My Favorite Recipes Collection: Turkish Spicy Tomato Vegetable Bulgar Pilaf in Instant Pot

As promised earlier, I am going to post more recipes of Turkish vegetarian cuisine that we had a privilege of trying when we took our tour of this amazing historical country. One of the restaurants that Gate1 tour company took us to had amazing Turkish pizza and along with other items, they also had this Bulgar pilaf, that was so light and tasty like you are eating something made out of rice or corn, I thought it was rice Bulgar and I asked the owner of this restaurant Mehmet, who was so friendly and hospitable, he said it was Rice Bulgur. Of course when I came back here I looked everywhere for this Rice Bulgar, but could not find it. I finally bought something from a middle eastern store that said Turkish Bulgar, but I think it is still made out of wheat, I don't think there is anything like Bulgar made out of rice. Please correct me if I am wrong, however I did the best I could of recreating this recipe, however I made it in Instant pot as I did not want to take a chance of overcooking or under cooking it on stove.

First time I just a simple recipe with tomato base without any veggies with 1/2 cup Bulgar then as you can see I tried it with veggies for a get together where I made 1 cup of Bulgar this time I put lot of veggies in it. I read up on line that you need to use Bulgar # 3 which means it is coarse. It comes in different grain sizes, very fine, fine, medium coarse and coarse Bulgar. Bulgar is one of ancient grains is also called cracked wheat, is a staple food in Middle Eastern cuisine. In India my mom used to make Dalia with it, which is popular breakfast meal can be made either sweet or salty, but she used medium grain for this.

It has lot of nutritional values and rich in protein, vitamin B and fiber. When I went shopping at our local middle eastern market I also picked up a jar of Ajvar which comes in mild and spicy variety, it is a ready made paste of roasted red pepper and eggplant and has some middle eastern spices in it, I used this to make Bulgar Pilaf to give its color and different flavor. I love this paste, you can make it from scratch but the one in the jar is pretty good. I also used it to make Turkish stuffed eggplants which is going to be my next post. You can just make the plain Bulgar pilaf, but love this recipe of mine after couple of trials.

Ingredients:

1 cup of # 3 grains of Bulgur.
One and 1/2 ups of water or vegetable broth
3 medium tomatoes peeled and chopped
1/4 -1/2 cup of peas
1/2 cup of shelled edamame
1/2 green pepper finely chopped
1/4 yellow pepper, 1/4 red pepper finely chopped
5 sprigs of spring onions with green finely chopped

1/2 cup of baby carrots chopped
1 large yellow onion, 1/2 sliced for garnish and half chopped to put it in pilaf
5-6 mushroom sliced divided in half one half for garnish and other half to put in the pilaf.
2 tablespoon of Ajvar paste
2 table spoon of tomato paste
1 tables spoon for fresh mint leaves chopped
3 table spoon of butter of ghee divided in 3 parts
Salt to taste I used 1 and 1/2 teaspoon
1 teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper

1 to 1 and half teaspoon of all spice, ( I used chicken spice that I got from Turkey but it is like blend of all spices
2-3 teaspoon of cumin seeds device in three parts
1/4 teaspoon of saffron (optional)
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder (optional)
1/4 cup of cilantro for garnish (optional)

Of course I used lot of veggies, but if you wish you can only use peas of mix of frozen veggies or no veggies at all just onions and peppers, but the tomato paste and Ajvar is a must for my recipe. First pictures you see I just made it out of onions and sweet peppers and did not add any veggie and it came out pretty good too. You can be creative. You will need instant pot for this recipe, I basically followed by recipe of Indian Pilaf or Pulao that I make treating the Bulgar as rice.

Method:

Have all the veggies ready.
First I took half of slice onions and half of sliced mushrooms and prepped them for garnishing.
In a sauce pan heat 1 table spoon of butter or ghee and add cumin seeds when these crackle add onions and caramelize them on high heat than add mushrooms and saute them for 1 min and set aside.
Then in same frying pan add one table spoon of butter or ghee and add 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds.

When these crackle add chopped onions saute on high heat for few seconds and and all the chopped veggie and saute them for 1-2 min turn the heat off.

Wash Bulgar in water, just like you would wash rice to make pilaf to get the extra starch off.
Drain all the water.
Turn on the instant pot to saute, when ready add rest of the butter of ghee and cumin seeds and saute Bulgar grain for 1 min then add all the sauteed veggies (except the one for the
garnish)
Add chopped tomatoes, Ajvar, mint leaves and tomato paste and 1 and 1/2 cup of water or vegetable broth.

Add all the spices, saffron and salt.
Mix everything gently. Empty the content in another container that would fit in instant pot container on stand.
In instant pot container add 1.5 cup of water and place the cooking container with all the contents.
Cover the instant pot and turn to pressure cook on low pressure for 10 min setting with seal on.
Actually second time when I made this I had it on high pressure an it was fine.

Once 10 min are up, you can let it sit for one minute that release the pressure slowly (be careful)
Transfer the pilaf in a microwave safe serving dish.
Once you make it few time you will get the hang of it.
And by all means if you feel making it more comfortable or if you don't have instant pot than you can make it on stove or in traditional pressure cooker. Just remember you have to cook it on slow heat when cooking on open stove.

Once ready, you can garnish with caramelized onion slices and sauteed mushroom slices and cilantro if desired.
Serve with fresh juice of lime to taste, lightly sprinkled over the serving.