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| Photo credit: Jeanette Watson |
This page is for recipes that are based around rice, such as pulao, pilaf, paella and risotto. It doesn't include 'curries', because these are often eaten with naan or roti. Normal, 'voyaging curries' are to be found on the page entitled Main-course recipes - vegetable based. For those who are slightly more ambitious and don't mind overloading their lockers with spices, more Indian recipes can be found on the page titled Curries for cooks. You will guess that I love making food from the Indian sub-continent.
THE BASICS
Rice is, as most sailors know, an ideal
ingredient for voyaging. Compact, nutritious, easy to cook and
available (and recognisable) in most places, it is made for seagoing.
I like to use brown basmati rice, which is much more readily
available than it used to be and cooks almost as quickly as white
rice. I also use white, short-grained rice (arborio) for risotto and
paella. I haven't had much success with brown, short-grained rice –
it doesn't seem to go creamy – but I can only buy Australian rice
and suspect it's a different varietal, anyway. By all means try it –
you might have more success! I prefer brown (unpolished) rice, not
only because it has more flavour and is more filling, but also
because it contains nutrients that get lost in the processing. Any vege~an diet should also be a wholegrain diet, for optimal health benefits and also because they taste so good!
I store my rice in 5l jerricans (well, one jerrican these days). When you are actively voyaging, or stocking up in warm places, it's
always worth putting in a piece of tissue, soaked in meths, when
filling them up, to keep weevils at bay (or to kill those already there). Even if your rice is weevil free, if you're
unfortunate enough to ship them aboard in something else, it will
stop them getting in and ruining your rice. It is amazing how they seem to be able to get into watertight containers. I have no idea why the meths
works – the amount of alcohol must be homeopathic – but I can
assure you that it does.
I have never understood why people
would ever buy a rice cooker, and why people make such a fuss about
cooking rice. I don't think I've ever come across rice that needs
washing either, although, to be fair, as much to avoid infestations as anything else, I always used to try and buy in cooler countries, where it's imported and all nicely cleaned first.
While I will endlessly sing the praises of brown basmati rice, if I don't actually state it in the ingredient list, assume the recipe is written for 'brown rice', which takes longer to cook.
To cook perfect brown rice in a saucepan
2 portions
1 cup water OR 1/3 cup seawater + 2/3
cup fresh
1/2 cup brown rice
1/4 tsp salt
Method:
- Put the water and rice in a medium saucepan. Add the salt if you're not using seawater.
- Bring to the boil and cover.
- Put the pan over a low heat and cook for 35 to 40 minutes. Use a flame tamer if necessary, but the water should be just simmering. If it boils too quickly, the water will steam off rather than beaing absorbed
- Take off the heat and let the rice stand for a few minutes to absorb the last of the water, if necessary.
- Brown basmati rice, as well as tasting the best, in my opinion, is much quicker to cook - 20 - 25 minutes and much more likely to absorb the water perfectly and end up with nicely separated grains. I really recommend it.
- If you are buying 'long grain, brown rice', it will vary tremendously from one brand to another. While the 2 of water to 1 of rice has always worked for me, the cooking time can vary from about 25 minutes up to 45 minutes, obviously depending on the varietal. When you stock up with new rice, its worth spending a bit of time getting to know it.
- If you have only one burner, you can cook the rice for 5 minutes, take it off for 5 minutes, put it back on, etc.
- If you don’t want to juggle or use more than one burner, cook the rice for 20 minutes and then leave it to one side. It will continue cooking. About 5 minutes before you intend to serve it, check to ensure that it’s fully cooked and that all the water is absorbed. If it isn’t or hasn’t, put the pan back on for 5 minutes. This method is not entirely foolproof, however, and you might end up with a less-than-perfect result, although the rice will still be satisfactory.
- If you have good appetites, you might find 3/4 cup a more appropriate amount for 2 people. I find 1/2 cup makes me two ample portions.
Pressure cooker rice
It's hardly worth doing this with brown basmati, but the other types vary tremendously. It appears to me that the longer and thinner the grains, the easier and quicker brown rice is
to cook. You will have gathered by now that to me, brown basmati is the queen of
rice, and well worth investing in if you find some
that is affordable. Because I am now almost vegan, I have a bit more money to spend on food, and so basmati rice is one of my primary indulgences.
