Pilaf is an eastern dish. Most people think it's Turkish, but it's not. The word comes from Persian (and the root possibly comes all the way from India). At any rate the notion of boiling rice in a pot of stuff is not quite such a shocking, unthinkable thing. So let's make it!
Pour oil in the pot (I actually prefer corn for this application). Finely grate onion, add chunks of chicken (pictured above, thighs). Add the base spicesi and handle the hit so the meat gets overcookedii without anything burning.
Then...
That's Pleurotus, an inexpensive, widely available, very tasty cultivated mushroom. Chunk it up, let the steam lightly wilt it, then add the rice (Basmati works) and the water. Grind your boil spices (preferably in a mortar, with salt) and dump them in. I used a little jalapeno and a lot more tarragoniii. Come back eighteen minutes later, just in time for the rice to have fully expanded, caught on the bottom and everything be repotted.
Serve with cream and pickles, true Transylvanian fashion, or otherwise with cold buttermilk for a drink. It can also be eaten off the navel of a submissive, lanky 17 year old girl who should be in school at that time, but I wouldn't say that part is mandatory.
———- There's two kinds of spices in this world : one that goes into frying, one that only goes into boiling. You can't fry parsley, for instance. In the pictured case I used paprika (this meat-onion-paprika in oil troika is pretty much a Balkan staple) and Worchestershire (a scandal, I know). [↩]
- I just love overcooked chicken. [↩]
- Tarragon kicks ass. Together with lovage it makes up the reason your cooking sucks : you don't know about them. [↩]