Plov

Pilaf (), pilav or pilau () is a rice dish, or in some regions, a wheat dish, whose recipe usually involves cooking in stock or broth, adding spices, and other ingredients such as vegetables or meat, and employing some technique for achieving cooked grains that do not adhere.

At the time of the Abbasid Caliphate, such methods of cooking rice at first spread through a vast territory from South Asia to Spain, and eventually to a wider world. The Spanish ''paella'', and the South Asian ''pilau'' or ''pulao'', and ''biryani'', evolved from such dishes.

Pilaf and similar dishes are common to Middle Eastern, West Asian, Balkan, Caribbean, South Caucasian, Central Asian, East African, Eastern European, Latin American, Maritime Southeast Asia, and South Asian cuisines; in these areas, they are regarded as staple dishes.Gil Marks. ''Encyclopedia of Jewish Food''. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. Marshall Cavendish. ''World and Its Peoples''. Marshall Cavendish, 2006, p
662
Bruce Kraig, Colleen Taylor Sen. ''Street Food Around the World: An Encyclopedia of Food and Culture''. ABC-CLIO, 2013, p
384
.

Etymology

According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', Third Edition (2006) the English word ''pilaf'', which is the later and North American English form, is a borrowing from Turkish, its etymon, or linguistic ancestor, the Turkish , whose etymon is the Persian ; "pilaf" is found more commonly in North American dictionaries than ''pilau'', all from the Persian .

The British and Commonwealth English spelling, ''pilau'', has etymon Persian (in form ''palāv'', ''pilāv'', or ''pulāv'' in the 16th century) and Urdu ("dish of rice and meat"), from Persian ''pulāv'' ("Side dishes, spices, meat, vegetables, even plain rice "), the Tamil Pulukku ("Dravidian (compare Tamil puḷukku (adjective) simmered, (noun) boiled or parboiled food, ''puḷukkal'' cooked rice); in turn probably from Sanskrit ("ball of rice").

History

Although the cultivation of rice had spread much earlier from India to Central and West Asia, it was at the time of the Abbasid Caliphate that methods of cooking rice which approximate modern styles of cooking pilaf at first spread through a vast territory from Spain to Afghanistan, and eventually to a wider world. The Spanish ''paella'', and the South Asian ''pilau'' or ''pulao'', and ''biryani'', evolved from such dishes.

According to author K. T. Achaya, the Indian epic ''Mahabharata'' mentions an instance of rice and meat cooked together. Also, according to Achaya, "pulao" or "pallao" is used to refer to a rice dish in ancient Sanskrit works such as the ''Yājñavalkya Smṛti''. However, according to food writers Colleen Taylor Sen and Charles Perry, and social theorist Ashis Nandy, these references do not substantially correlate to the commonly used meaning and history implied in pilafs, which appear in Indian accounts after the medieval Central Asian conquests.

Similarly Alexander the Great and his army, many centuries earlier, in the 4th century BCE, have been reported to be so impressed with Bactrian and Sogdian ''pilavs'' that his soldiers brought the recipes back to Macedonia when they returned. Similar stories exist of Alexander introducing pilaf to Samarkand; however, they are considered apocryphal by art historian John Boardman. Similarly, it has been reported that pilaf was consumed in the Byzantine Empire and in the Republic of Venice.

The earliest documented recipe for pilaf comes from the tenth-century Persian scholar Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), who in his books on medical sciences dedicated a whole section to preparing various dishes, including several types of pilaf. In doing so, he described the advantages and disadvantages of every item used for preparing the dish. Accordingly, Persians consider Ibn Sina to be the "father" of modern pilaf. Thirteenth-century Arab texts describe the consistency of pilaf that the grains should be plump and somewhat firm to resemble peppercorns with no mushiness, and each grain should be separate with no clumping.

Another primary source for pilaf dishes comes from the 17th-century Iranian philosopher Molla Sadra.

Pilau became standard fare in the Middle East and Transcaucasia over the years with variations and innovations by the Persians, Arabs, Turks, and Armenians.

During the period of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian versions of the dish spread throughout all Soviet republics, becoming a part of the common Soviet cuisine.

Preparation

Some cooks prefer to use basmati, bay leaves and cinnamon.

Pilaf is usually made with meat or vegetables, but it can also be made plain which is called ''sade pilav'' in Turkish, ''chelo'' in Persian and ''ruzz mufalfal'' in Arabic. On special occasions saffron may be used to give the rice a yellow color. Pilaf is often made by adding the rice to hot fat and stirring briefly before adding the cooking liquid. The fat used varies from recipe to recipe. Cooking methods vary with respect to details such as pre-soaking the rice and steaming after boiling.

Local varieties

There are thousands of variations of pilaf made with rice or other grains like bulgur. In Central Asia there are ''plov'', ''pulao'' on the Indian subcontinent, and variations from Turkmenistan and Turkey. Some include different combinations of meats, fruits or vegetables, while others are simple and served plain. Central Asian, South Asian cuisine, Turkish cuisine, Iranian and Caribbean cuisine