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Turkish Pilaf
One cup of stewed and strained tomatoes, one large cup of stock seasoned well with pepper, salt and minced onion; one-half cup of well-washed rice, one-half cup of butter, two cups of cooked meat (chicken, lamb or veal) cut in dice. Boil the rice in the stock and tomatoes till tender, add the butter and meat, stirring them in lightly with a fork to prevent breaking the rice, and steam twenty minutes in a double boiler.
— Miss Kate E. Lusk
A late nineteenth-century American reading of pilaf: rice cooked in tomato and stock, then enriched with butter and leftover meat. The method is sound, but the proportions and the butter want attention.
- Liquid to riceHalf a cup of rice to one cup tomato plus one large cup stock is roughly four parts liquid to one part rice — generous. Long-grain white rice absorbs about two parts liquid; expect to simmer uncovered until the excess cooks off, or reduce the stock to about three-quarters of a cup if you want distinct grains.
- "One large cup"Nineteenth-century cup measures were not standardised, ranging from a small teacup to a half-pint or more, and "large" here signals the generous end. Treat it as a full 8 oz cup plus a splash, and adjust by eye.
- Half a cup of butterThat is a full stick (4 oz) for a dish serving four. It is not an error — richness was the point — but two to three tablespoons gives a comparable gloss without the pool of fat.
- Wash the rice, and mean it"Well-washed" is the hinge. Rinsing until the water runs clear strips surface starch and is what keeps the grains separate rather than gluey once the tomato acid and butter go in.
- The double boilerThe final twenty minutes over water is gentle steaming — it finishes the rice without scorching the tomato sugars. A heavy pan on the lowest burner setting with a tight lid does the same, or fifteen minutes off the heat, covered, if the rice is already tender.
- Cooked meatThe dish assumes yesterday's roast. Diced cooked chicken, lamb or veal only needs heating through; adding raw meat here will not cook it properly in twenty minutes of steam.
- Folding with a forkNot fussiness. Stirring hot rice with a spoon crushes the grains and releases starch; a fork lifts and separates.
- YieldServes four as a main course, six as a side. The original gives no indication.
Pilaf reached American community cookbooks by way of a long chain of borrowings — the Persian polow, the Turkish pilav, and the Anglo-Indian "pilau" that British writers had been printing since the eighteenth century. "Turkish" on an American recipe title of this period often signalled the vaguely Levantine and fashionable rather than anything traceable to Ottoman kitchens; tomato, butter and diced leftover roast suggest an American cook adapting an idea rather than reproducing a dish. The technique it shares with Turkish practice is rice cooked in seasoned liquid and then rested under gentle heat so the grains stay separate. It is a contributed recipe from a named local woman, offering a respectable way to use up the remains of a chicken or a leg of lamb under a name with some travel in it.