No. 2978

Rice, Oriental Style

Riz a l'Orientale

Wash well and drain one pound of rice, place it in a saucepan with three quarts of boiling water, cover and push it into the oven; when the rice is dry and sufficiently done pour it on a sieve. Put three-quarters of a pound of clarified butter cooked to hazel-nut (No. 567) in a saucepan, add to it the drained rice and cover with a wet cloth; place the lid on the saucepan to close it hermetically, then set it in a moderate oven for fifteen minutes. Serve the rice in a vegetable dish.

← No. 2977 Rice a la Manhattan-Lean Macaroni, Rice & Farinaceous No. 2979 Risot a la Francatelli →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's oriental rice is a two-stage pilaf: the grain is cooked through in abundant water in the oven, drained, then steamed a second time in browned butter under a damp cloth. The second stage is where the texture is made.

The hinge: the wet clothThe damp cloth stretched over the pan under the lid catches condensation so it never drips back onto the grain. Wring it out well, keep it clear of the sides of the pot, and do not lift the lid during the fifteen minutes.
Butter to hazel-nutHis No. 567 is clarified butter cooked until the milk solids left in it turn nut-brown, what a French kitchen calls beurre noisette. Since clarified butter has almost no solids left, work over moderate heat and judge by colour and smell; it goes from brown to burnt in seconds.
Scale the butter downThree-quarters of a pound is a cup and a half of butter to a pound of rice, banquet proportions for a restaurant sauce-rich table. Four to six tablespoons gives the same gloss and flavour without a pool of fat in the dish.
QuantitiesA pound of rice is about 2 1/3 cups uncooked; three quarts of boiling water is deliberately excessive, since the grain is drained rather than absorbing the water. Use a long-grain rice, not a short or medium grain, or the finished dish will clump.
Oven temperature"moderate oven" in period usage corresponds to roughly 325-350F. In the first stage the covered pan will likely want somewhere around 18 to 25 minutes; "dry and sufficiently done" means the grain is tender and the surface water gone, and it will still finish in the second stage.
Washing matters hereRinsing until the water runs clear removes loose surface starch, which is what keeps the grains separate through two cookings. Drain thoroughly before it meets the hot butter.
YieldA pound of rice serves eight to ten as a side dish. Serve straight from the pan into a warmed vegetable dish and fork it lightly rather than stirring.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's, published The Epicurean in 1894, and its long rice section shows how a New York luxury kitchen filed the world's grain dishes: a Manhattan rice, this riz a l'Orientale, and the risots that follow it. The "oriental" label in nineteenth-century French cookery covered a broad sweep from the Ottoman lands eastward and generally signalled the pilaf method "boiled or oven-cooked separate grains finished in a good deal of butter" as against the creamy, stirred, stock-fed Italian style he sets out immediately after. The double cooking under a cloth is a genuine feature of Turkish and Persian pilau technique, where a folded towel beneath the lid is used to keep the steam off the rice; whether Ranhofer took it from that tradition directly or through the French repertoire of Careme and Gouffe is not documented.