Rice Pilaf, Sunday Dinners, and Mashed Potatoes

I had intentions of making a decadent sweet yesterday to bring to a New Year’s Eve party.  But then the end of the year just plum wore me out and I decided to be under the covers before midnight and skipped the party.  I also skipped the baking, knowing full well I didn’t want to wake up on the first day of a new year with a whole pan of chocolate to myself.

I did, however, have a whole day of time to myself… so it seemed rather a waste not to pull a card out of the box.  There was a snow day on Sunday, when I decided to roast a chicken so I’d have some lean protein to start off the new year… as well as the bones with which to make my own chicken stock.  So I skipped passed the recipes with chocolate chips and sugar and shortening and started looking through chicken recipes to see what would match my kitchen’s stores.

Then, as the smell of my crock pot steeping chicken bones, carrots, and onions filled the house, I found an index card with very teacher like cursive writing in red ink with the recipe for Rice Pilaf.

My mom has always made rice pilaf.  Not the Near East stuff you get out of a box with lots and lots of sodium.  Okay… she did start doing that later on… but it’s still a pretty basic staple from childhood family meals.  It’s also something that reminds me of Sunday dinners at my grandparent’s house.

I don’t know how long this was a tradition in my youth.  But I do have very vivid memories of going to church at St. Mary’s and then staying at my grandparents to have dinner.  And I was little.  Of this I am most sure because I was seated at the corner of the table next to my grandfather’s chair, in the not so baby high chair with olive green, orange, and yellow 1960’s patterned flowers on the vinyl seat.  I was probably one of – if not the only child seated at the table then.  Maybe there was another baby… but if I was at the table, it meant the little table and chairs did not leave the attic to share with my other little cousins.  And I got to sit next to my grandfather.

I remember this rice pilaf.  I remember dishes like lamb and maybe roast pork or some other rich meat.  There was my uncle Andy’s broccoli.  Maybe some green beans.  And baked potatoes.  I would watch my grandfather with awe as he practiced the ritual of cutting open his potato and scoop out the innards to go on his plate.  He added butter and then salt and pepper with the tiny clear glass shakers, then mashed it all with a fork.  The skins he saved and passed to the opposite side of the table for my grandmother.  I was impressed by the artistry of this ritual… but also by my grandmother for eating the uglier skins.  And maybe that’s why I like potato skins… because they were a gift from my grandfather.

So we apparently served rice and potato at the same meal.  Or maybe the meals all just blend together in the weird little box of images from my childhood memory.  But there is definitely something about smelling those tablespoons of butter melting and browning the rice that makes me think of an electric fry pan in my grandmother’s kitchen, being served in a Corning casserole dish around that table in the dining room, as I sat in that higher chair in the seat of honor next to my grandfather.

The recipe card is not, apparently, my grandmother’s hand.  Her hand gives credit to Ann Deroches?  This blog is going to need an appendix of recipe sources soon.  

Rice Pilaf

2 Tbsp butter
1/3 c. thin spaghetti, broken in small pieces
¾ c. white rice
¼ c. diced onion
¼ c. diced celery
1 ½ c. chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
½ c. toasted almonds

Melt butter over moderate heat.  Cook onion and celery until translucent.  Add spaghetti bits and rice and brown for 3-5 minutes.  Add broth and salt and pepper and bring to a full boil.

Cover pot and reduce heat to simmer and cook for 18 minutes.  Fluff with a fork and add almonds.

It didn’t taste exactly as I remember… probably because I used my own chicken stock which had no salt.  But… the smell of the butter melting, the softness of the onions with the rice… it was very similar to what I remember about sitting rosy cheeked next to my grandfather on a Sunday afternoon, watching him mash a potato.