rice pilaf

One of my favorite spices is Turmeric –  love the color, love the taste, and love the health benefits. It pairs beautifully with chicken and just about any vegetable you can think of (especially cauliflower). Another favorite vehicle for adding turmeric to our meals is rice – truth be told, rice is a beautiful blank canvas for bringing any spice you can think of into your presence.

This Buttery Rice Pilaf  recipe is absolutely delicious on its own – without any spices or herbs whatsoever. But it’s also a wonderful “blank canvas” for bringing any extra flavors to the meal you’ve got in mind. When I’m serving the Rice Pilaf with a main attraction that’s packed with flavor, I go with the “co-star” approach, leaving it unadorned with any spices or herbs. Seriously, the buttery flavor makes it a delicious side dish or co-star.

Other times, this Rice Pilaf IS the star and takes center stage. When she’s in the spotlight, you can adorn her any way you like – there are no rules, here. You simply prepare the Rice Pilaf as the recipe states, then right before bringing it off of the burner, add the spices of your choosing.  Go slow, though, as you can always add more but you can never add less.

It’s worth noting, again, that this Rice Pilaf is amazing as it is (pre-spices) – with just a little Kosher salt. Taste before adding spices – you just may want the buttery version unadorned.

Tips for Rice Pilaf Success:

• You could, conceivably, use a vegetarian broth in place of the chicken broth for this recipe.  Unfortunately, veggie broth doesn’t have the same amount of flavor that chicken broth does, so I hardly ever recommend substituting it for its more flavorful cousin. However, in this case, the generous (obscene?) amount of butter has its back.
• After the cooking process, fluff the rice pilaf with a fork instead of a spoon. Why? A spoon or spatula (or even my beloved Rachael Ray Spoonula – Amazon link) leads to more of a mashing than a fluffing… and, as we all know, rice is all about the fluff.
• Real butter is better than margarine here – and, really, just about everywhere.
• You can easily add onion to rice pilaf – I don’t when making this particular rice pilaf because… well.. because butter. I don’t want onion competing with butter in this dish because we all know what a competitor onion is. If you want to add 1/2 an onion, do so at the beginning. Add your pasta to the butter, then add your chopped onion and stir.
• Speaking of onions, if you want a hint of onion, go with shallots. One of my sons-in-law isn’t a big onion fan, so when I know he’ll be eating a certain meal, I use shallots instead of onions. They aren’t quite as “competitive” with the other flavors.
• If you’re serving more than 4 and this is the main dish, double the recipe. It doubles beautifully.