Skip to main content
Main

A Real Indian Pilau

A layered rice dish with meat, raisins, almonds, spices, and curds baked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

A Real Indian Pilau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the rice until it is half done.

  2. Fry the onion in the butter until brown.

  3. Remove the onion from the butter.

  4. Add the raisins to the butter and fry or boil them.

  5. Cut a fowl into pieces.

  6. Rub the fowl pieces with ginger and curds.

  7. Allow the fowl to remain for two hours.

Layer and bake

  1. Put some butter in the bottom of a casserole.

  2. Layer a portion of rice over the butter.

  3. Layer onion, raisins, and almonds over the rice.

  4. Sprinkle saffron and water over the layer.

  5. Add a layer of meat over the mixture.

  6. Repeat alternating layers of rice, onion mixture, and meat until the casserole is filled.

  7. Pour the remaining butter over the top.

  8. Cover the casserole and seal it with paste so that no steam escapes.

  9. Put the casserole in the oven and cook for three hours.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

153Calories
2 gProtein
12 gFat
10 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Almond + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice (in the method)
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the butter and saffron liquid as it bakes.
Fowl
Provides the meat layers, which become tender during the long, sealed cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the rice stay separate.
Onion
Browned in butter first, adding sweet, deep savoury flavour to the layers.
Curds (in the method)
Its acidity tenderises the fowl pieces when they are rubbed and left to rest.
Almonds
Add crunch and a mild nutty sweetness to the layers.

The step that matters

Seal the casserole. The paste seal traps steam so the rice and fowl cook gently in their own moisture for three hours. A leak lets steam escape, drying the rice and leaving the meat tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, butter):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Almond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesAlmond SaladAlmond Salad6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes