“Piláw or piláu is made by boiling rice in plenty of water for about twenty minutes, so that the water drains off easily, leaving the grains whole, and with some degree of hardness; then stirring it up with a little butter, just enough to make the grains separate easily, and seasoning it with salt and pepper. Often a fowl, boiled almost to rags, is laid upon the top. Sometimes small morsels of fried or roasted mutton or lamb are mixed up with it; and there are many other additions; but generally the Turks and Arabs add nothing to the rice but the butter, and salt, and pepper.”
Obs.—We are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Lane for this receipt, which was procured from him for us by one of his friends.
A REAL INDIAN PILAW.
Boil three pounds of bacon in the usual manner; take it out and drop into the same pan a pair of fowls compactly trussed as for boiling. In three quarters of an hour, unless very large, they will be sufficiently cooked; but they should be thoroughly boiled. When they are so, lift them out, and place a hot cover and thick cloth over them. Take three pints and a half of the liquor in which they were boiled, and add to it when it again boils, nearly two pounds of well washed Patna rice, three onions, a quarter of an ounce each of cloves and peppercorns, with half as much of allspice, tied loosely in a bit of muslin. Stew these together very gently for three quarters of an hour. Do not stir them as it breaks the rice. Take out the spice and onions; lay in the fowls if necessary, to heat them quite through, and dish them neatly with the rice heaped smoothly over them. Garnish the pilaw with hot hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters, or with fried forcemeat-balls, or with half rings of onion fried extremely dry. The bacon, heated apart, should be served in a separate dish.
Obs.—This is a highly approved receipt supplied to us by a friend who had long experience of it in India; but we would suggest that to be really cooked so as to render it wholesome in this country, a larger quantity of liquid should be added to it, as one pint (or pound) will absorb three pints of water or broth: and the time allowed for stewing it appears to us insufficient for it to become really tender. A Persian Pilaw is made much in the same manner, sometimes with morsels of fried kid mixed with the rice.
Bacon, 3 lbs., 1-1/2 to 2 hours; fowls, 2.; Rice, nearly 2 lbs. Broth from bacon and fowls, 3-1/2 pints; onions, 3; cloves and peppercorns, 1/4 oz. each; allspice, 1 drachm: 3/4 hour.
INDIAN RECEIPT FOR CURRIED FISH.
Take the fish from the bones, and cut it into inch and half squares; lay it into a stewpan with sufficient hot water to barely cover it; sprinkle some salt over, and boil it gently until it is about half cooked. Lift it out with a fish-slice, pour the liquor into a basin, and clear off any scum which may be on it. Should there be three or four pounds of the fish, dissolve a quarter of a pound of butter in a stewpan, and when it has become a little brown, add two cloves of garlic and a large onion finely minced or sliced very thin; fry them until they are well coloured, then add the fish; strew equally over it, and stir it well up with from two to three tablespoonsful of Bengal currie powder; cover the pan, and shake it often until the fish is nicely browned; next add by degrees the liquor in which it was stewed, and simmer it until it is perfectly done, but not so as to fall into fragments. Add a moderate quantity of lemon-juice or chili vinegar, and serve it very hot.
BENGAL CURRIE POWDER.
No. 1.