How to Turn Ground Beef and Rice Into a Stunning Turkish Dish

Duvaklı Pilav: Turkish Rice with a Veil

Hi, I’m so glad you’ve stopped by. I’m Leslie, an enthusiastic cook and vagabond who loves making homestyle dishes from around the world.

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I find it funny that I married into a rich and vibrant culinary culture, yet most of my husband’s family doesn’t care much about food.

To clarify, they do enjoy eating (thank god for that), but they don’t really seek to try new dishes.

Although my husband and his family can’t “systematically” teach me about Turkish cuisine, I still have learned the most important parts of Turkish cookery from them.

Oh, what are they you ask? I’m happy to share.

The Tenets of Turkish Cooking, as I like to think of them, are as follows:

1. “Just eyeball it”

2. “A tablespoon” in Turkish never means “a tablespoon” (in American measurements, it’s anywhere from 2 to 8 tablespoons)

3. Cook things “until they’re cooked” (Why do you need a number of minutes? You should just know, duh!)

4. If you’re making a dough, use “as much flour as it takes”

5. There is no such thing as too much olive oil (I mean, my stomach thinks otherwise, but who cares what she thinks?)

These are neither jokes nor jabs. They’re just truths.

My main exposure to Turkish cuisine has been from the Western regions (Marmara and Aegean), which is where my husband's family has mostly lived. While I absolutely love (most of) the food that I’ve tried from these areas, I know there is so much more to Turkish cuisine that I haven’t tapped into yet.

Luckily for me, my sister-in-law now lives in the opposite part of the country, in a Southeastern city called Diyarbakır.

Diyarbakır is not a popular tourist destination—particularly not for foreigners—but I really enjoy visiting.

It’s one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited areas, with evidence of people living there since the Stone Age. Lots of cool history, a fortress, a Byzantine era city wall… but those are not the major appeal for me.

The reason I love it? Diyarbakır has a rich cuisine. It has been under the rule of many different empires and cultures throughout history and still to this day —while it’s officially recognized as part of Turkey, it’s actually a majority-Kurdish city.

When I was in Diyarbakir recently, I had the luck of catching a TV documentary about food from the region. It was truly luck because I later asked if we could watch that channel again, and my sister-in-law replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Within the first minute of watching, my mouth was watering at the mesmerizing scenes of classic Turkish chefs cooking in large copper pans. Beef stew with quince! The use of allspice! Dishes that looked nothing like what I’d eaten in Istanbul or Aegean beach towns.

I snapped out of my jetlagged daze and frantically opened the Notes app on my phone. I (politely) started rattling off questions. “What was the name of that dish?” “Have you tried that before?” “What type of meat was that?”

The dish that caught my attention the most was something called Duvaklı Pilav. It was a glistening pile of gem-studded ground beef or lamb, atop of buttery disk of rice.

The dish was so gorgeous, but the segment was over before I fully processed what I saw.

I asked my husband’s family if they’ve ever made it. I received confused looks, and a tut coupled with an eyebrow raise, which means, “no, don’t be silly” in Turkish. (Bet you didn’t think you were getting a lesson in Turkish non-verbal communication today!) So, I did what any determined millennial would do. I scoured the internet for that documentary and found a video clip of the dish.

Even though they don’t provide measurements, I was able to use my Turkish cooking skills (the tenets I mentioned above) to reverse engineer a version of Duvaklı Pilav.

I couldn’t believe that it turned out (almost) as showstopping as I had seen it on the show!

About Duvaklı Pilav

Duvaklı Pilav translates to “Rice with a Veil.” It’s a local Diyarbakır dish that’s typically served at wedding celebrations.

I’ve gathered that whole fried almonds are a mainstay of this dish. I used slivered because my TMJ would be very angry at me if I tried to bite into whole almonds.

Many versions of Duvaklı Pilav, though, don’t include the “gems” of finely diced peppers, currants, and parsley that are featured in the documentary. I think they a wonderful pop of color and flavor so I included them in the recipe below. I also used raisins instead of currants because I like them better.

The traditional rice used is a local variety called Karacadağ (pronounced kah-rah-jah-dah). A few days prior to watching the documentary, my husband and I were walking past a kuruyemiş (a dried fruit and nut shop) that had a barrel of brown rice sitting outside. It intrigued me because I’d never seen brown rice in Turkey before. I did a little research and learned that it’s a short grain brown rice that grows in the local volcanic Karacadağ foothills. It reminded me of San Marzano tomatoes, which grow in the rich soil around Mount Vesuvius.

I was keen to try some, but my sister-in-law definitely did not have any in her pantry. We also didn’t have another trip to a kuruyemiş after that so I was afraid I’d have to wait a long time to try this rice.

