Rice Pilaf

Method

1. sweat6 min
   butter, medium-low, no colour
   butter + onion until soft and translucent. Butter rather than oil is worth keeping here — the milk solids in it brown alongside the pasta in the next step and contribute most of the nutty flavour
2. toast5 min
   medium, broken vermicelli first, then rice, stirred constantly
   + broken vermicelli, stirred until it turns deep gold, then + rice, stirred until the grains smell faintly of popcorn and their edges go glassy. This is the pilaf method: the fat coats each grain and the dry heat browns its surface starches, which both keeps the grains separate and adds a toasted flavour boiling can never produce. The vermicelli goes first because it browns faster and you can see it happening
3. boil2 min
   hot stock added all at once, stirred once, brought to a boil
   + hot stock + bay leaf + salt (+ cinnamon, + raisins), stirred exactly once to level and then left. Hot stock matters: cold liquid dropped on toasted rice halts the pan and the grains sit in tepid water absorbing unevenly
4. simmer15 min
   lowest heat, tightly covered, not opened
   until the liquid is absorbed and small craters appear on the surface. From here it is the plain-rice mechanism — starch gelatinising between roughly 70 and 80°C under trapped steam. Every lift of the lid loses steam that was cooking the top layer
5. rest5 min
   off the heat, still covered
   undisturbed, then discard the bay leaf. Moisture is still moving from the wet base to the drier top; skipping this gives you two textures in one pot
6. fold2 min
   fork, lifting from the edges
   the grains apart (+ toasted almonds, + parsley, + pepper). A fork separates and a spoon crushes — and after five minutes of careful toasting, crushing the grains undoes exactly what you did it for