Lebanese Rice Pilaf

Once you eat this rice pilaf, it will be hard to eat rice any other way. I promise.

2 cups Uncle Ben's Rice (and ONLY Uncle Ben's)
4 cups of chicken broth
1/4 cup of orzo OR 1/4 cup of thin egg noodles
1/2 stick of butter.
salt
(Optional: a healthy sprinkling of ground cinnamon)



Okay, are you ready for this? Simple: Melt half the butter in a saucepan that has a cover over medium low heat. If you have an enameled cast iron one, well, even better.
Add the orzo or noodles to the pan and stir them in the butter until they are golden brown. Yes, this takes a few minutes. Don't leave them to sit there, because they may brown quickly on one side and the butter could burn and then you have to start over. So stir them. Listen to some Lebanese music by Fairuz if you want to pass the time in a pleasant way.
When they have gotten to a dark golden brown, add the rice and just the rice and remove from heat. Stir the rice in to cover every one of those long grain beauties with the butter. This keeps the rice from being sticky.
Add the broth, and the salt. Cover and cook on medium heat for about 30 minutes or until the rice is tender. Fluff and serve with any main dish, especially stuffed eggplant and kibbee. Watch it disappear.

Another way to sweeten the rice is to saute chopped onions in the butter, remove them, then go back to adding butter, brown the orzo and then before you add the rice, add the onions back in.

If you love cinnamon, you can add a nice healthy dash of it when you add the water.