Whole30 Pilav

The first thing I ever learned to cook

It might be the first dish I learned to make all by myself: pilav with peaches. When I was about 10 years, I made it by cooking some chicken or pork strips with loads for onion, a can of peaches and… 2 BOTTLES of ketchup.
By now I have better kitchen skills… still: since I found a kick ass recipe for Whole30 ketchup, I started to remember the pilav I used to make. Once I found canned peaches in juice (instead of syrup), I could go gung-ho.

Ingredients

For the ketchup:

→ 3 semi dried medjool dadels, chop them up a bit.
→ 1 bottle (organic) tomato passata (690 gram)
→2 tablespoon appel cider vinegar
→1 tablespoon musterd
→ 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (sweet)
→1 teaspoon onion powder
→1 teaspoon garlic powder
→1/2 teaspoon salt
→ Option: 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon grounded chipotle peper when you want ‘hot’ ketchup

For the pilav:

→ 750 gram chicken thighs (or diced pork)
→ 3 big onions, sliced
→ 3 red peppers, sliced
→ 2 cans of peaches in juice
→ 1,5 tablespoon of tapioca starch (or arrowroot)
→ 2x 1 tablespoon ghee (or coconut oil or even olive oil)
→ Salt & pepper
→ Option: some compliant hot sauce, I use sambal oelek

Preparation

First make the ketchup (you can do that in advance)

→ Add all the ingredients into a blender or a NutriBullit… turn it on. Leave it on for a while. Return the ketchup to the bottle of the tomato passata. In the fridge you can keep this ketchup for a few weeks… or use it at once in this pilav!

Make the pilav:

→ Dice the meat. Season with salt and pepper. Add the tapioca starch and mix until all the meat is covered.

→ Heat the ghee in a (pre-heated cast iron) pan on medium high heat. Slowly cook the onions and peppers, stirring often, until they soften, not brown. That can take 10 minutes easily.

→ Take the onion mixture from the pan. Add another spoon of ghee and fry the meat. Don’t stir right away, let it brown first. Repeat until all the meat is seared.

→ Add the onions and peppers back in en stir. Deglaze with the peach juice from the can and add the ketchup. All ketchup. Stir and reheat.

→ Dice the peaches the same size as the meat. Add to the sauce.

→ Serve with cauliflower-, broccoli- or plantain rice.