Cooking Rice | Pilaf Method

I dearly love cooking rice this way.

How does fried rice (which is steamed and then fried with additional ingredients) fit into this category? Or will it be a separate topic?

Hi Paul. This will probably be covered in another lesson down the line. But the key with fried rice is to use leftover rice which has been refrigerated - it must be fried cold. Also, don't over crowd, let the clumped rice fry up, come in contact with the base of the pan (non-stick works real well here, otherwise you'll need very high heat and woks on home burners cool down too quickly) before breaking it up. As the rice heats, it will break up.

But, as you can see, there are a few keys to watch for, and you probably have questions. Give it a shot. But be patient, we'll tackle it properly one day in a 3 minute or less video. Hope this helps for now.

Thanks, Tony -

I have cooked fried rice often; I was just wondering if fried rice fell under the pilaf heading. I look forward to seeing an additional lesson dealing with the fried rice.

I really liked the videos.

Pulao (poo-lao) was a staple Sunday afternoon meal. My father would make a pulao, and we'd eat it with fish curry, or chicken curry. And there was always a fresh salad of cucumber, onion, tomatoes and a bit of salt.

Here's a recipe I use often.
6 handfuls of rice
Wash and then soak for 15 minutes
3 pods garlic - chopped fine.
1 big onion
1 tablespoon stock powder
1/4 can of tomatoes (about 2 tomatoes)
Garam Masala powder (about one tablespoon)
3 green chillies
2 Bay Leaves
2 Sticks Cinnamon
5 Cloves
10 Peppercorns
Salt to taste
Ghee

Fry Garam Masala in ghee
Fry onions in garam masala/ fry garlic
Fry chillies
Fry rice in mixture of garam masala
Put stock
Cover it.

I frequently make one dish meals with whatever is leftover in the fridge - paella style with no lid until all the water has steamed off. Is this considered a pilaf?

Indeed they have some similarities. They both involve rice, stock and other various ingredients: however, technically speaking, they are made quite differently. The type of rice used is different as is the cooking method.

Here is an interesting blog post from a blog called Eurasian Sensation. It's about different rice dishes from around the world. Pretty interesting.

Cheers!

I have tried using brown rice in pilafs without success. The rice grains toast nicely but the pilaf is always sticky. Is it necessary to use converted or long grain white rice to make a fluffy pilaf? Thank you for your help!

Short-grain or starchy rice will give a pilaf a sticker texture; long-grain rice (even long-grain brown rice) will be better for a fluffier texture. Pilafs can be made with rice or a variety of different grains. You are not confined to just white rice. Cheers!

I find it amazing how well all the lessons at Rouxbe blend together! Just like a fine meal! :-)

Having learned how to make a delicious stock, and then use that stock in so many delicious ways has been amazing, and my wife can't believe the meals that I am putting together with less than a week of instruction! I used my home made chicken stock to make French Onion soup, and the next day, used the remaining stock to make rice pilaf (unbelievably good!). I wanted to make a sauce for the pan fried pork chops I made for lunch and since I didn't have any stock left, I simply added some of the juice from the leftover French Onion soup to the sucs. I thickened the sauce with a dab of brown roux that I had made from an earlier lesson. I then heated a few of the onions from the soup and added them as a garnish. Lunch looked and tasted fantastic!

The Rice Pilaf was the inspiration behind it all. I made it for practice early in the morning, and because it was so good, I built the rest of our lunch around it. Pork, homemade applesauce, julienned carrots and cucumber slices for colour, all came together beautifully.

My wife thinks she has died and gone to heaven. I subscribed to Rouxbe as an anniversary present to myself, but realize now that my wife will truly be the beneficiary! The skills you teach will last a lifetime.

I have just been blown away by the amount of information I have already gathered during my the past month of my membership. One question, I have been trying to prepare the rice pilaf practice, however it didn't turn out well at all. I use Brown Basmati Rice and was wondering if you could give me advice to what I should do differently. The rice turned out uncooked and dried out. I added more water and increased the cooking time and ended up with a sad mixture of uncooked and overcooked rice.

Hard to say exactly what might have gone wrong for you. Did you follow the recommended amount of liquid on the package? Was the rice old? Perhaps you might just want to review the lessons on rice one more time and then try it again using a highly ratio of liquid to rice on the first try. Let us know how it goes. Cheers!

The video did not specify which type of rice was used for the pilaf. It looked like basmati. Doe anyone know?

The "pilaf mehthod" is a cooking method that can be used to cook almost any rice or grain. For more information, be sure to watch the other lessons on rice and grains. Cheers!

I want to make a brown rice pineapple pilaf. Since I will need to cook the brown rice longer than long-grain white, when should I add the pineapple? I want to be sure the rice is infused with the pineapple flavor. I was thinking the best time for flavor would be with the liquid. Could I use crushed pineapple along with the stock?

To infuse the pineapple flavor into the rice, I would add some pineapple juice to the liquid / stock used. Then I would finely dice up the pineapple and add it at the very end (after cooked and about to rest). Assuming you are using a fresh pineapple (hope so), there should be quite a bit of juice that will come from the pineapple during cutting (save this). You can also buy a small can or two of pineapple juice to add to the liquid used.

Lastly, I wouldn't go over 1/2 the liquid volume in pineapple juice. You just want a subtle pineapple flavor in the rice with more flavor coming from the final bite of the rice and diced pineapple.

Hope this helps. Joe.

I learned to make brown rice pilaf from an Indian cook. There is a high incidence of cholesterol and heart issues in the subcontinent, so many traditional cooks are modifying their cooking techniques to accommodate dietary issues.

The only way that I know to make a satisfying brown rice pilaf (like a biryani) is to cook the rice on the stovetop in the pilaf method, add the liquid and steam on the stovetop till the rice is al dente (tooth hard), or cooked about 1/2 way through. Then transfer to a heavy casserole for oven cooking. I was taught to use brown wax paper (unbleached/no petroleum wax) over the top of the rice, then a second skin of aluminum foil over the lid of the pan, followed by the casserole lid. (When I made the chicken pilaf recipe on this website, I used this method and let the rice remain in the oven for 35 minutes to thoroughly steam open. It worked great. It's just a bit labor intensive.

My understanding is that the brown rice is really thirsty, and providing extra layers of paper and foil helps seal in the steam, so that the grains open completely without interrupting the steaming process (and further increasing cooking time) just to top off evaporated liquid that somehow escaped from the top of the casserole lid.

I am certainly open to other ways of doing this. However, before I used the double wrap method, I could not seem to get a good brown rice consistency in the oven either.

Most of the Indian cookbooks that I've used suggest cooking any hard seed spices, cinnamon sticks or dried leaves in the oil briefly before adding onions and the dried rice. I always thought that this was to infuse the oil with the whole spices before coating the rice, to increase flavor in the finished pilaf.

Your cooking video shows all spices for the pilaf added together after the onions are cooked. Is it a myth that whole spices need extra coaxing in the form of longer cooking time to release their flavors?

You can try cooking on the stovetop but steaming in the oven after the stovetop can be advantageous for whole grains/rice because they tend to cook more evenly. A good seal is also required to keep in the moisture so the grain can absorb the liquid and it doesn't just evaporate.

In regards to cooking the spices in the oil, there are many ways to do this. You can definitely cook the spices in the oil either before or after the onions (and before adding the rice) to coax out more of their flavors. Just keep in mind the temperature at which you are cooking and don't risk burning either the spices or aromatics. Cheers!

Very helpful.