Pilâo rice. The Pilâo or, as it is commonly written perhaps, Pulllow, is, of course, an essentially Oriental composition, the object being to stew meat or fowl down to such a condition that it can be pulled to pieces or disjointed and pickled by the fingers, while the broth produced by the stewing, absorbed to a great extent by rice cooked in it, is served with it. Rice, therefore, that is slowly simmered in the strong juices of fowl or meat, may be termed pilâo rice.
In preparing rice in this way the custom is first to blanch it for five minutes in boiling water, to drain it, and then put it into a stew-pan with butter, pepper, and salt, turning it about with a wooden spoon over a low fire while the fowl or meat broth is added very gradually, so that it may be absorbed by the rice as much as possible.
After it is cooked the rice may be spiced with grated nutmeg, cinnamon or cloves, tinted with turmeric, not saffron, and garnished with pieces of onion crisply fried like potato chips a light brown colour, and chopped hard-boiled eggs.
Thus dressed, and steaming hot, the rice is emptied over and around the bird or meat, which has been kept hot in a covered vessel during its concoction.
Raisins, almonds, pistachio nuts, green ginger, and whole spices are generally added by Eastern cooks, with strips of chilli skin.
Cheese, of course, would be wholly out of place in connection with pilâo rice.
Saffron, not turmeric, is used in the Turkish pilâv, a dish which in other respects is made like pilâo.
The French poularde, or poulet au riz, is nothing more than a boiled fowl served with rice prepared exactly as just described, without any garnish, spice, or other adunct. The eau de la cuisson produced by the boiling, is taken in part for the rice, the remainder turned to a nice white sauce, enriched with the yolks of a couple of eggs as for Allemande sauce, is used to mask the fowl, while the rice is arranged round it.
Following this dish in principle, it is obvious that no little variety might be obtained by preparing the rice with cheese, tomato, or other flavouring, according to the recipes that have been given.
Poulet au riz tomaté, for instance, is a capital variation. This can be made with a freshly boiled fowl, or with cold fowl (or turkey) in this way:—Remove all the meat from a cold bid. Make as good a broth as you can from the bones. Prepare rice as described for Riz à l'Italienne; while it is in the hot pan stir in the pieces of fowl, and when well mixed pile the whole upon a hot dish, moistened with a nice white sauce made from the bones broth. Let grated cheese be handed round, and the remaining sauce in a boat.