Spice Up Your Rice

Supercell

I'm a big fan of rice, would eat basmati or brown rice probably five days a week or more.

Usually its just with a bit of butter and salt and tumeric (nice colour and great health benifits too - very overlooked spice imho) and sometimes a couple of sultanas or raisins thrown in for good measure.

Tonight i'm going to give [url="http://sidedish.allrecipes.com/az/ClssicGrkSpinch.asp]this one a try[/url] using just a tablespoon of olive oil instead.

What other recipies do people here regularily use when cooking rice?, just boiled in water seems very dull..lets be having something more tasty

Tree

boil it,strain it, stir in some sweet chilli sauce (my new favourite secret ingredient) makes a fine late night munchy

The Hill Billy

Here's two for the price of one:

Chilli Chicken Rice or Chinese Chicken Rice

Ingredients
6 chicken breasts cut into bite-sized chunks
Enough cooked rice for 4
2 medium onions, chopped same size as the chicken
2 large green peppers, chopped same size as the chicken
1 bunch scallions, roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 fresh chilli, de-seeded & finely chopped
2 tbsp stir-fry or sunflower oil
½ tsp salt
1 tsp chilli powder & dash of Tabasco (optional – for a bit of a kick)
OR
2 tsp Chinese five spice & soy sauce (optional – for an Asian flavour)

Other veg:
Water chestnuts
Bamboo shoots
baby sweetcorn
mange tout

Preparation
In the large pot or wok, heat the oil & add the chicken, garlic & ginger, fresh chilli & the chilli powder or Chinese five spice
Cook for 8 to 10 mins
Now add the chopped veg (apart from the scallions & tomatoes)
Mix through & cook for a further 10 mins
Now add the cooked rice, scallions & tomatoes & fry for another 3 to 4 mins
Serve straight away, maybe with a dash of Tabasco if you used the chilli powder, or soy sauce if you used the Chinese five spice.

Blub2k4

I use a steamer to cook my rice these days and would find it hard to go back to boiling rice.
Get yourself a steamer, they rock.

lemeister

Pilau Rice Recipe which I use with indian curries (or any curry really):

1 Cup Basmati Rice
1.5 Cups of water
1/2 Onion
1 Tsp Turmeric
1 Cinammon Stick or ground cinammon
4 Cloves (not garlic cloves)
2/3 Bay Leaves
3 Cardomon Pods

Soften the onion in the butter for about 5 mins, then add the Turmeric and Cinammon. Give this a good mix and then add the rice (washed first). Make sure the rice gets well coated with the spice mix and then add the rest of the ingredients and the water. Bring to the boil and then cover with tight fitting lid and turn the heat down low for 10 mins. Don't lift the lid until done. I use tin foil between the lid and the pot to make sure no steam escapes and the rice comes out nice and fluffy with a lovely aromatic flavour.

Kolodny

My lazy method is to cook a small pot of basmati rice, chuck in a large dollop of tikka masala curry paste and add some finely chopped onion, a small tin of tuna and a small tin of peas and fry for a few minutes.

I also sometimes just add some sweet chilli sauce (same as Tree) and can vouch for it being delicious

Misty Moon

Use stock to cook the rice in, instead of water. You need about twice the amount of liquid to rice (i.e. one cup rice, two cups liquid) and to cook it slowly and stirring fairly often to make sure it doesn't stick. I use brown rice which takes 20-30 minutes to cook. When the liquid is mostly absorbed it's ready. Use a little more stock and add some chicken, pineapple and sultanas after the first ten minutes if you want to bulk it out a little. I usually also add some tumeric.

For some reason I also always think that peas (of the frozen garden peas variety or fresh if you can get them) and rice go really well together.

Alun

I do quite a lot of these pilau type things, but (maybe this is considered heresy!) I do the second half of the cooking in the microwave. In other words, do all the frying of spices, veggies etc. and coating of the rice in a normal pan, chuck in the water or stock and then swill it around and pop it into a pyrex or similar dish. Cover with clingfilm with a little bit of an opening at the edge, blast on full power for about 5 mins and then onto medium for another 10 or so, giving it a quick "forking" in between and another when it's finally ready.

I always find trying to do it in the pan itself on a low heat a bit of a disaster, maybe because I've got some nice expensive swiss pans that retain a lot of heat plus a (cough, spit) electric cooker that also is slow to lose heat, so everything ends up sticking. It has the added advantage that I can serve it straight up from the dish I've cooked it in.

Works for me

Supercell

Blub2k4 wrote:

I use a steamer to cook my rice these days and would find it hard to go back to boiling rice.
Get yourself a steamer, they rock.

A steamer?, is this a microwave thing?, steaming is such a more healthy way of cooking than boiling, am very interested in this, Blub2K4 do you have any urls a steamer like yours please, thanks.

Tiriel

Basmati boiled with a tablespoon of Brouillon added (kind of a soup/stock)

Kidney beans fried in a little olive oil with a clove of garlic, add some pine nuts and some parsley

Mix it up and it's ready to munch on
Ususally add some chilli flakes to liven it up a little!

Blub2k4

Longfield wrote:

A steamer?, is this a microwave thing?, steaming is such a more healthy way of cooking than boiling, am very interested in this, Blub2K4 do you have any urls a steamer like yours please, thanks.

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/small-kitchen-electrical/tefal-steam-cuisine-1000-turbo-diffusion/

this is not exactly what I have but it's something very similar, I got it in roches Ithink.
Mine is a tefal steam cuisine, cant work out exactly which model.