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Rice, Creole
Place in a saucepan one medium, chopped onion and one chopped, seeded green pepper, pour in one tablespoon melted butter and fry six minutes, stirring meanwhile. Add six ounces raw rice and cook on range five minutes, stirring meanwhile. Add three peeled and finely chopped red tomatoes and one pint broth. Season with teaspoon salt, mix well. Cover pan, and as soon as it comes to a boil set in oven thirty-five minutes. Remove, dress rice on a hot dish and serve.
A straightforward pilaf built on the Creole trio of onion, green pepper and tomato. The original omits an oven temperature and assumes a heavy, lidded pan, which is where most of the risk of failure lies.
- The hinge: seal the panAll the liquid the rice gets is the pint of broth plus what the tomatoes release. Use a heavy pan with a tight-fitting lid, or cover with foil under the lid, and do not lift it during the 35 minutes. Steam lost early means chalky grains at the centre.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, 350F, suits the timing; the pan goes in already at a boil, so the oven is only holding it there.
- Weights to volumesSix ounces of raw long-grain rice is about seven-eighths of a cup. One pint of broth is two cups; with the tomatoes counted in as well, that is a generous quantity of liquid, more than two parts to one of rice by volume, which suits the long covered bake.
- "Cook on range five minutes"This is the toasting step, done on the stovetop before the pan goes to the oven. Stir until the grains turn opaque and smell nutty; it firms the exterior of the grain and keeps the finished rice separate.
- TomatoesThree ripe red tomatoes, peeled and chopped, come to roughly a cup and a half. Out of season, use a scant cup of drained canned tomatoes and make up the difference with broth.
- ButterOne tablespoon for six ounces of rice is lean by modern habit. Two will not upset the balance, and gives the vegetables a better base without making the dish greasy.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of salt assumes unsalted broth. With commercial stock, start with a quarter teaspoon and correct at the end. Black pepper and a pinch of cayenne are in keeping.
- Rest and yieldLet the covered pan stand five to ten minutes off the heat before fluffing with a fork; the grains finish absorbing and separate cleanly. Serves three to four as a side, two as a light main.
In Filippini's book, dishes often carry national names, and "Creole" here means New Orleans rather than the Caribbean: onion, green pepper and tomato cooked down in fat, with rice toasted in the same pan. That combination of aromatics is the base shared by jambalaya, red beans and the whole family of Louisiana rice dishes, and this recipe is essentially jambalaya stripped of its meat and shellfish, a plain starch course rather than a one-pot dinner. Rice had been grown commercially in the Carolinas since the colonial period, which is why American cookbooks of this era treat it as a regional staple rather than an import. The technique itself is older and travelled widely: frying the grain in fat before adding liquid is the method behind pilaf, risotto and paella alike, and the oven finish frees a burner and gives even, gentle heat on all sides of the pan.