Nice Rice

[Centa]

It's beginning to be late in the season for this summery dish in the States. It's like a room temperature paella. The one ingredient whose label you'll need to check carefully is the hard sausage. Look over the preservatives listed

Basque Salad (from The Silver Palate Cookbook)

1/4 c. olive oil

12 green onion plus their green tops, thinly sliced

1/2 tsp whole saffron

2 cups rice

1 1/2 teaspoons salt (or less, depending on how salty the stock is)

4 cups chicken stock

1 pound medium raw shrimp, shelled and deveined

1/4 pound hard sausage, julienned (you'll need to check the sausage ingredients on the label)

1/4 pound prosciutto, thinly sliced

1 green pepper, stemmed, cored and julienned

1 red pepper, stemmed, cored and julienned

1/2 cup chopped parsley

salt to taste

1/2 to 3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Heat oil in a heavy pot. Add scallions and saute over medium heat, stirring, for 5 minutes. add saffron, crumbled, and cook for 2 minutes longer

Add the rice and stir, coating the grains well with oil. Season with the 1 1/2 tsp salt (or less, depending on how salty the stock is). Pour in chicken stock and stir. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook over low heat (How long to cook depends on what rice you use, but 15 to 20 minutes). Cook until rice is jsut done and all liquid has been absorbed. Fluff with a fork and let cool.

Meanwhile bring 2 quarts of water to a boil, then add the shrimp. Immediately cover and let stand for several minutes, until the shrimp is done. Drain shrimp and reserve.

Transfer cooked rice to a large bowl. Add shrimp, sausage and prosciutto, red and green peppers, parsley, salt to taste and black pepper. Toss thoroughly.

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Saffron being expensive, I put about half of what the recipe calls for in.

[Juliebove]

This is not my recipe but I love it!

Open Original Shared Link

I also used to make this quite a bit, prior to learning of my dairy allergy.

Open Original Shared Link

I didn't use the pancetta though.

[Centa]

This is not my recipe but I love it!

Open Original Shared Link

I also used to make this quite a bit, prior to learning of my dairy allergy.

Open Original Shared Link

I didn't use the pancetta though.

Juliebove, that rice dish in feelingdeliciousblogspot.com looks super! I'll be trying it this week.

Hoping that we do get a "my favorite rice dish" thread going, here's another one, all vegetarian this time. It has 2 ingredients that you'll probably need to find in an Indian foodstore. I think the garnish really makes the dish. People who don't eat onions or garlic will need to skip this one or modify it. The next rice dish I'll look for won't have either in it. But for someone interested in a dish that is tasty and a little exotic, to Western tastebuds, here's a dish that goes well with a chicken or mild fish main dish.

Kashmiri Rice

500 grams (2 1/4 cups) basmati or other long-grain unprepared rice

1 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, finely sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

5 cardamom pods, flattened a little, to release flavor

3 whole cloves

1 small quill (stick) cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads (optional)

1 liter (slightly over 2 cups) very hot water

2 teaspoons sea salt

3 tablespoons sultanas (light colored raisins)

Garnish

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup cashews

3 hard boiled eggs

In a large, heavy pot with a well-fitting lid, heat the ghee and olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and spices. Stir frequently for about 8 minutes or until the onion starts to brown a little on the edges. Add the rice, stir to coat, and cook for 2 minutes longer, stirring. Add the hot water, salt, sultanas and, if you put it in, saffron. Bring to a boil, cover, lower the heat as low as possible, and cook for 15 to 17 minutes (until the grains are tender but just done).

Meanwhile boil the eggs. If the cashews are raw, toast them in a tiny bit of oil until they're golden. Cook the peas until they're bright green.

Fluff the rice and mound in a large dish. Scatter the peas, cashews and sliced eggs over the top.

