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Pilaff
2 LARGE ONIONS 1/2 CUPS RICE 3 QUARTS WATER OR SOUP STOCK SALT AND PEPPER Dice and fry bacon in a large pan until crisp. Remove the bacon and fry the onions until golden. Remove the onions, and without washing the rice, fry it until it is thoroughly brown. (This will take two or three minutes.) Add the meat and cook five minutes more, stirring carefully. Add onions and water or soup stock, and salt and pepper. Cover tightly. Cook rapidly until the rice is thoroughly done (about half an hour). Add bacon and set aside to "ripen" for an hour or two. Reheat and serve. This can be eaten as soon as it is cooked, but tastes much better if it stands a while.
A camp pilaf built on the trick of browning dry rice in fat before any liquid goes in — the step that keeps the grains separate. The quantities as printed need judgement before you start.
- The liquid is far too muchThree quarts of stock to a cup or two of rice will give you soup. For a pilaf, use two cups of liquid to each cup of long-grain rice, adding a little more only if the grains are still firm when the pan goes dry.
- Bacon and meat quantities are missingThe method calls for diced bacon and for "the meat," neither of which appears in the ingredient list. Reckon on about 4 oz bacon and 8-12 oz of diced cooked or quick-frying meat — lamb, mutton or beef — per two cups of raw rice.
- Do not wash the riceThis is deliberate and worth obeying. Rinsed rice carries surface water, and wet grains steam rather than toast in the bacon fat, so they will not take colour.
- "Fry it until thoroughly brown"Two or three minutes over a hot fire gives a pale golden, nutty colour, not chocolate brown. Stir constantly — scorched grains carry a bitter taste right through the pot.
- Cook covered, then leave it aloneOnce the liquid is in and the lid on, resist stirring. Rapid boil for the first few minutes, then the lowest heat that keeps it steaming; 18-20 minutes suits modern long-grain rice rather than the half hour given here.
- The "ripening" stepStanding does improve the texture as the grains finish absorbing liquid, but cooked rice left at room temperature for an hour or two can support Bacillus cereus, whose toxin reheating will not undo. Rest it 15-20 minutes off the heat, or refrigerate it promptly if you want the longer wait.
- YieldWith two cups of raw rice and the meat suggested above, this feeds four to six as a one-pot supper.
Pilaff, pilau, pilav, plov — the word comes into English from Persian pilāw by way of Turkish and Indian cookery, and by the nineteenth century it was used for almost any dish of rice cooked in seasoned broth with meat. What marks the genuine article is the order of operations: fat first, then dry rice toasted in it, then liquid, then no interference. The technique suits outdoor and campaign cooking, since it needs one pot, tolerates whatever meat is to hand, and improves on standing. The "Girlish Grub" heading suggests an early twentieth-century girls' camp or hiking context, where dishes had to be built over a fire from staples carried in a pack.