Cooking rice in the pressure cooker is a bit more
hit and miss than in the saucepan, simply because of its
variability, so you may need to experiment a little with the timing. However, the good news is that the longer it needs to cook, the less chance you have of overcooking it. Moreover, I think that brown rice is anyway much more forgiving and much less likely to dissolve into a horrid mush. (To be perfectly honest, it is literally decades since I cooked long-grain, white rice, so forgive me if some of my comments about it are awry.) I have also come to realise that there is a big difference between cooking on paraffin and cooking on meths, for example, so it's hard to be too definite with timings, something which is only exacerbated by the facts that not all pressure cookers announce at what pressure they cook and a big stainless steel pressure cooker will take a lot longer to heat up than a small alloy one. All in all, I am rather flabbergasted at how the majority of recipe bloggers can tell me that my onions will be cooked to perfection in 7 minutes and similar statements! I find cooking - well at least cooking on a boat - much more art than science. Anyway, back to the pressure cooker rice, assuming 'standard' brown rice.
2 portions
Ingredients
1 cup water OR 1/3 cup seawater + 2/3
cup fresh
1/2 cup brown rice
1/4 tsp salt
Method:
- Put the water and rice into a pressure cooker. Add the salt if you are using all fresh water.
- Bring up to pressure.
- Lower the flame and cook over a medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes, just keeping the pressure going.
- Take the pan off and let the pressure reduce naturally. The rice will stay hot for a long time in the sealed pressure cooker, and, within reason, the longer it stands, the drier it will be.
Note:
- As mentioned above, brown rice varies widely from varietal to varietal and brand to brand. If you eat a lot of rice, like I do, you will probably be buying at least 5 kilos at a time, so it's well worth carefully experimenting with cooking times, when you restock. When I was voyaging I would often buy 20 k at a time.
THE RECIPES
Chickpeas with mushrooms and rice
Mushrooms, a
sublime gift from a benign Providence, are becoming more and more
easily available to cruising people. Because of this, I include them
rather more often than I would have done had I written this blog 15
years ago - if there were blogs, 15 years ago. While canned mushrooms are a sad travesty of the real
thing, ‘freeze-dried’ ones are a very acceptable substitute and,
where available, are not outrageously expensive. While they don’t
need pre-soaking, it does them no harm. If you're cooking the
chickpeas from scratch, rather than using a tin, put the dried mushrooms in
at the same time. Half a cup of mushrooms would need about the same
water. You can of course buy such exotics as porcini or Chinese dried
mushrooms, although I find the latter rather too chewy and, particularly the dark ones, slightly
overpowering unless diced quite small. On the other hand, those packets of Chinese, dried 'white' mushrooms are wonderfully versatile and have a lovely flavour profile.
Chickpea and wild rice pilaf
Depending on the type, it is not always as easy to get dry rice, with the separate grains that is best for a pilaf with brown rice, but I much prefer it to
white. However, if you use brown basmati rice, you will get perfect results.
In this recipe, I use 30% wild rice. I’m sure you
could use 100%, but suspect that it would be a little
overpowering, to say nothing of being wildly extravagant. This pilaf
usually seems popular and to me, has an "authentic" taste (although I doubt it has!). Don’t be
put off by the long list of ingredients: it’s actually very
straightforward to make and even good enough for entertaining!
Chickpeas and wild rice with tomatoes
This is one of those you-win-all-ways,
recipes. For all that, it’s simple, easy to cook and uses food that
you - or at any rate I - always have to hand. To me, it’s so delicious that it’s fit for
a celebration or to give to guests. I love it, and every time I make
it, I only wish that I’d made twice as much!
If you don't have wild rice on board, substitute your normal brown. It will still make a lovely meal.
Paella
One of the ways in which paella is similar to Persian pilaf is that it is
cooked in such a way that the rice at the bottom of the pan forms a
crust, know as socarrat.
This is full of flavour and adds to this already delicious
dish. All the cookery books tell you that this crust won’t
form if you use a non-stick frying pan: that may well be correct if
you have one coated in Teflon, but my Spanish Valira
frying pan/skillet apparently has a multi-layer non-stick surface
made from titanium (!) and this certainly allows for the socarrat
to develop.
I reckon you need to be reasonably generous with the olive oil,
but, more importantly, once you’ve added the water, don’t
stir it.