The cardamom pods and cinnamon stick are for flavoring, and aren't to be eaten, so you may want to alert your diners new to cardamom to set them aside when they find them. I've chewed the pods...they certainly are edible...but no need to have that flavor blast

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Ghee can be found in Indian foodstores, in jars. Since it's clarified butter & doesn't have the butter solids in it, it keeps for a long time in the fridge. Or you can clarify butter by melting it, letting the solids settle on the bottom of the pan & then pouring off the clear butter. It's the clear butter that you use. You could skip it, but it does contribute to the overall flavor

Cardamom is green cardamom. There's black cardamom too & you don't want that for this recipe. Look for dried green seed pods that are about 1/3" long. They usually have them in small, inexpensive packets.

Cinnamon in sticks, not ground, can be gotten in either regular supermarkets or in an Indian foodstore

Sea salt gives a bit of different taste, but you can use regular salt

[hathor]

I found this recipe in "The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet." I've made it a number of times and it is yummy -- creamy with no fat. You can adjust it to whatever veggies you have around. If you keep Arborio rice and vegetable stock on hand, you will have a simple recipe for dinner you can always make. (I suppose you meateaters can experiment with other additions.)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Combine 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice (I doubt any other rice would work), two 15-oz. cans of vegetable stock, 1 cup water, and finely minced garlic in a casserole. The recipe says a 2-quart casserole but I think that is too small for comfort. I use the biggest one I have. I've used one of those aseptic quart boxes before when I didn't have cans of stock and simply adjusted the amount of water; it doesn't make any difference to the recipe. The original calls for two cloves of garlic, which I find too little. But I always double the amount of garlic in any recipe. At least.

3. Cover and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. At the third stirring, stir in 1 cup water. (Don't panic -- at the first two stirrings, it looks like no water has been absorbed and the recipe is a bust. Magic kicks in before the third.) When done, the rice should have a tender and creamy texture.

4. Stir in cooked vegetable(s) of your choice. The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups, but I've doubled that before without problem. You can really add however much you want.

5. Wait 5 minutes before serving.

I try to throw in additional seasoning that goes with the vegetables I'm using. It seems a little bland without that. But I like spiced food. Dried herbs I put in with the water, fresh with the vegetables. You probably want to make the base recipe one time and see what you think. You can always sprinkle seasoning on top at the table. Cheeselovers can add that, as well.

[irish daveyboy]

Hi 'Centa',

These are links to a few rice recipes that i posted on The Irish Coeliac Society's message board.

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Open Original Shared Link

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Open Original Shared Link

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Open Original Shared Link

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Open Original Shared Link

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Open Original Shared Link

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Hope this helps.

.

Best Regards,

David

[Green12]

My fave for a side dish:

Cilantro Lime Rice

3 cups of hot cooked rice (long grain recommended, since it does not come out mushy)

2 small limes (or 1 large lime)

1 lime, zest of (all of one lime)

1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro

1 teaspoon salt (to taste)

Once your rice is cooked fluff with fork.

Mix in lime juice, zest, cilantro and salt until blended.

[luvs2eat]

My mouth is watering at all these recipes and I don't DARE make them... I am SUCH a carb addict and love rice in any way, shape, or form... which is fine when you can limit yourself to the recommended serving size and not the ENTIRE POT.

I love risotto... again, in any way, shape, or form. What's better than hot, sticky, cheesy rice?

[Mango04]

Creamy Coconut Rice (Dairy-Free, Soy-Free)

1 cup white jasmine rice

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup coconut milk

cook the rice like you normally would.

when it's done, stir in chopped cilantro.

[hathor]

I make a coconut rice dish too -- I add in some garlic and freshly grated ginger.

[Mango04]

I make a coconut rice dish too -- I add in some garlic and freshly grated ginger.

Ooh, good idea.

[Centa]

Wowsie, hathor, David, juliem, luvs2eat, Mango04...the recipes all look fantastic! You have solved my menu planning for weeks! Just do one of those rices & do simple things around it.

Love those recipes with cilantro and lime in them...David, I've got the line out for the fish right now, to make that fish and savory rice dish. Coconut milk, yum.

