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Pilau Fowl

Pilau Fowl is a spiced rice dish cooked with a whole fowl, stock, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pilau Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice and spices

  1. Wash the rice well.

  2. Place the rice in a frying pan with the butter.

  3. Cook over low heat until lightly browned.

  4. Pound the spices and seeds in a mortar.

  5. Tie them in muslin.

Cook the fowl

  1. Truss the fowl as for boiling.

  2. Place the fowl in a stewpan with the stock or broth.

  3. Add the muslin bundle to the stewpan with the fowl.

  4. Let the stew boil slowly until nearly done.

  5. Add the rice.

  6. Cook until tender and almost dry.

Prepare the garnish

  1. Slice the onions.

  2. Sprinkle the onions with flour.

  3. Fry the onions until nicely browned without breaking them.

  4. Grill the bacon slices until curled and crispy.

  5. Prepare the hard-boiled eggs.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fowl in a pyramid shape on a dish.

  2. Cover the fowl with rice.

  3. Garnish with bacon, fried onions, and quartered eggs.

  4. Remove the spices before serving.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Cardamom + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the stock and cooks to a tender, nearly dry bed that holds the fowl.
Butter
Fat that browns the rice lightly, adding color and a toasted flavor.
Fowl
Main protein, poached slowly in stock until tender and flavorful.
Stock or good broth
Cooking liquid that gives the fowl and rice their savory base.
Cardamom seeds
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor that perfumes the rice and stock.
Onions
Fried until browned, adding sweetness and savory depth as a garnish.

The step that matters

Fry the onions without breaking them. Flour dusted on the slices helps them hold their shape and brown evenly; stirring too hard or flipping roughly breaks them apart and leaves uneven color.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, cardamom, coriander, clove, allspice, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, cardamom, coriander, clove, allspice, 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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