The Levant and Anatolia · Volume 01, The Oil Coast, the Anchovy Coast and the Court Between Them
Hamsili Pilav
The Black Sea coast
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- 20 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Anchovy layered into rice, baked in a clay dish lined with the fish itself, the more distinctive of two real regional versions.
As tradition built it
The baked güveç version
Serves 4 to 6. About 1 hour.
Ingredients
- 500 g cleaned hamsi (or substitute, see Sourcing)
- 2 cups rice
- 4 cups water or fish stock
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tea-glass currants
- 1 tea-glass pine nuts
- 1 dessertspoon, pepper to taste salt, pepper
Method
- Sweat the onion in olive oil, add the currants and pine nuts, then the rice, toasting until translucent.
- Add the water or stock, salt and pepper, bring to the boil, simmer until the rice is nearly cooked and the liquid mostly absorbed.
- Line the base and sides of a buttered clay dish with cleaned hamsi, skin side down.
- Spoon in the part-cooked rice.
- Close the assembly over with a further layer of anchovies, brush with olive oil.
- Bake at 180°C for 30 to 35 minutes until the top browns.
What a modern chef changes
The fish's own oil treated as the seasoning it is.
No new rung, an application of Rung 5's doneness-by-sight discipline to a baked rather than stovetop dish
Method
- Soak the cleaned anchovy briefly in vinegared or milk-acidulated water before assembly, standard practice to cut the fish's stronger aroma without losing its character.
- Watch the top layer of fish rather than the clock; it is done when it has visibly browned and the exposed skin has crisped, not at a fixed number of minutes regardless of your oven.
- Rest 5 minutes before turning out, so the dish holds together when inverted onto a serving plate, fish-side up.