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Rice Pilau
Put a pint of stock into a saucepan, with a sliced onion, six ounces of Patna rice, a table-spoonful of curry-powder mixed with a little stock, two ounces of butter, and salt to taste. Simmer very slowly till the rice is soft, and has taken up all the liquid, then arrange piled up high on a dish. Garnish round with hard-boiled egg cut in halves, and little tufts of Brussels sprouts. Probable cost, 1s.
A pilau built on the absorption method, which is exactly how it should be cooked. The only real risk is stirring it or rushing the heat.
- The ratioSix ounces of rice (about 170 g, roughly a scant cup) to a pint of stock. British pints are 20 fl oz, so that is 2.5 cups liquid to 1 cup rice — generous by modern standards, but Patna rice absorbs well and some evaporates over a slow simmer. Check at 15 minutes and add stock only if the pan goes dry before the grains are tender.
- Patna riceA long-grain rice named for the city in Bihar, once the standard export grade in Britain. Any long-grain white rice works; basmati is the closest in character, though it needs slightly less liquid and a shorter cook.
- The hinge — do not stirOnce the rice is in and simmering, leave it alone. Stirring releases starch and turns a pilau into a porridge. Lid on, lowest possible heat, then rest off the heat for five minutes before piling it up.
- Curry powderVictorian curry powders were typically built on turmeric, coriander and fenugreek, and tended to be milder in chilli heat than many modern blends. Blooming the tablespoonful in the butter with the onion for a minute before the stock goes in will taste less raw than slaking it with a little stock, as written.
- The butterTwo ounces (55 g) into a pint of stock is a lot of fat, and it is what gives the dish its gloss. Cut it to one ounce if the stock is already rich.
- Brussels sproutsCook them separately — boiled or steamed six to eight minutes until just tender, then drained well. They are a garnish, not part of the pan, and any water clinging to them will slacken the rice.
- Yield and costServes about three as a light supper, two as a main. The "probable cost, 1s." is a shilling in Victorian money; Cassell's gave such figures throughout so a housekeeper could cost a dish.
Pilau — pulao, pilaf, pilav — reached British kitchens through the East India Company, and by the time Cassell's dictionaries of cookery were circulating in the Victorian period it was thoroughly domesticated: curry powder in a tin, Patna rice from the grocer, and a garnish of hard-boiled egg that owes as much to the Anglo-Indian breakfast table as to anything cooked in Bihar. The Brussels sprouts are the giveaway that this is a British dish wearing borrowed clothes. What survives intact is the method itself, the absorption cooking that defines a true pilau against a boiled-and-drained rice.