Pilaf

• 1. Introduction

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  Pilaf, also written pilav, pilau or plov, is judged by one old test: does each grain stand apart from the next? Thirteenth-century texts set the bar plainly. The grains should be plump and slightly firm, like peppercorns, with no mush and no clumping. The dish is usually rice, and sometimes wheat. It is cooked in stock or broth, flavored with spices, and often joined by vegetables or meat. Cooks have devised thousands of versions, using rice or other grains such as bulgur. This documentary asks where pilaf really came from, and why so many tales of its ancient birth fall apart under inspection. It asks how a single cooking idea reached kitchens from Spain to Indonesia. And it asks what the same dish means to a cook in Uzbekistan, a cook in Bangladesh and a cook in Trinidad.

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• 2. Origins and False Starts

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  Researchers including R.N. Spengler argue that pilaf and its close relatives arose within the last thousand years, after the Islamic Agricultural Revolution. The first credible recipe comes from the tenth-century scholar Avicenna, also known as Ibn Sīnā. In his books on medical science he gave a whole section to preparing dishes, including several kinds of pilaf. He weighed the strengths and weaknesses of every ingredient. Many Iranians therefore call him the father of modern pilaf.

  Older claims are shakier. The author K. T. Achaya pointed to the Mahabharata, which mentions rice and meat cooked together. He also noted that words like pulao and pallao appear in ancient Sanskrit works such as the Yājñavalkya Smṛti. Food writers Colleen Taylor Sen and Charles Perry, and the social theorist Ashis Nandy, reject the link. They say those references do not match the dish we call pilaf, which enters Indian accounts only after the medieval Central Asian conquests. According to Vir Sanghvi, Achaya himself later admitted that the ancient dishes were not the same as pulao.

  A second legend reaches back to the 4th century BCE. Alexander the Great's soldiers were said to be so taken with Bactrian and Sogdian palavs that they carried the recipes home to Macedonia. Other versions have Alexander bringing pilaf to Samarkand. The archaeologist John Boardman considers these stories apocryphal. Reports that pilaf was eaten in the Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice are likewise only reports.

  The real spread came with the Abbasid Caliphate. Rice-cooking methods close to modern pilaf traveled across a vast territory from Spain to Afghanistan, and eventually to a wider world. Spanish paella, South Asian pilau or pulao, and biryani all evolved from those dishes. A further early source appears in the 17th century, in the writing of the Iranian philosopher Molla Sadra.

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• 3. A Word's Long Road

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  The English word first appears in 1609, in the spelling pilau. The Oxford English Dictionary treats it as a borrowing from Persian by way of Turkish. Its Persian ancestor is pulaw, recorded in the 16th century as palāv. Behind that stands Hindi pulāv, meaning a dish of rice and meat. Behind Hindi stands Sanskrit pulāka, a ball of rice, which probably traces back to Dravidian. Tamil offers a clue, with puḷukku meaning simmered and puḷukkal meaning cooked rice.

  European languages added their own steps. The dictionary suggests the word probably came partly through French, where pilau is recorded in 1654, pilaw in 1680 and pilaf in 1833. Italian had pilao as early as 1542. That means the spelling most English speakers use today, pilaf, is a relatively late arrival.

  Persian cooks, meanwhile, kept a far richer vocabulary for rice than the one word that traveled.

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• 4. Keeping Grains Apart

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  Iranian cooks recognize four primary ways of cooking rice. Chelow begins with soaking and parboiling. The water is then drained, and the rice is steamed. The result is exceptionally fluffy rice with separate grains, plus a golden crust at the bottom of the pot called tahdig, literally the bottom of the pot. Polow follows exactly the same steps, except that other ingredients are layered with the drained rice before steaming. Kateh is rice boiled until the water is absorbed, and it is the traditional dish of northern Iran. Dami is nearly the same, but the heat is lowered just before boiling and a towel goes between lid and pot to trap steam. The name means simmered.

  General advice for pilaf starts with rinsing the rice well to remove surface starch. Some cooks favor basmati because its grains stay light, fluffy and separate, though other long-grain rice works too. The rice is often stirred briefly in hot fat before the liquid goes in, and the choice of fat changes from recipe to recipe. Fried onions, cardamom, bay leaves and cinnamon are common additions. Persian cooks use saffron, which gives the rice its flavor and its yellow color.

  Pilaf can be plain. The Turkish name for the plain version is sade pilav, the Persian is chelo and the Arabic is ruzz mufalfal. Details such as pre-soaking and steaming after boiling differ from kitchen to kitchen.

  Persian cooking also includes tahchin, a slow-cooked mix of rice, vegetables and meat made in a specially designed dish.

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• 5. Cauldrons of Central Asia

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  At the center of Central Asian plov sits zirvak, a rich stew of meat and vegetables. Here the rice is not steamed. It is simmered in the zirvak until all the liquid disappears into the grains, and covering the pot adds a little steaming. The cook uses a kazon, also called a deghi, over an open fire. Lamb or beef is browned in lamb fat or oil, then stewed with fried onions, garlic and carrots. Chicken plov is rare, though traditional Bukhara recipes include it.

  Regional touches abound. Samarkand-style plov commonly uses zig'ir oil, a blend of melon seed, cottonseed, sesame seed and flaxseed oils. Spicing is usually simple, just salt, peppercorns and cumin. Coriander, barberries, red pepper or marigold may join them. Heads of garlic and chickpeas are sometimes buried in the rice as it cooks. On special occasions, cooks make sweet versions with dried apricots, cranberries and raisins.

  In 2016, UNESCO inscribed plov on its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. It is the national dish of Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan also treat it as a staple, each with local variations. Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Kazakh, Turkmen and Karakalpak cooks use names such as osh, palov and palaw.

  Home cooking is common, but celebrations call for an oshpaz, an osh master chef. Working over an open flame, one oshpaz can feed up to 1,000 people from a single cauldron at a holiday or wedding. Oshi nahor, meaning morning palov, is served between 6 and 9 am to large gatherings, typically as part of a wedding celebration that is still under way.

  Uzbek-style plov is found across the post-Soviet countries and in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. There it is called polu, polo or pola, and it often arrives with pickled carrots, onion and tomato.

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• 6. South Asian Kitchens

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  In Afghan kitchens, Kabuli palaw is made in large, shallow, thick dishes. Basmati cooks with mutton, lamb, beef or chicken and oil, and fried sliced carrots and raisins go on top. Chopped pistachios, walnuts or almonds are optional. The meat is covered by rice or buried in the middle. The version with carrots and raisins is very popular in Saudi Arabia, where it is called roz Bukhari, meaning Bukharan rice.

  Kabuli pulav is also a staple in Pakistan, especially in the west. Pakistani cooks fry sliced carrots, almonds and raisins in sweet syrup to decorate it. Another dish, Bannu beef pulao, comes from the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The beef is first cooked as a broth called yakhni, using salt, ginger, garlic, onions and garam masala, and the rice is then combined with it. Sindhi people prepare pulao for marriage ceremonies and condolence meetings.

  Indian pulao is usually rice with peas, potatoes, green beans or carrots, sometimes with chicken, fish, lamb, goat, pork or prawns. A Bengali style uses long-grain or aromatic rice with cashew nuts, raisins, ghee and spices such as nutmeg, mace and clove. A few elaborate versions carry Persian names, like hazar pasand, which means a thousand delights. In Karnataka, palav and a variant called Rice Bath are staple breakfasts at most restaurants. Spiced yogurt or raita often accompanies them.

  In Bangladesh, polao is a ceremonial dish made only with aromatic rice. Since the 1970s the name has meant Bashonti polao, rice fried with onions, ginger and whole spices in oil or clarified butter. It is boiled, then steamed, finished with more clarified butter and rose water or kewra water, and topped with fried onions called beresta. Chicken morog pulao is traditional among Bangladeshi Muslims. In Sylhet and Chittagong, akhni polao uses aqni, the rich stock in which mutton is cooked.

  Tehari is a very spicy Bangladeshi polao, distinct from the tahris found in neighboring India. It uses young small potatoes, mustard oil and a unique spice blend, and is usually eaten with beef or goat. In Dhaka the most famous tehari is called Hajir biryani, though young city residents use the biryani name loosely to mean a mutton version.

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• 7. Mediterranean and Caucasus

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  A Turkish cook counts sticky rice as a failure. The recommended method is to rinse the rice, cook it in butter, add water and let the grains soak it all up. Then every grain falls separately from the spoon. Historically, mutton stock was the most common cooking liquid. Turkish kitchens use rice, bulgur and orzo, which yield dishes such as etli pilav, made with cubed beef, and perdeli pilav.

  The Greek Orthodox Pontians of the Black Sea coast made their own pilav. Hapsipilavon uses anchovies and mythopilavon uses mussels. Other versions add chicken, lamb or vegetables, with anise, dill, parsley and saffron, and sometimes pine nuts, peanuts or almonds. Pontians could even make pilav from buckwheat.

  In Greece, piláfi is rice boiled in meat stock. Northern Greeks consider it improper to cook it on a stovetop, so the pot goes into the oven. On Crete, gamopílafo, the wedding pilaf, is cooked in lamb or goat broth and finished with lemon juice. Despite its name it is closer to a risotto, with a creamy texture.

  Traditional Levantine cooking has maqlubeh, with meat, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes and cauliflower. A fish version is called sayadieh, the Fishermen's Dish. Albania treats pilaf as very common, usually served with yogurt, bean stew, meat soup or baked meats, and it ranks among Europe's top three countries for how much rice its people eat. Hungary received pilaf during the Ottoman period and cooks it with paprika, onions and meat. Romanian pilaf is more watery, closer to congee.

  Armenians use plenty of bulgur and may combine vermicelli or orzo with rice in stock seasoned with mint, parsley and allspice. Rose Baboian's 1964 cookbook, with recipes rooted in her birthplace of Antep, advises stir-frying the noodles in chicken fat first. Azerbaijan counts more than 40 plov recipes. A traditional Azerbaijani plov arrives as three components on separate platters, namely warm rice, meat and herbs. Crimean Tatars call it pilyav, and Lithuanians call it plovas. Latvian plovs changes from county to county.

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• 8. Far-Flung Kitchens

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  On the coast of Kenya, pilau is the common version, with spices similar to Indian ones and potatoes added to the masala. It is served with meat, fish or nothing at all, and often with a side of kachumbari.

  Across the Indian Ocean, Java holds a pilaf with a traceable family tree. Arab migrants descended from people of Hadhramaut in Yemen arrived on Java between the 18th and 19th centuries. They brought coffee, culture and Islamic traditions, and also recipes. One is nasi kebuli, said to take its name from the Kabuli pulao of Afghanistan. According to the authors Gagas Ulung and Deerona, the dish took shape in Gujarat, where Hadhrami migrants met local food traditions carried in part by Kerala cooks on Gujarati trading vessels. Intermarriage and cultural blending then adapted it to Indonesian tastes. It uses basmati cooked in goat broth, milk and ghee, with garlic, shallots and spices. It is tied to Eid al Fitr, Eid al Adha, Mawlid, weddings and official state banquets. Another popular Arab Indonesian pilaf is nasi mandi.

  In the Eastern Caribbean, the pilaf is called pelau and holds pigeon peas, green peas, corn, pumpkin, and beef, chicken or cured pig tail. Trinidad's pelau is a layered dish that blends African cuisine with New World ingredients such as ketchup. Browning the meat in sugar is an African technique. Tobago commonly makes its pelau with crab.

  Brazil has a heavily modified descendant, arroz de frango desfiado, meaning shredded chicken rice. It borrows from what Brazilians call arroz pilau, and it also goes by risoto de frango. Once the ingredients are mixed, it is cooked for no more than five minutes, so the dish stays fluffy.

  In Japan, pilaf, written ピラフ, shows up in school lunch, known as kyūshoku. The most common school version is made with corn.

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