Hathor, I'll bet you're right about the Arborio, but I have some Spanish rice for paella in the house, so might give it a shot. But Arborio is Arborio.

[Centa]

This is a "fixing in the kitchen" recipe. Things can be added or subtracted, but I do like the combination of the nuts and wild rice. Some scallions could be chopped, sauteed and added, for example. Or a little parsley or thyme.

A Simple Combo

1 4-ounce box of wild rice

2 cups of long-grain white rice

Roughly 5 cups of liquid (water, broth or a combination)

A touch of lemon juice

Mushrooms, sliced

Olive oil

Blanched, slivered almonds

Salt

Pepper

First start the wild rice cooking, since it takes up to an hour to cook. In a medium saucepan, bring 2 1/2 cups liquid and 1/4 tsp salt to a boil. Stir in rice, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 60 minutes. If you want a softer texture, cook for a few more minutes. Since the white rice is soft, I like wild rice to be cooked, but firm.

As it cooks, put a teaspoon or so of olive oil in a small skillet and toast the almonds until they begin to brown. Take them out and set them aside. Add a little more olive oil and the sliced mushrooms. I like to saute them on high enough heat that they begin to firm and brown a little before they release their juices. Season the mushrooms, with salt and pepper Set the mushrooms aside.

Finally, cook the long-grain white rice. What kind you have and whether or not you rinse and/or soak it will affect total cooking time. I put a touch of lemon juice in the cooking water...say 1/2 teaspoon, but no more. Season the cooking water before you cover the rice, lower the heat and steam cook it

Last step: assemble it all, mixing the two rices, the mushrooms and the nuts.

[Centa]

Any more nice recipes, anybody? Maybe we can make a little cookbook here in this thread

....I have a few more. When I found out that I had celiac, I pretty much stopped eating bread and baked goods...I didn't like the taste of what I could find in the stores, either prepared or in mixes. So my attention went to rice... One more, from my collection. Do you have one? This one takes some fiddling, but the result is that the flavor is really deep in the rice.

I usually double this amount, but this would serve 4 as a side.

Since my "house" rice is long-grain, I use that, but short-grain will be more authentically Spanish.

That 1/2 dried pepper gives the dish its special taste

Arroz con calabac

[Matilda]

...

[hathor]

I love paella. I have several recipes I've found online. I add an assortment of variously colored veggies.

Hoppin' John is good, too. You can find many different versions. Here's one:

Open Original Shared Link

Something I made recently that we enjoyed:

Open Original Shared Link

Of course, there are lots of things that can be spooned OVER rice, for instance:

Open Original Shared Link

I know I have some other favorites, but it will take some searching and I can't take the time right now to find them and/or type them up. I'm leaving town in a few hours and I should be pulling things together and not talking on the internet Once I get back, I'll look around some more ... unless I get glutened/caseined/soyed while I am gone ...

[Green12]

All of these recipes sound so good!

I have been searching high and low for a favorite rice recipe of mine, it's a stuffed red bell pepper recipe.

There are lots of them out there but most of them use cheese and I am casein free, so that is why I liked this particular recipe I am trying to find, it didn't have cheese.

I will keep looking for it!

[missy'smom]

This is a great thread. Thank you for starting it!

[Centa]

You're welcoome. I'm happy as a clam with all these new wonderful recipes to try, thanks to all of you.

Julie, great...we'll wait...sounds really good. Hathor, I had forgotten about hopping john, and that loaf looks very interesting. Matilde, thank you for leading me to Delia Smith...I have her site bookmarked now. I can see why she's famous in Britain

Here's today's from me. There's a variation on this from various countries, but Iran takes honors...as the cookbook writer, Claudia Roden, who is an Egyptian Jew and who years ago in another cookbook introduced me to how Mediterrranean and Middle Eastern cooking relate to each other, remarks, "Iranians have a predilection for fresh herbs."

