Simple Rice Pilaf — The Side Dish Ma Would Have Made Alongside Her Sizzling Crepes

April in Houston. The azaleas are going off — hot pink and white and coral, every yard in the neighborhood exploding with color. Ma's front yard has azaleas she planted in 1985 and they're the most aggressive plants on the block. They bloom like they have something to prove. I spent Sunday at Ma's trimming the hedge and fixing a gutter that had come loose. While I was on the ladder, she was inside making banh xeo — the sizzling crepes — and the sound of the batter hitting the hot pan carried through the open window and mixed with the birdsong and the distant lawn mowers and I thought: this is a perfect moment. This exact moment. The ladder, the gutter, the crepe sizzle, the azaleas. Write it down, Bobby. So I'm writing it down. Ma's banh xeo is legendary. The batter is rice flour, coconut milk, turmeric, and water, left to rest for at least an hour. The pan has to be scorching — she uses a cast iron skillet that's older than me. The batter goes in, she swirls the pan, adds shrimp and pork and bean sprouts, and covers it for two minutes. When she lifts the lid, the crepe is lace-thin on the edges and golden-crispy on the bottom. She folds it in half and slides it onto a plate and it crackles. I've been trying to replicate this for twenty years. My banh xeo are good. Hers are perfect. The difference is thirty years of muscle memory and a cast iron skillet that's been seasoned by ten thousand crepes. She made eight of them. I ate three. She ate one and a half. I brought the rest to the kids on Wednesday. Tyler ate two. Emma ate one and asked Ma's secret. I said, "The secret is being seventy and Vietnamese and stubborn." Emma said, "I can be stubborn." She's not wrong. Lily had a science fair project due this week — a volcano, because every fifth grader in the history of fifth grade has made a volcano. She asked me to help. We built it out of papier-mâché and painted it brown and green. The eruption was baking soda and vinegar with red food coloring. It worked on the third try. The first two tries flooded the kitchen table. Lily said, "Real volcanoes probably don't work right the first time either." She's eleven. She's developing a philosophy. I support it. Sold a pizza oven to a new place in the Heights this week. The owner is twenty-six and has never run a restaurant before. I told him to buy the mid-range model, not the high-end, because you don't need a $15,000 oven when you're still figuring out your dough recipe. He appreciated the honesty. He'll be back when he's ready for the upgrade.

Ma’s banh xeo is never just one dish — there’s always something alongside it, something quiet and steaming that holds the plate together while the crepe gets all the glory. On Sundays like the one I described, she’d often have a pot of simple rice going on the back burner, fragrant with a little onion and broth, because in her kitchen nothing goes to waste and nobody leaves hungry. This rice pilaf isn’t Vietnamese in origin, but it carries that same philosophy: good technique, patient timing, and the understanding that a humble side dish done right is its own kind of perfect. Make it the next time you’re feeding people you love and want to keep them at the table a little longer.

Simple Rice Pilaf

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup long-grain white rice
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (for garnish)

Instructions

1. Toast the rice. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3–4 minutes until softened and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant.
2. Add the rice. Pour the dry rice into the saucepan and stir to coat in the butter. Toast the rice for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until the grains turn slightly opaque and smell nutty.
3. Add liquid and simmer. Pour in the chicken broth and add the salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir once to combine, then bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
4. Cover and cook low. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low, cover the saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, and cook for 15 minutes. Do not lift the lid during this time.
5. Rest the rice. Remove the pan from heat and let it sit, still covered, for 5 minutes. This allows the steam to finish cooking the rice evenly.
6. Fluff and serve. Remove the bay leaf. Use a fork to gently fluff the rice, folding from the edges toward the center. Taste for seasoning, adjust salt if needed, and garnish with fresh parsley before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 230 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 38g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 310mg