Rice Pilau
Junior League to ChatGPT
There are three types of cookbooks that you can bank on: church ladies, Junior League, and elementary schools. Of course, cookbooks are pretty much passé now, but back in the day, many of us depended on our favorite cookbooks.
In the 70’s and early 80’s when computers were new and all us teachers were learning how to use those fancy newfangled computers. In those days, schools used Apple IIe; we couldn’t envision how computers and the yet-to-be born internet would forever change the recipe landscape. Now, we simply enter the list of the key ingredients, and AI spits out a variety of tantalizing options.
But back then recipe books abounded.
The elementary school I was assigned to after my sabbatical year had just printed their faculty cookbook. In it, along with a raft of delicious traditional southern dishes, was a dish I was unfamiliar with: Charleston Rice Purlough. I fell in love with the richness of the blended flavor of smoky bacon, sweet onions, tangy tomatoes and tomato paste.
Somehow in one of our many moves and after several years, the old cookbook went missing. When I tried to recreate the dish from memory it was off—not bad, but not right. By this time, I had access to the internet, but there were no results for Charleston Rice Purlough in my internet search. (It was the early 2000s and the comprehensiveness of the cyber world was not yet developed.)
This spring (May 2025) as my wife and I were planning on our annual pilgrimage to Folly Beach near Charleston, South Carolina, I got a wild hair to make Charleston Rice Purlough for the family during our trip. I took a chance and ran the name through ChatGPT, and this time AI came through. The problem was the teacher who submitted the recipe used an incorrect spelling for Rice Pilau, which is understandable since pur-low is the way you say pilau. So naming it Purlough probably meant she’d learned the recipe from her family and heard them saying the word and not seeing it. After all, most of that generation of southern cooks cooked from memory, instinct, and what was in your pantry. When this teacher put the recipe down on paper, she spelled it like she’d heard it. Reasonable enough.
As I fussed and fumed over the dish, creating a vegetarian version for my step-daughter while preparing the recipe below, I came to realize that cooking is my love language.
Rice Pilau (pronounced pur-low)
Ingredients
1-1 ½ cups uncooked, long grain rice (I like basmati, but any will work)
salt, as needed
4 strips of bacon
bacon drippings (the grease from frying the bacon) or 1 tbs. butter or ¼ cup oil
1 onion, diced
½ yellow pepper, diced
½ red pepper, diced
¼ cup celery, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, diced finely
2 cans fire-roasted tomatoes (regular diced tomatoes will work)
¼-½ cups of tomato paste
½ cup white wine
chicken broth, as needed
¼-½ tsp. pepper flakes (or to taste)
pepper, to taste
¼-½ tsp. cayenne pepper (or to taste)
Andouille sausage, cut into small rounds and cooked thoroughly
cooked shrimp, if desired
Ingredients
Cook the rice in boiling, salted water until tender, about twenty minutes.
Fry bacon. Allow to cool, then crumble.
Heat the bacon drippings (or butter or oil) until hot.
Sauté onions, bell peppers, and celery until the vegetables are soft (5 to 8 minutes).
Then add the garlic and continue sautéing until the garlic is fragrant (one minute or so).
Combine the rice and the onion mixture.
Add the fire-roasted tomatoes and stir until blended.
Add the tomato paste and blend.
Cook for around 10 to 15 minutes. The longer it cooks the thicker and better it gets.
Add the crumbled bacon.
Add the white wine.
If the pilau is stiff, add chicken broth or water.
Add pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and pinch of cayenne pepper.
Add the Andouille sausage (or any type of sausage) and shrimp.
Notes on Rice Pilau
Although it doesn't look at, this dish is pronounced pur-low. The dish is popular in the Carolinas and Georgia but originated in ancient Persia. Many cultures have their own variation of rice pilau. Some variations use seafood. Many use chopped chicken. But almost all use one or more meats, making this dish pretty close to the Louisiana-stable Jambalaya. Like Jambalaya there is no single definitive recipe. It’s a comfort food made from what you have in your kitchen. The tomato paste is critical. Be generous.
The spices in this recipe are simply suggestions. You be you.