Mrs. Roden remarks that the herbs are varied according to individual taste, but some favorites are tarragon, chives, flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, dill, fenugreek, and cilantro. Use 3 or 4 and use fresh, not dried.

I've eaten both Iranian and Iraqi dishes that marry this kind of rice with chunks of sauteed lamb meat or have it beside lamb shanks. I've also eaten a kind of a fusion Hindi recipe that does the same, so if you like lamb you might try that. Iraqis put in a handful of cooked green fava beans.

The herbs and scallions do need to be finely chopped, since the rice steam, not separate cooking, cooks them

Sabzi Polow (Rice with Herbs) (Claudia Roden, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food)

2 cups basmati rice

Salt

A huge bunch (2 full cups) of mixed herbs, including tarragon, chives, flat-leaf parsley, cilantro and dill, finely chopped

6 scallions, finely chopped

3 tablespoons butter or 4 tablespoons vegetable oil

Wash the rice in warm water and drain.

Bring plenty of salted water to the boil. Pour in the rice and boil for about 12 minutes, until the rice is still slightly undercooked. Throw in the herbs and scallions, mix with the rice, and pour the rice into a colander and drain at once.

In the rice pot, heat half the butter or oil. Pour in the rice and add the remaining butter and salt to taste. Stir gently, cover with a tight-fitting lid, and steam over very low heat until done. (Mrs. Roden says 15-20 minutes more, but the basmati available here never seems to need that long a finishing time, so I'd say, check it. Mine would usually be done in another 10 minutes max.)

Or if you prefer, mix in the herbs at the very end.

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There's a reason for the draining, butter on the bottom and butter on top, but I sometimes take the easy route, which is to put a couple tablespoons of butter in the bottom of the pot at the beginning, saute the rice until it's coated, add water, cover, lower the heat and steam the rice.

About two minutes before the rice is done through but still "al dente", lift the lid and stir in the herbs, scallions and remainder of the butter or oil, set the lid back on tightly and finish steaming.

That's the speed-cooking way, but you do get the herbiness. Mrs. Roden tells you the traditional way. The draining and then reheating with butter does improve the texture, and the butter taste stands forward a little.

[Centa]

OK, after this one, I'll rest my oars for a few days. But if there are any takers out there, I also have a recipe for Dirty Rice, a name guaranteed to put a lot of people off . It's a traditional Cajun dish with chicken livers in it. If there are any takers out there, let me know, and up it goes. Otherwise, I'm going to sit tight ... I have a massive grocery list going, thanks to all of you.

I just doublechecked my Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce bottle. Everything checks out down to the "natural flavorings", which it didn't specify....the website says: "Lea & Perrins Worcestershire is suitable for a coeliac diet, for further information on Nutritional and Allergy queries please contact us." If you're dubious, I'd say drop that ingredient. Maybe someone on the site has sleuthed that "natural flavorings" a little more...

Trinity Rice with Almonds (Marjie Lambert, Cajun Cooking)

As the cookbook writer remarks, onions, peppers and celery are the trinity of Louisiana cooking. They show up together in a lot of recipes.

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup slivered or sliced blanched almonds

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (see above)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 tomato, seeded and chopped

1/2 cup chopped green onion

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

2 cups long-grain white rice

In a medium skillet, heat the butter or olive oil. Saute the celery, green pepper, onion and garlic until limp, about 5 minutes. Remove the vegetables and set aside. If there is no oil left in the pan, add about 1 tablespoon more Add the almonds, and stir frequently, until they are lightly browned Add the Worcestershire and stir well. Set aside.

In a large saucepan, bring 3 1/2 cups water to a boil. Add the salt, pepper, tomato, green onion, parsley, sauteed vegetables and almonds and return to a boil. Add the rice, stir well and reduce the heat to very low, cover and cook until all the water is absorbed and rice is fluffy, 20-25 minutes. Or, to avoid scorching, you may turn off the burner and let the rice cook in its own steam heat for the last few minutes. Fluff and serve.