Polo and Pudding:
Our Department's Ways with Rice

Gustavo Ericson

Our members are some of the best and most diverse cooks we know, and all are generous with their knowledge. We would like to offer some of our favorite recipes to you, gentle reader, starting this month.  We have recently expanded our selection of rice, observing a celebration of Asian food this August, and will be suggesting some ancient and new ways of preparing that venerated grain in coming months.

            Observe, if you will, that a short- grained strain of rice, Oryza sativa japonica, has been traced back to at least 7,000 years BCE, and that its longer -grained cousin, O. sativa indica, arrived not long after in southeast Asia.  Note also that there are more than forty thousand varieties within those species. Categories of the ancient grain include long-, medium- and short- grained rice, each with distinct levels of amylose starch, influencing the amount of water needed to prepare them, the cooking time, and the texture of the cooked product. In general we see that the shorter the grain, the clingier the grains are after cooking. Short-grain japonicas cling together and are therefore excellent for sushi, and easier to manage with your chopsticks.  Medium-grain japonicas are somewhat clingy, too, and impart a good amount of starch into the cooking liquid, forming their own “sauce”, as with risotto. Long-grain indicas include our favorite basmati and the slightly clingy jasmine, both of which fall into another sub-category, the aromatics.    Hence we see a grand variety of cooking methods, simplistic or arcane, accentuating the inherent textures, starch content, perfumes, and tastes of the varieties.

Rice came to Europe and the West via Persia. The Iranians, “perhaps the most sophisticated rice cooks, make polo by partly boiling long-grain rice in excess water, layering it with a variety of cooked meats, vegetables, dried fruits, and nuts, then gently steaming it to finish the cooking, and managing the heat so that a brown crust of rice, the prized tahdig, forms at the bottom.”  So quoth Harold McGee in the indispensable On Food and Cooking. New to tahdig, the rinsing and soaking process, and lining a pot lid with towels, we were enthralled when the lovely Minoo Buchanan introduced us to two ways of preparing polo. Her favorite is a verdant layering of lima beans and prodigious amounts of fresh dill- certainly a most elegant accompaniment to a kabob or lamb shank. And pretty swank on its own.  Ms. Minoo also offered the classic version with potato slices augmenting the tahdig, and saffron deeply infusing part of the rice. The basmati had been rinsed (some imported rice is dusted with talc), and then soaked. Basmati enigmatically lengthens but does not swell as it soaks or cooks.  Every grain was distinct and feathery light on the tongue- Minoo’s barometer for judging a respectable polo.  Wanting to create such a masterpiece myself, I tried a version from the new edition of the Joy of Cooking. It was delightful, all crusty onions on the tahdig layer, redolent with cardamom, cinnamon, and a few cloves. Arrayed on a big blue platter, such a polo is a sumptuous array of ochre and gold, with a stray scarlet squiggle of saffron, irresistible crunchy, buttery potatoes, dried apricots and a nonchalant scattering of pistachios. Ultimately, a dish with profound deference to a few of the culinary gifts of the Persians.  The Joy of Cooking version was great, though slightly iconoclastic in that it was finished in the oven, making it easier to control the heat. It was assuredly not as refined as Minoos’, but a good first outing into a new culinary domain.  If you venture into polo land, try serving any version with a simple yogurt sauce, similar to raita or tsaziki- just some creamy Greek yogurt  (fat content of your choice, though we prefer the Fage 5 percent), stirred up with some chopped garlic and a good handful of chopped mint, or sometimes fresh dill. Polo is a quite satisfying vegetarian meal, and it may be made with oil instead of butter for a vegan repast. If you have any left over, make a rice omelet, which is a particularly nice Sunday brunch when made with just the egg whites, and garnished with a scattering of fresh herbs.

Rice pudding, in its various permutations, is at once revivifying and consoling, and that’s why we love it. It can be as simple as a down- home version baked in the oven with milk, raisins and cinnamon- a Sunday supper in the country, with “Masterpiece Theater”.  Or it can go voluptuously cosmopolitan as in riz à l’Imperatrice, that quivering tower of rice baked slowly in milk, glacéed fruit, whipped cream and kirsch. (In which case, turn off the TV and put on some Chopin).  In summer I make rice pudding with jasmine rice, a long-grain, aromatic variety that has similar qualities to its short-grain cousins, in that it cooks up moist and sticky. Somehow it smells hauntingly of good buttered popcorn. You can take the time to break up the rice with a rolling pin between two towels, if you like, to impart some textural difference, and even more creaminess to your pudding. I use coconut milk for a jasmine summer rice pudding, or a combination of coconut and cow’s milk, and infuse the milk with vanilla, and sometimes a few cardamom pods. Don’t go overboard with cardamom; too much is way too much.   Such a pudding is nice served with toasted shreds of coconut and chunks of mango. For breakfast nothing is as refreshing as cold-out-of-the-fridge rice pudding, particularly on a humid August morning. Renewing and reassuring, even if you’ve been out drinking’ pernod all night.  Believe me-I have done the research.  Observe the hydrangeas, the haze over the hemlocks, and wait for the cicadas to begin their oddly comforting chant. (Nota bene: Coconut Rice, an excellent side dish from the Caribbean, is easily made by tossing a cup of any long- grain rice in a couple tablespoons of peanut or coconut oil over medium heat ‘til it burns your fingers (à la pilaf) then simmering the rice, covered, with a couple of cups of warmed coconut milk for about 17 minutes, or until all the milk is absorbed. Season with a little salt and pepper or some of our friend Tanna’s new Tuscan sea salt. You’ll see what I’m talkin’ about).

In winter I make rice pudding with the medium-grain japonica varieties like Arborio or Canaroli. They absorb a lot of milk and whatever flavors you have infused in that milk, and cook up tender but still mysteriously a tad al dente.   Such rice came to Italy and Eastern Spain with the Moors, as did saffron and our beloved quince, and are the bases for all sorts of risotti and paellas.  These varieties are resolutely absorbent of the flavors surrounding them.  I infuse my rice pudding milk with half a vanilla bean and sometimes a nice long curl of lemon peel. You might soak some white raisins in dark rum, and add them, after draining, about half way through the cooking process. Use the macerating rum to flavor some lightly whipped cream, which you can dollop onto your room temp or chilled Arborio pudding. This little white- on- white essay can be dusted very lightly with cinnamon, as the Spanish do in their arroz con leche.  Sometimes I omit the raisins and make an easy fig topping: chopped dried Calmyrnas, soaked in warm water, then melted with a little honey and vanilla over low heat.  Serve this over your pudding and pretend you’re in Milan.  We like the elegant interplay of suave vanilla custard, toothsome rice, and the slight crunch of the figs.   You might go Parisienne and treat your rice pudding, sans raisins, like a crème brûlée: even out the pudding in a low baking dish (use your indispensable off-set spatula), pat on an even layer of light brown sugar, and then broil carefully (or use your propane torch) til you have an even, shatteringly crisp veneer of burnt sugar.  Even people who had hitherto scoffed at rice pudding will have to eat their words. Back off a little on the sugar in most rice pudding recipes.

We thus savor rice dishes from Persia and perhaps Northern Italy and assuredly Saratoga Springs. With their culinary generosity, people like Minoo Buchanan nurture a sometimes-famished world.

Look for forthcoming rice applications from Puerto Rico, Spain, Taiwan, the Deep South and Northern Africa.  Ask us for the recipes, and check out our new line of rice varieties from Lotus Foods.

In the meantime, dear reader, two suggestions:

Suggestion One: Try the new grilled Italian olives. They are pitted, which we usually disdain, but are a notably tantalizing addition to any antipasto, pasta dish, and even went well with the above-cited leftover polo egg white omelet.  Or, they can be quickly processed with a little of their own oil to make an excellent green olive tapenade, multitudinous in its uses. Ask us for one next time you are in the vicinity.