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Pilaff De Volaille a LA Turque- -turkish Chicken Pilau

A Turkish-style chicken pilaf with rice, tomatoes, herbs, saffron, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and saffron work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pilaff De Volaille a LA Turque- -turkish Chicken Pilau

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes.

  3. Moisten with the broth and add the tomatoes, onion, and herbs.

  4. Season with salt, cover, and cook in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

  5. Add saffron, remove the onion and herbs, and stir in the butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Toss the shredded chicken with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Layer rice and chicken in a buttered mold, pressing gently.

  3. Bake in the oven for 5 to 6 minutes, then unmold onto a dish and serve with tomato sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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. Rice + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Tomato + saffrontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Clove + saffrontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the pilaf and absorbs the broth as it cooks, setting the grain texture.
Chicken or veal broth
Supplies the liquid that the rice absorbs, cooking it and adding savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that coats the grains and carries flavour.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that give the rice a fresh, tangy background flavour.
Saffron
Gives the rice its golden colour and a distinctive aroma.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and savoury flavour in the layered dish.

The step that matters

Pressing the layers in the mold. Gentle pressing packs the rice and chicken so the dish holds its shape when unmolded. Pressing too hard can crush the grains and make the pilaf dense and gummy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, rice, chicken, tomato, onion, saffron, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, chicken, tomato, onion, saffron, pepper. 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.

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