If you do, you’ll lift up the rice that’s at the bottom of the
pan and the socarrat
will have to start all over again. However, don’t worry it
it doesn't
form: the paella will still be yummy.
As
a reality check, for voyagers who don’t want to make or buy sausage
of some description, I’ve tried leaving out the sausage. It still
tastes fantastic. In fact, I’m often too lazy to make chorizo, and the photo shows an alternative with no sausage and with chick peas instead of white beans.
Rice and black-eyed peas with Swiss chard
Black-eyed peas are quite popular in
Indian cuisine and have the advantage that they don’t need soaking.
They also need the same time to cook as brown basmati rice, so make
a perfect match. This is a very pleasant curry, even following my
method rather than making it the ‘right way’, which involves a
blender and thus some awkward washing up.
Red kidney beans and rice, with sweetcorn
I used to cook West Indian rice and beans fairly often, when I was voyaging - it's cheap and filling, but it can be
pretty uninspiring even with generous amounts of coconut cream, thyme and chilli. This version is a little
more interesting and can be made very quickly, with the judicious use
of cans and if you pressure-cook the rice.
Special rice
This
is a way of cooking rice so that
it looks attractive, when you’ve worked a bit harder at the main
course and want the rice to complement your efforts. It’s not difficult,
but worth the extra few minutes it
takes to make it. Obviously, the ingredients aren't going to combine
that well with your Spanish stew, but it will pretty much go with any
recipe that originates east of Italy. It was intended as a sort of
Indian pulao.
Spinach and rice casserole
I love spinach and there are many ways
to cook it. This is a very simple recipe and if you are one of these
terribly organised people, you can even cook the rice well in
advance, in which case it will go together very quickly.
There’s no real point in specifying a
weight of spinach – you tend to get what you’re given and take
it. Suffice it to say that there has to be enough to feed two people.
If you’re unused to cooking spinach, be warned: a big bunch that
will hardly stuff into the shopping bag becomes only a few cupfuls
when it’s cooked.
Risotto
I
have tried it
with short-grain brown rice, rather than arborio, but the result has
been disappointing. From what I have read, risotto is meant to be of a
creamy consistency, so it shouldn't stand up on its own, moulded on the
plate. Nor should it have any cream in it - the creaminess comes from
the starch in the rice - and really, not even
that much cheese. The Italians are firm believers in Less is More.
Jamie
Oliver adds lots of celery to his
risotto and very good it is too. However, celery is not the sort of
thing that most voyagers carry, because it comes in large quantities
and doesn’t keep that well. Instead I have gone for a unique Annie
touch (or so I would like to think) and use fennel seeds. Very
Italian and very voyager friendly. I also occasionally add celery
seeds, too, in a nod to Mr Oliver. Classic risotto recipes use neither, however, so feel free to leave them out if you prefer.
What follows is the basic recipe
with the usual variations at the end Although I see a lot of recipes include vegetables early in the
cooking process, traditionally most appear to be added at the end. I
dare say that's because after all the stirring, etc, the veg would be
mashed. However, with those that will re-heat quickly like mushrooms,
it's better to pre-fry them with the onion and garlic and then set
aside. I usually sprinkle in some of my mushroom stock powder, just before adding the water and recommend it, but if you only have commercial stock you can use that, in which case go carefully with your salt. If you don't
particularly want to fry your vegetable of choice, for example if you're
making, for example
green bean risotto, partially cook the beans first and use the
cooking water for stock. But in reality – just go for
it!
Please check the Notes before cooking :-)
Swiss chard with lentils and rice
This is much simpler than most of those I’ve just mentioned, and I was very pleased with the result – there is just enough seasoning to stop it from being bland, which is what I wanted, this day. It’s also quick and easy to make. When one buys Swiss chard, it tends to come in fairly large quantities and while the green part disappears in much the same way as spinach does once you cook it, the stalks are more noticeable. I like the stalks and don’t always want to put them aside for another meal: this recipe combines both parts of the chard very acceptably. However, the combination of dark lentils (I used green), brown rice and dark green chard don’t make for a visually very exciting meal!
Swiss chard with rice and lentils
West Indian rice and beans
Don't be put off by the amount of thyme - it is meant to season the food
quite strongly. Cream of coconut - like a hard slab of butter - isn't
always easy to obtain. Use coconut milk or cream instead.
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