PILAV

Pilav has many different recipes. I guess every culture has a different way of preparing it. Even in the same country, it has variations. This recipe here is my way of cooking pilav. I adore pilav when rice is sparkling white, neither too soft, nor too hard, not many spices. I love pilav in its most natural self. Sometimes I can add vegetables in but not always. I cook pilav, as most Turkish households do, as a side dish to a chicken, meat or any vegetable meal. Although it flirts best with a casserole dish, I'm sure you can cook pilav as an accompaniment to almost every dish, except pasta I suppose!

Ingredients:

• 200 g Rice
• Butter, a tablespoon
• Olive oil, a teaspoon
• Salt, pepper
• 400 mL Hot water

(Even though I wrote the amounts here, its not the amounts that are important but ratios. The golden ratio is for every cup full of rice, add 2 cup of hot water. Usually I use a coffee cup for measuring. And I find that a coffee cup full or rice makes a pilav for 2.)

Preparation:

• Soak rice in warm water for 20 minutes.
• Drain rice and wash it throughly to get rid of the excess starch coating around the rice. Drain completely.
• Add butter to a rather large pan. (The pan is ideally a nonstick pan with a lid closing perfectly. But if you don't have a lid for your pan, you can use a flat dish to cover.)
• Melt the butter and add olive oil to prevent butter from burning.
• Add rice and fry for a couple of minutes by mixing with a wooden spoon. 
• Add hot water, salt and pepper, mix briefly, and allow it to bubble with a medium heat.
• When almost all water is finished but not all of it -this is a stage hard to explain but there should be some little amount of water, still bubbling though not forming a visible level of water-, turn off the heat.
• Close the lid on and wait for 20 minutes. At this stage rice continues cooking by itself, so do not open the lid.
• Mix pilav briefly and serve.

Enjoy!