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Pilau of Rice

A layered rice dish cooked with spices, meat, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Cardamom and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,299 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pilau of Rice

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and pick the rice, then boil it in plenty of water until half done with the cardamom seeds.

  2. Drain the rice, remove the seeds, and place it in a stewpan with butter, pounded mace, and salt.

Prepare the meat and broth

  1. In a frying pan, cook the meat with cinnamon, cloves, cumin, butter, and cayenne pepper until half done.

  2. Add bay leaves and sliced onions to the veal broth, boil until tender, then strain.

  3. Reduce the broth to half a pint and mix it with the fried meat and peeled button onions.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer some rice in a clean stewpan, followed by the meat mixture, and repeat until all ingredients are used.

  2. Cover the pan and bake in a moderately heated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2.5 hours.

  3. Carefully turn the rice out onto a dish to serve, garnishing with button onions and halved hard-boiled eggs.

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. Cardamom + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Chicken + lambtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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 dish and absorbs the butter and broth as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the spices and helping the rice stay separate.
Chicken
Provides savory meat flavor and protein to the layered dish.
Veal broth
Supplies liquid and savory depth that the rice absorbs during baking.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the broth.
Cardamom seeds
Contribute a warm, aromatic flavor to the rice as it boils.

The step that matters

Reduce the broth to half a pint. Reducing concentrates the broth's flavor so the rice and meat are seasoned well, and controls the liquid so the rice bakes moist rather than soggy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, chicken, pork, cardamom, lamb, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, chicken, pork, cardamom, lamb, cinnamon. 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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