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Pilau, Rice for A
The most important part of a Pilau is the rice. It is prepared as follows. Wash and pick half a pound of rice, throw it into a saucepan of boiling water, and let it boil rapidly for five minutes. Drain it, put it into a stewpan with two ounces of fresh butter, and stir it over a quick fire until it is lightly coloured; add cayenne pepper, a table-spoonful of saffron-water, and three-quarters of a pint of stock, and simmer gently until the grains are quite tender without being broken. Stir in a table-spoonful of curry-powder, pile the rice high on a dish, and send it to table with the meat placed upon it. Or wash and pick half a pound of rice, and dry it thoroughly in a soft cloth. Drop it very gradually into a pint and a half of boiling water, and let it boil gently until the rice is quite tender without being broken, and the water is absorbed. When this point is reached, throw in two ounces of butter broken into small pieces, with a little salt and cayenne. Stir the whole briskly for a minute or two, and serve hot with stewed meat cut into neat pieces placed upon the rice. Time to boil the rice, about three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, rice, 3d. per pound. Patna rice is the best for this purpose. Sufficient for three or four persons.
Two methods for the same thing: a pilau rice, either fried then simmered in stock, or boiled by absorption and finished with butter. The measurements are imperial and the timings belong to a much older, coarser rice.
- The hinge: rice unbrokenBoth methods insist the grains be tender "without being broken". Stir the simmering rice as little as possible, and once the liquid is in, cover and leave it alone; agitation is what turns pilau into porridge.
- Weights and volumesHalf a pound of rice is about 1 1/8 US cups. An imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so three-quarters of a pint is roughly 1 3/4 US cups, and a pint and a half is roughly 3 1/2 US cups. Two ounces of butter is half a stick.
- The second method's water is generousRoughly three cups of water to one of rice, on a long, slow boil during which much of it evaporates. Modern long-grain rice absorbs about 1 1/2 to 2 cups per cup of rice; in a lidded pan the original quantity will leave you draining.
- TimingThree-quarters of an hour is a very long boil by modern standards, and may reflect the rice then available. Today's long-grain white rice is tender in 15 to 18 minutes, basmati in about 12. Check at 12 minutes and judge by the grain, not the clock.
- Patna ricePatna was the standard long-grain import into Britain, named for the district in Bihar. Any good long-grain rice stands in; basmati is closest in shape and in the way it stays separate.
- Saffron-waterA tablespoon of infusion, not of threads. Steep a good pinch of saffron in two or three tablespoons of hot water or stock for ten minutes and use the liquid. Turmeric is not a substitute for the flavour, only for the colour.
- "A quick fire"Medium-high heat. The butter-frying stage should colour the grains lightly and smell nutty in three or four minutes; take it further and the butter will brown past pleasant.
- Curry powder at the endStirring raw curry powder into finished rice leaves a dusty edge. Bloom it in the butter with the rice at the frying stage instead, or warm it separately in a little butter before folding through.
- YieldThree to four as the book says, as a base under stewed meat; two as a main dish on its own.
Pilau is generally traced to Persian, the technique of cooking rice in seasoned broth that spread across the Ottoman lands, Central Asia and Mughal India, and reached British kitchens largely through the East India Company and the returning Anglo-Indian household. The rice is the discipline being taught: the compiler is quite explicit that the rice, not the mutton or fowl piled on it, is what makes or breaks the dish. Two methods are given, the fried-and-simmered version closer to its Indian and Persian sources and the plain absorption method a domesticated compromise. The note that Patna rice is best, and that rice costs threepence a pound, is a reminder that long-grain Indian rice was a cheap, unremarkable staple in British shops.