bottom of the casserole dish with one layer of sliced potatoes. Wait for two or three minutes just to lightly fry. Then turn potatoes back and wait for another two minutes and add the mixed risotto over them.
   • If you do not put tortilla or potato, then reduce the heat to 2 and just pour the mixed risotto over the sizzling oil. At the end you'll have a layer of nice crispy crunchy rice when you turn back rice into the serving dish.

Steam the rice

1. Use a wooden spoon, make the risotto in a cone shape inside the casserole dish. Try to reduce the amount of rice contacting to the sides of the casserole dish.
2. Reduce the heat to 2. Wrap the lead of the casserole dish in a clean cotton kitchen towel. Firmly secure corners of the towel with a good knot or a large safety pin; preventing them to fall when left unattended. Put the wrapped lid on the casserole dish and leave for half an hour. After half an hour take the lid, drizzle or generously spray the top of the rice with oil. Empty out all fried meatballs over the rice. Spray meatballs with oil. Put the wrapped lid back and wait for another half an hour.
3. Shake the casserole dish slowly to see if the bottom of the rice is separated from the casserole dish.
   • First take the lid then turn off the cooker, allowing steam to escape.
4. Put a round serving dish over the casserole dish and nimbly turn over the rice into it, like emptying out a baked cake. The golden crust should be at top now.
5. Take the meal to the table. Break the crust, using a serving spoon, and serve pieces of crust, risotto, and meatballs into the plates.

Side Dish

1. Select thick plain Greek-style yoghurt.
2. Add frozen chopped spinach to a microwave-safe bowl. Use about 10 lumps of spinach. Microwave (750 watts) the spinach for 2 and half to 3 minutes. Drain the spinach and add to 4 small serving bowls.
3. Add 150 grams yogurt to each bowl.
4. Serve white wine with this meal.

Tips

• When frying meatballs you can use your diet options from searing in a non-stick pans to dip fry in oil.
• This dish is not intended for a chili hot palate. If opted so, add only a small hot finger chili during blending the onion into the puree.
• An experienced cook needs only to make the meat dough ready, and to perform the other works parallel.
• A 40 minutes work is needed to prepare the food and 50 to 60 minutes one should wait for rice to steam.

Things You'll Need

• A large colander 25cm (10inches).
• A frying Pan 24cm (10 inches).
• A casserole dish 28cm (12 inches), 12cm (5 inches) depth.
• Measuring cups and spoons.
• A small electric blender.
• A small electric mill.
• Medium electric hub 20cm (8 inches) with a European scale of 1 to 9.

Warning

• One can use other types of cooking stoves such as gas or halogen, but should gain experience for the timing of the rice to steam; otherwise, the bottom of the risotto might burn or remains soft.
• Do not change the 5 minutes of boiling the rice, as the temperature (100°C / 212°F) does not depend on the stove you are using.