A Gullah Geechee one-pot rice dish in which chicken, crab, shrimp, or oysters are cooked directly with rice, onion, butter or fat, and broth in a single pot until the rice absorbs all the liquid and the protein is tender throughout. Simpler than pilaf, more elemental than jambalaya — just rice, protein, fat, and patience. The Gullah ancestor of every one-pot rice dish in the American South, predating any Louisiana equivalent.
Purloo is the purest form of Gullah Geechee rice culture. The Sea Islands enslaved people who grew the Carolina Gold rice that made South Carolina wealthy were West African rice farmers who brought the knowledge of rice cultivation and rice cooking with them. Purloo is their dish — not borrowed, not adapted, but original. It fed families on the Sea Islands for centuries and it still does.
The one-pot preparation preserves the cooking liquid — all the iodine, B12, and minerals from the seafood stay in the rice rather than being discarded in a separate broth. Long-grain rice cooked this way produces resistant starch upon cooling, which feeds gut bacteria and reduces glycemic impact. The seafood versions provide iodine and omega-3s at levels difficult to achieve from inland food sources.
Brown diced onion and your protein (chicken pieces or sausage) in butter or lard in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add long-grain rice and stir to coat in the fat for 2 minutes. Add chicken broth at a 2:1 liquid-to-rice ratio. For seafood purloo: add shrimp or oysters in the last 5 minutes of cooking, not at the start. Cover tightly, reduce heat to lowest setting, and cook undisturbed for 18 minutes. Let rest covered 5 minutes before opening.
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