Hamsi Pilavı (Turkish Anchovy Pilaf)

Merhaba From Türkiye 👋

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Seafood is my number one choice when I was in my country. With very long beach line and thousand of island makes Indonesia produce hundreds kind of seafood... sigh.... I miss crabs, shrimps, lobsters and their friends  d(*_*)b

Living in Bursa make me eagerly search for some seafood, but I found only some kind of fish instead of crabs and its friends....

Crabs is something very rare to find here. Only in big chain market sometimes sells it.

And I'd been searching and asking people around me for some seafood recipe. And I found this Hamsi Pilavı from some other recipe. 

Hamsi = anchovy. Pilavı = pilaf/ rice . 

Original recipes mostly use more pine nut, more currant, and more cinnamon also add some sugar to it. I think that pilaf will be sweet then... so I made some reductions from mostly original recipe. And Voalllaa... My Turkish husband even prefers this version.... 

So Here I share my recipe for Hamsi Pilavı.

Hamsi Pilavı (Turkish Anchovy Pilaf)

By: Çitra's Home Diary

Ingredients:

- 1 kg of fresh anchovies. Clean the heads and spines.
- Enough corn flour.
- Enough Olive oil.
- 1 cup rice. Wash and soak with enough hot water for about 30 min. Drain.
- 2 +1/2 cup hot water (if you use a hard type of rice, you may need more)
- 1 medium onion. Chop finely.
- 1 tbsp pine nut (Turk: çam Fıstık)
- 1 tbsp small currant (I do not really like much currant in it)-Türkçe: Kuş Üzümü
- 2 teaspoon thyme
- 2 teaspoons dried mint 
- Pinch of cinnamon powder (I do not really like sweet in this recipe)
- Salt and pepper to taste.

How to cook:

1) Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a non-stick pan. Saute onion until fragrant. Stir in rice, pine nuts, currant, mix well. Add hot water.

2) Put in other spices, stir well and cover the pan. Cook over low heat until the water dries. Turn off the fire. Set aside.

3) Grease a shallow baking pan (you can use a non-stick pan) with olive oil - I use a clay plate. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
4) Coat anchovies with cornflour (only skin part), then arrange on a baking pan with coated skin side down to the pan (see illustration).
5) Fill with rice mixture, and cover with remaining anchovies (skin is also coated with corn flour). Now the coated skin faces outer part. (see illustrations). Gently brush with olive oil. Do not brush too hard, otherwise you will remove the corn flour coat.
6) Bake in the oven to 180 deg C for approximately 45 minutes or until cooked (Reddish brown anchovies)
:: Note
Arrange fish a little overlapping each other, because those anchovies will slightly shrink when baked. You don't want to see a gap/ slit on your Hamsi Pilavı right?

Serve hot. I serve it with lemon and pickles, it's just simply better.... @(^_^)@

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Other yummy recipe you can try:

 FIRINDA KUZU KAPAMA (ROASTED LAMB AND RICE) 

Ev Yapımı Mantı / Turkish Food Recipe; homemade Turkish dumpling (Mantı)

Vietnamese Lemongrass turkey/ chicken Skewer with nuoc cham sauce.