Skip to main content
Main

Fowl, Pilau, Indian

A pilau made with fowl, rice, butter, onions, spices, and optional almonds and sultanas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fowl, Pilau, Indian

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Boil the fowl in veal broth and reserve the broth.

Cook the rice

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and fry the sliced onions, cloves, cinnamon, and peppercorns until the onions are golden.

  2. Stir in the rice and cook until it absorbs the butter.

  3. Add the reserved fowl broth until it covers the rice and is an inch above it.

  4. Simmer until nearly done.

  5. Clear a space in the center of the rice and place the fowl in the hollow.

  6. Continue cooking until the rice is very soft and the moisture is dried up.

Serve

  1. Transfer the fowl to a deep dish and cover it with the rice.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the butter and broth, becoming soft and forming the body of the pilaf.
Butter
Coats the rice grains and fries the onions, adding richness and golden browning.
Onions
Caramelize when fried in butter, adding sweetness and savory depth.
Fowl
Provides the main protein, cooked gently in broth so it stays moist.

The step that matters

Continue cooking until the rice is very soft and the moisture is dried up. Rice needs enough liquid and gentle simmering to swell and soften fully. Stopping early leaves it firm, while cooking too long without a lid can scorch the bottom.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, rice, onion, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Cashew nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, onion, clove, 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes