Pimp My Pilaf: How to Turn Whatever You Have on Hand into a Fancy Side Dish

My mother made a wonderful pilaf for our family every Sunday night when I was growing up. She called it perlo (it was chicken perlo, and she used a whole stick of butter--no wonder it was delicious), but perlo is just a variant on the word pilaf (also sometimes called pillau, pilau, palau, or pulau). Pilaf is a rice or other grain dish made using soup stock or broth and butter, olive oil, or ghee as well as add-on ingredients to jazz it up.

Other than the grain/stock/oil combo,  variations on the pilaf are infinite.  You can add almost anything in terms of vegetables, fruit, nuts, meat, and/or meat substitutes (tofu, mushrooms). But the  rule of thumb for  add-ons is that they need to be dryish and chopped into small pieces or diced. If you add very moist add-ons, like tomatoes or zucchini, you may need to decrease the liquid proportionately. Also, if your pieces are too large and/or raw, they might not cook fully by the time the grain is finished cooking. The goal is bite-sized, tender add-ons.

Many famous world dishes are actually pilafs. Risotto is a pilaf. So is jambalaya. And paella, and Spanish rice, the tomato-rice pilaf served so often with Mexican entrees. So is arroz con pollo and Indian biryani. In cooking the grain WITH the stock and the oil, the grain absorbs the wonderful salty savoriness as it cooks. Those flavors--and any others you use--permeate each grain. So easy. So good and nothing to it once you get the hang of it.

Tonight I made my family quinoa-almond-raisin pilaf with turmeric [photo, above]. I was making a Mediterranean themed supper (broiled hoki with kalamata/tomato/oregano salsa, and a chopped salad heavy on the sweet peppers and feta cheese), so wanted to round out the salty flavors with a bit of sweet. It was a big hit and simply a matter of throwing the items in the rice cooker, although any sturdy pot will do.

The chart below will provide some ideas for what might be fun, but feel free to pimp your own pilaf.

Choose at least one from each Grain/Stock/Oil:
Grain	Stock	Oil
Rice, jasmine	Chicken	Olive
Rice, short grain	Beef	Butter
Rice, arborio	Clam	Ghee
Rice, brown	Dashi (fish and kombu seaweed)	Sesame
Rice, wild	Vegetable	Peanut
Quinoa	Ham
Barley	Coconut milk (will not need Oil if using)
Cous-cous
Cous-cous, Israeli
Add-ons (Use as many as you like, and ad-lib your own ideas):
Meat/Meat-like Group	Veggie Group	Fruit Group	Nut Group	Herb Group	Cheese Group
Chicken	Celery	Raisins	Pistachios	Chives	Gorgonzola
Sausage/wurst	Carrots	Currants	Cashews	Oregano	Parmesan
Lamb	Peas	Other dried fruit, diced	Almonds	Basil	Feta
Pork	Squash	Pineapple	Coconut	Perilla leaves
Ham	Corn	Mango	Peanuts	Garlic
Beef	Tomatoes (may need to reduce liquid proportionately)	Apples	Pumpkin seeds	Curry spices
Pork	Green beans	Pears	Pine nuts	Ginger
Fish or shellfish, chopped	Other beans, pre-cooked
Beef	Ripe or green olives
Mushrooms	Onions
Fish or shellfish, chopped	Peppers
Tofu, raw or fried
Tempeh