Tavuklu Pilav: Turkish chicken pilaf with chickpeas

Guess! Quickly! What is THE street food in Turkey?

No, definitely not kebab. Ok, maybe cigköfte. But if you're in a hurry, you just buy tavuklu pilav - rice with chickpeas and chicken.

What is tavuklu pilav?

Tavuklu pilav is Turkish for "rice with chicken". It is based on rice with chickpeas, which is either mixed or topped with cooked chicken. Alternatively, the Turkish rice with chicken is also called "nohutlu pilav", i.e. rice dish with chickpeas. However, this is usually the case when the chicken pieces are not served with it.

To be honest, we didn't realize how common this dish was until we moved to Turkey. In Turkey, it is even known as "Sokak PIlavi", or "street rice dish" aka street food.

When we lived in Vienna, a Turkish snack bar serving this very rice opened in the neighborhood one day. Personally, we didn't find the idea of a store called "Nohutlu Pilav", i.e. rice with chickpeas, very promising and even wondered who would only offer chickpea rice. Well, unfortunately the idea didn't really go down well in Vienna and the snack bar had to close. When we came to Turkey, we realized that Tavuklu Pilav is a classic snack bar here.

You can basically find a small restaurant on every corner in Istanbul that has masses of rice with chickpeas on display. This is served plain or usually with boiled chicken. The typical street vendors, who drive through the streets with a cart or simply stand in the alleyways in summer, also often have tavuklu pilav on offer.

So it really isn't just any dish on the menu. No, just like kebabs and cigköfte, there are simply snack bars and restaurants that only serve the turkish chicken pilaf and perhaps a lentil soup. 

What does tavuklu pilav taste like?

The preparation is the crux of the matter. When tavuklu pilav, Turkish pilaf with chickpeas and chicken, is prepared correctly, it is incredible. Very simple, no big explosions of flavor, but simply delicious. 

To put it simply, it's just rice with chickpeas and chicken. However, one important ingredient that makes tavuklu pilav really good is butter. Lots of butter.

In Turkey, butter has become almost unaffordable, which is why the pilaf snack bars like to specify that their pilaf is really "tereyagli", i.e. with butter.

The rice is also mostly cooked with chicken stock, which gives it even more flavor. Regardless of these two tricks, tavuklu pilav is really just plain rice with chickpeas and chicken. 

How is Tavuklu Pilav served?

You work in a store in Turkey; lunchtime. You go to the chicken rice restaurant next door and get a paper plate with chickpea rice and chicken on it. Now you take the packet of ketchup, which is also in the white plastic bag, and squeeze it on the edge of the plate or use it to garnish all your rice.

With every bite of your rice, you put a small yellow pepperoni which comes in a plastic bag in your mouth. Swallow with ayran.

Too little salt? Thank goodness there is always (!) a sachet of salt to go with your meal in Turkey.

That's what we've learned. We definitely don't eat ketchup with our Tavuklu Pilav recipe and not everyone will - but you can get a sachet of ketchup almost everywhere here (especially at Pizza????).

Spicy pepperoni or pickled vegetables and ayran must be served alongside the tavuklu pilav. You have to understand that it's the combination of all these things. 

A nice trick to refine the tavuklu pilaf is to add (lots of) freshly grounded pepper to the rice. This is not added during cooking, but only when serving. 

Other ideas for serving tavuklu pilav:

• a nice salad (or simply sliced tomatoes, cucumber, greens, etc.)
• Soup so that the whole thing is not so heavy
• Salgam Suyu (a spicy turnips juice)
• Sriracha
• Yoghurt or tzatziki/cacik instead of ayran

The right ingredients for Tavuklu Pilav

Good ingredients are all the more important for a simple recipe such as tavuklu pilav.

In Turkey, round grain rice is usually used. Baldo rice or Tosya rice, for example, is ideal for the tavuklu pilaf recipe. But honestly, you can also use regular short grain or risotto rice.

You can do the same with long grain rice. The only thing we wouldn't necessarily recommend is basmati. Or rather: You can also use basmati, but then it will definitely taste different to Turkish tavuklu pilaf. 

When it comes to chickpeas, you can use canned chickpeas as well as soaked and pre-cooked chickpeas. We used some from the tin.  However, we usually always have soaked chickpeas in the freezer so that we can spontaneously cook 'nohut yemegi' or throw a few chickpeas into the soup, for example.

We've mentioned it many times before, but the butter really does make all the difference to the taste. Use the best you can get and don't skimp on it. This time we used real sour cream butter from a farmer's store. It's a little salty and makes every meal a poem. In general, we think that there should always be "real" butter in the fridge for cooking.

Finally, please don't be afraid of the long preparation below; the Tavuklu Pilav recipe is really really easy! Boil the chicken, fry the rice, cook the rice, mix - done.

For some extra flavor, you can cook the chicken with spices and vegetables. We used 1 bay leaf and a whole onion (peeled and cut in half). 

Vegetarian idea for the Tavuklu Pilav recipe

Basically, tavuklu pilav (in this case, you might prefer nohutlu pilav) is also a delicious dish that you can easily make vegetarian. This makes it even easier to prepare. You simply leave out the chicken and chicken stock. Instead, just cook the rice with chickpeas and use vegetable stock if you like. Incidentally, we wouldn't necessarily recommend the nohutlu pilav for vegans - the taste is very much based on really good butter. 

Tavuklu Pilav: Turkish chicken pilaf with chickpeas