Serving the Guest: A Sufi Cookbook
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Mevlevi Pilawi
A simple dish of steamed and buttered rice, this recipe appeared in Turabi Efendi's Manual of Turkish Cookery, "a collection of receipts, dedicated to those royal and distinguished personages, the guests of his highness the late viceroy of Egypt, on the occasion of the banquet given at Woolwich, on board his highness's yacht the Faiz-Jehad, the 16th of July 1862," published in London in 1864.
 Fountain at the Mevlevi tekke in Tripoli, Libya, 1920's

"Put two quarts of water in a saucepan with sufficient salt, put it on the fire. When boiling, throw into it a pound of rice, well washed, and boil until each grain is soft and separate; then drain it through a clean cloth or in a colander, put it back in the pan, and set it on a slow fire without the cover until the moisture is dispersed; then put a saucepan on the fire with half a pound of fresh butter. When it boils, pour it over the rice and stir it once round with a fork, put the pan on the hob with the cover over, and let it remain for 5 or 10 minutes. Dish up, and serve hot."

 
 

from Serving the Guest: A Sufi Cookbook
Copyright © 1999, 2000 by Kathleen Seidel
Sources of previously published material by other authors used by permission, and print sources for images, may be found at http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook.