Pilaf ( or pilau ) is a rice dish, or in some regions, a wheat dish, whose recipe usually involves cooking in stock or broth, adding spices, and other ingredients such as vegetables and meat, and employing some technique for achieving cooked grains that do not adhere.
During the Abbasid Caliphate, such methods of cooking rice first spread across a vast territory from South Asia to Spain, and eventually to a wider world. The Spanish paella, and the South Asian pilau or pulao, and biryani, evolved from such dishes.
Pilaf and similar dishes are common to Middle Eastern, West Asian, Balkan, Caribbean, South Caucasian, Central Asian, East African, Eastern European, Latin American, Maritime Southeast Asia, and South Asian cuisines; in these areas, they are regarded as staple dishes.Gil Marks. Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. Marshall Cavendish. World and Its Peoples. Marshall Cavendish, 2006, p. 662. Bruce Kraig, Colleen Taylor Sen. Street Food Around the World: An Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. ABC-CLIO, 2013, p. 384. .Russell Zanca. Life in a Muslim Uzbek Village: Cotton Farming After Communism CSCA. Cengage Learning, 2010, p. 92 92–96. .
Etymology According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online Edition's summary, the English word pilaf, which the OED refers to the version with spelling "pilau," is a borrowing from Persian by way of Turkish. In more detail, the English pilau, of first use 1609 CE, has come from Persian pulaw (16th cent. as palāv), in turn from Hindi pulāv dish of rice and meat, from Sanskrit pulāka (ball of rice), probably from Dravidian (cf Tamil puḷukku (adjective) simmered, (noun) boiled or parboiled food, puḷukkal cooked rice); probably partly via French pilau (1654; 1680 as pilaw; 1833 as pilaf), Italian pilao (1542).
History
It was at the time of the Abbasid Caliphate that methods of cooking rice which approximate modern styles of cooking pilaf at first spread through a vast territory from Spain to Afghanistan, and eventually to a wider world. The Spanish paella, and the South Asian pilau or pulao, and biryani, evolved from such dishes.
According to food historian Charles Perry, pilaf is a post-10th-century eastern Arabic innovation. Kitab al-Wusla, an early 13th–century cookbook authored by Ibn al-Adim of Aleppo, provides the first recipe for a dish resembling modern pilaf, utilizing a base of rice, meat, chickpeas, and garlic.
The food historian K. T. Achaya suggested that the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata mentions an instance of rice and meat cooked together. Also, according to Achaya, the terms "pulao" and "pallao" are used to refer to a rice dish in ancient Sanskrit works such as the Yājñavalkya Smṛti. However, according to food writers Colleen Taylor Sen and Charles Perry, and social theorist Ashis Nandy, these references do not substantially correlate to the commonly used meaning and history implied in pilafs, which appear in Indian accounts after the medieval Central Asian conquests. Quote: "(pp. 164–165) "Descriptions of the basic technique appear in thirteenth-century Arab cookbooks, although the name pulao is not used. The word itself is medieval Farsi, and the dish may have been created in the early sixteenth century at the Safavid court in Persia. ... Although dishes combining rice, meat and spices were prepared in ancient times, the technique of first sautéing the rice in ghee and then cooking it slowly to keep the grains separate probably came later with the Mughals." Quote: "The other flaw is more serious. Achaya has clearly read a lot about Indian food, but it was in what historians call secondary sources. In other words, he's mostly reporting what other people have concluded from the primary evidence. Rarely, if ever, does he go to the original data to verify their conclusions. This is a dangerous practice, particularly in India, because certain Indian scholars like to claim that everything in the world originated in India a long time ago. ... Achaya even invents one or two myths of his own. He says there is evidence that south Indians were making pilaf 2,000 years ago, but if you look up the book he footnotes, you find that the Old Tamil word pulavu had nothing to do with pilaf. It meant raw meat or fish." Quote: " (p. 11) Not merely ingredients came to the subcontinent, but also recipes. ... All around India one finds preparations that came originally from outside South Asia. Kebabs came from West and Central Asia and underwent radical metamorphosis in the hot and dusty plains of India. So did biryani and pulao, two rice preparations, usually with meat. Without them, ceremonial dining in many parts of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is incomplete. Even the term pulao or pilav seems to have come from Arabic and Persian. It is true that in Sanskrit — in the Yajnavalkya Smriti — and in old Tamil, the term pulao occurs (Achaya, 1998b: 11), but it is also true that biryani and pulao today carry mainly the stamp of the Mughal times and its Persianized high culture. Food historian Charles Perry characterized K. T. Achaya's claim as a myth and stated that the term used by Achaya for pilaf refers to "raw meat or fish". He further stated that Achaya mostly reported conclusions drawn by other people from primary evidence without verification. According to Charles Perry, there is no sign of pulao in ancient India, and the Sanskrit word that became pulao in later Indian languages originally meant "shriveled, blighted, empty, or bad grain"—which points to some other dish rather than pilaf.
Similarly Alexander the Great and his army, many centuries earlier, in the 4th century BCE, have been reported to have been so impressed with the Eastern Iranic Bactrian and Sogdian palāvs that his soldiers brought the recipes back to Macedon when they returned. Similar stories exist of Alexander bringing pilaf to the ancient Sogdian Samarkand; however, they are considered apocryphal by archaeologist John Boardman. Similarly, it has been reported that pilaf was consumed in the Byzantine Empire and in the Republic of Venice.