But then, the impossible happened. I stumbled upon a kuruyemiş in… guess where? The airport! AND they had Karacadağ rice. AND the prices were the same as the non-airport kuruyemiş. I’m telling you, Diyarbakır as a travel destination is quite the sleeper.

Dried fruit and nut shop in the airport (!!) and the Karacadağ rice

For all the talk about this variety of rice, you must know, it’s not absolutely essential. I’ve seen versions of Duvaklı Pilav made with a more common type of Turkish rice called Baldo, but any medium grain white rice will work well! In fact, everything in this dish can be found at your regular supermarket!

While the ingredients are somewhat simple, they turn into something beautiful that would make for a special and delicious dinner.

I served it with roasted cauliflower, which I topped with garlic & dried mint seasoned yogurt and sprinkled with Aleppo pepper. I’m not sharing a recipe for the cauliflower yet, but just wanted to mention it in case you’re wondering what vegetable to pair it with.

I hope you get a chance to make this Duvaklı Pilav. I think it’s a gentle steppingstone into the lesser-known flavors of Diyarbakir, a secret culinary kingdom.

And the best part is that you don’t need to stumble upon a documentary on a non-existent channel to discover Duvaklı Pilav. With The Tenets of Turkish Cooking (should I trademark this?), a grocery store run, and the recipe below, you can make this stunning dish, too.

Afiyet olsun! :)

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Duvaklı Pilav Recipe

Servings: 4-5 | Prep time: 20 minutes | Cook time: ~45 minutes

Ingredients

For the rice

• 3 tablespoons butter (or olive oil)

• 1 cup short grain brown rice, thoroughly rinsed and drained (See Note 1 on alternatives)

• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

• 2.25 cups hot water

For the beef

• 1/2 tablespoon butter

• 1/4-1/3 cup blanched almonds, slivered or whole

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 small-medium yellow onion, finely diced

• 1 lb ground beef or lamb (I prefer 90/10 or 85/15)

• scant 1 teaspoon fine sea salt

• scant 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

• scant 1/2 teaspoon allspice

  • Optional: other spices like 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp coriander

• 1/4 cup water

• 2-3 baby red peppers, finely diced (heaping 1/2 cup)

• 1 Anaheim pepper, finely diced (heaping 1/2 cup)

• 1/4-1/3 cup raisins or dried currants

• 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves

Method

1. Make the rice: Add 3 tablespoons of butter to a pan over medium heat, add rice and fry for a few minutes until it is slightly translucent. Then add 2.25 cups hot water (or less if you’re using a different variety of rice) and bring to a low boil. Then, lower to a simmer, cover, and cook according to time instructed on package. Move on to step 2. When done, turn off heat and leave the rice covered to steam for at least 10 minutes.

2. Fry the almonds: Add 1/2 tablespoon of butter to a large pot (or large frying pan) over medium heat and then add almonds. Fry, stirring frequently until golden brown, 3-5 minutes. Transfer them to a small dish and set aside. Don’t leave them unattended and don’t leave them in the pan after they’ve turned golden because they’ll burn!

3. Make the beef: To the empty pot over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and onion. Saute for 4-6 minutes until translucent. Then add ground beef. Cook, stirring to break up the beef, until it is mostly browned, 6-8 minutes. Then add salt, pepper, and allspice and mix. Add 1/4 cup water, the finely diced peppers, and raisins and cook for 5 minutes until peppers are slightly softened. Turn off heat, add parsley and fried almonds and mix.

4. Plate it: Transfer the cooked rice to a pie plate (or similar dish) and pat it into an even layer, packing in the rice. Then place a serving dish on top of the pie plate. Carefully invert to release the rice (and remove the pie plate). If the rice doesn’t stay completely intact, don’t worry. Spoon the beef mixture on top of the rice. (If all of it doesn’t fit, just serve it on the side.) Take a moment to admire the beauty you’ve created, and then enjoy!

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Notes

(1) Rice: If you use a different type of rice, I’d recommend a medium grain white rice. Please still fry the rinsed and drained rice in butter! This is the classic Turkish way to make rice (and most grains). However, you’ll need to adjust the water amount and cooking time depending on what variety you have.

(2) Other ingredient options: The common types of peppers in Turkey are red kapya peppers and green sivri peppers or green Charleston peppers. However, those are difficult to find in the US. Therefore, I opt for baby red bell peppers (they tend to be much more flavorful than large red bell peppers) and Anaheim, which have a similar mild flavor profile and thin skin like Turkish green peppers. If you have access to the traditionally-used varieties I mentioned, by all means, use those!