Ecclectica

Black Opal :: Ecclectica :: Recipes

I have a love-hate relationship with cooking - sometimes I love it and sometimes I get so sick of it I don't cook anything for a week or two, surviving on bread and butter, takeaway, 2-minute noodles, and tea. But when I'm in the mood the creative juices flow and they sometimes end up in the pot (ew!).

I don't follow recipes, as such. I have a suspicion there are a lot of people out there like me who simply go with their intuitive culinary sense of flavour, aroma, colour, etc, to create a dish rather than follow a set "how-to". That said, there are a few dishes that have been a success and which are relatively easy to reproduce, and which I therefore recreate on a regular basis. Here are some of those "recipes".

Fancy Rice #1

2 cups uncooked white rice (preferably long grain)		handful of sultanas
handful of pine nuts		1/4 red capsicum, chopped into small pieces
1/4 green capsicum, chopped into small pieces		1/2 small onion, finely diced
olive oil		roasted sesame oil
1/2-2 teaspoon cummin seeds		2-4 cardamon pods (break open and remove seeds - discard pods)
1/2-2 teaspoon ground coriander		1-3 teaspoons pomegranate sauce
1/2-2 teaspoon fennel seeds

Boil or steam the rice as you would normally (I used to boil it in a pot on the stove, but now I have a rice cooker and I love it). It is best to refrigerate the rice for at least a couple of hours as this makes it a lot easier to seperate it and mix through the other ingredients without it turning into a horrible sludgy porridge. Put the rice in a nice big bowl to make it easier to stir through too.

Pour a little olive oil and or roasted sesame oil (I recommend not using only roasted sesame oil as it will overpower the other flavours) in a good solid-based frypan. Turn the heat on moderate and add the diced onion, the cummin seeds and the cardamon seeds. With a fork keep the ingredients moving in the pan so that the onion browns and the seeds roast, but don't burn. When they are nicely roasted/browned, stir it through the rice with a fork.

Place the pan back onto the heat and add the pine nuts. Stir these constantly to make sure they lightly roast (turn partly translucent) without browning (browning = burnt!). When done stir through the rice with a fork.

A little more oil in the pan and add the fennel seeds, the coriander and the sultanas. Stir so that the seeds roast nicely and the sultanas will start to plump up a little and the sugars caramelise. When they look almost ready add the pomegranate sauce and stir through a few more times, then pur over the rice and stir through with a fork.

Now add the chopped capsicum and stir through.

The idea is to prepare each set of ingredients seperately based on how well and how fast they react to the heat. This is a very easy dish to make and yet is very tasty and versatile. Its tasty enough alone but is really ideal (and this is why I made it and continue to make it) for parties, picnics, etc. It goes well with middle eastern and Indian foods, as well as a range of other types of meals, and can be prepared from many different ingredients (notice that it doesn't take much in the way of solid - i.e. non-spice - ingredients). The listed ingredients above are only a guide to what I normally use (basically whatever happens to be in the fridge at the time!). The quantities of the spices vary because you can be as skimpy or as generous as you want to be, based on your tastes and predilections. It also looks good.

BTW, the pomegranate sauce is a fantastic ingredient and I don't know how I lived without it so long. You can find it in Afghani, Persian, Lebanese, and some Indian spice shops. If you don't have it you needn't worry, but you could try a little honey with perhaps a drop or two of lemon or lime juice to replace it - or not.

Easy Spicy Rice

1-2 teaspoons panch phorum

OR:mix of cummin seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds

2 cups uncooked white rice (preferably long grain or basmati)

2 teaspoons oil (olive, roasted sesame, coconut, etc)

salt to taste

The best and easiest way to do this is with a rice cooker. In fact the only way I can do it is either with a rice cooker or using a microwave rice bucket, as I can never get the hang of the stovetop absorption method (my mother always cooked rice by boiling in a large pot of water and straining through a colander, & therefore that's the way I do it). If you can handle the stovetop absorption method, then feel free to do so.

Basically you add the oil and the spice mix (panch phorum can be purchased at any shop that sells Indian spices, or use the alternative mix suggested above), the salt and the rice into the rice cooker (or pot on the stove) and cook as you would normally. The wonderful flavou and aroma of the spices permeates the whole of the rice, and looks pretty good too.

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