Thirteenth-century texts describing the consistency of pilaf state that the grains should be plump and somewhat firm to resemble peppercorns with no mushiness, and each grain should be separate with no clumping.
According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, the earliest attestation of pilaf (in any of its various spellings) is found in the 14th-century Persian satirical poem Mūš-o gorba by Ubayd Zakani. The earliest known recipe for a rice dish to be explicitly called "pilaf" (in any of its various spellings) appears in the cookbook Kārnāma dar bāb-e tabbākhī-o san'at-e ān (A Manual of Cookery and Its Art), written in 1521 by Muhammad-Ali Bāvarchī-i Baghdādī, a cook associated with the court of Ismail I.
Another primary source for pilaf dishes comes from the 17th-century Iranian philosopher Molla Sadra.
Preparation Some cooks prefer to use basmati rice because it is easier to prepare a pilaf where the grains stay "light, fluffy and separate" with this type of rice. However, other types of long-grain rice are also used. The rice is rinsed thoroughly before use to remove the surface starch. Pilaf can be cooked in water or stock. Common additions include fried onions and fragrant spices like cardamom, bay leaves and cinnamon.
Pilaf is usually made with meat or vegetables, but it can also be made plain which is called sade pilav in Turkish, chelo in Persian and ruzz mufalfal in Arabic. Persian pilaf uses saffron which gives Persian rice flavor and a yellow color. Pilaf is often made by adding the rice to hot fat and stirring briefly before adding the cooking liquid. The fat used varies from recipe to recipe. Cooking methods vary with respect to details such as pre-soaking the rice and steaming after boiling.
Local varieties There are thousands of variations of pilaf made with rice or other grains like bulgur.Some include different combinations of meats, fruits or vegetables, while others are simple and served plain.
Central Asian, South Asian, Iranian and Caribbean cuisine are some with distinctive styles of making pilaf.
Afghanistan
In Afghan cuisine, Kabuli palaw () is made by cooking basmati with mutton, lamb, beef or chicken, and oil. Kabuli palaw is cooked in large shallow and thick dishes. Fried sliced carrots and raisins are added. Chopped nuts like pistachios, walnuts, or almonds may be added as well. The meat is covered by the rice or buried in the middle of the dish. Kabuli palaw rice with carrots and raisins is very popular in Saudi Arabia, where it is known as roz Bukhari (), meaning 'Bukharan rice'.
Albania
In Albanian cuisine, pilaf is a very common dish. It is typically accompanied by yogurt and eaten with bean stew, meat soup or baked meats such as chicken and lamb. Medium-long grain rice is used, and it is cooked plainly with butter, resulting in a soft yet non-sticky texture.
There are various rice dishes in Albania, which are all commonly referred to as pilaf.
Albania ranks among the top three countries in Europe for rice consumption.
Armenia
Armenians use a lot of bulgur ("cracked wheat") in their pilaf dishes. Armenian recipes may combine vermicelli or orzo with rice cooked in stock seasoned with mint, parsley and allspice. One traditional Armenian pilaf is made with the same noodle rice mixture cooked in stock with raisins, almonds and allspice.
Armenian kinds of rice are discussed by Rose Baboian in her cookbook from 1964 which includes recipes for different pilafs, most rooted in her birthplace of Antep in Turkey. Baboian recommends that the noodles be stir-fried first in chicken fat before being added to the pilaf. Another Armenian cookbook written by Vağinag Pürad recommends to render poultry fat in the oven with red pepper until the fat mixture turns a red color before using the strained fat to prepare pilaf.
Lapa is an Armenian word with several meanings one of which is a "watery boiled rice, thick rice soup, mush" and lepe which refers to various rice dishes differing by region. Antranig Azhderian describes Armenian pilaf as a "dish resembling porridge".
Azerbaijan Azerbaijani cuisine includes more than 40 different plov recipes.[/ Азербайджанская кухня] , (Azerbaijani Cuisine, Ishyg Publ. House, Baku ) Traditional Azerbaijani plov consists of three distinct components, served simultaneously on separate platters: rice (warm, never hot), meat, and herbs.Interview with Jabar Mamedov , Head Chef at the "Shirvan Shah" Azerbaijani restaurant in Kyiv, 31 January 2005.
Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, polao (), is a popular ceremonial dish cooked only with aromatic rice. Bangladesh cultivates many varieties of aromatic rice, which can be found only in this country and some surrounding Indian states with predominantly Bengali populations. Historically, there were many varieties of aromatic rice. These included short-grain rice with buttery and other fragrances depending on the variety. Over a long span of time, many recipes were lost and then reinvented.
Since the 1970s in Bangladesh pulao has referred to aromatic rice () Bashonti polao, first fried either in oil or clarified butter with onions, fresh ginger and whole aromatic spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, and more, depending on each household and region. This is then cooked in stock or water, first boiled and then steamed. It is finished off with a bit more clarified butter and fragrant essences such as rose water or kewra water. For presentation, beresta (fried onions) are sprinkled on top. Chicken pulao, (morog pulao) is a traditional ceremonial dish among the Bangladeshi Muslim community. There are several different types of morog pulao found only in particular regions or communities.