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!

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

8 dried apricots

6 dates

2 tbsp raisins

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup brown (basmati) rice

1/4 cup wild rice

6 cardamom pods

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cinnamon/1 ½ cups water

3 tbsp pine nuts

1/4 cup boiling water

1 red pepper, chopped

1/2 tsp dried mint

1/2 cup chickpeas, soaked and cooked

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Slice the apricots and chop the dates. Put them in a bowl with the raisins and pour over 1/4 cup boiling water. This will make them plump up.
• Slice the onion and then cut the slices in half; chop the garlic.
• Put them into a saucepan, together with the rice, seeds from the cardamom pods, cumin, coriander and cinnamon.
• Pour in the water. (If your lid doesn’t fit very well, add an extra 1/2 cup.)/Bring to the boil and then turn down the heat; leave it simmering for 40 minutes. Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan, under a grill, or on a tray in the oven. Keep an eye on them : they burn very easily.
• When the rice is almost cooked, add the dried fruit and any liquid, along with the red pepper, mint and drained chickpeas. If it all looks too dry, add a little more water.
• Cook until everything is heated through and the flavours have combined.
• Serve sprinkled with the pine nuts.

Variations:

• Instead of pine nuts, you could use either chopped cashews or almonds. If you can’t afford any of them, the pilaf will still taste fine.
• If you can lay hands on a bunch of flat-leaved parsley, add a generous amount of this, roughly chopped, right at the end of the cooking time. Don’t be tempted to substitute fresh coriander – it will tend to overpower the rather delicate flavour of this pilaf.
• Use the chickpeas to make falafel (either the 'real way', with ground soaked chickpeas, or the phoney way, with cooked ones) and serve these on top of the pilaf, perhaps with some yoghurt or tahini sauce.

You will find many more rice recipes here

Spinach and rice casserole

 

I love spinach and there are many ways to cook it. This is as 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.

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1½ cups brown rice

bunch of spinach

1 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup grated cheese

2 eggs

nutmeg

cracked black pepper

2 tbsp sesame seeds

 

Method:

• Cook the rice in the usual fashion.
• Wash the spinach and then roughly chop it. 
• Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the spinach and cook it for about 3 minutes. Keep it moving so that it gets coated in oil and the stuff at the top of the pan can cook, too.
• Lower the heat and insert a flame tamer, if necessary. Add the cooked rice, diced garlic and the grated cheese. Mix well.
• Beat the eggs. and stir in with the other ingredients. Season generously with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Smooth the top over and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. 
• Cover and cook over a low heat for 15 minutes. Take off the cooker and leave to stand for 3 or 4 minutes before serving, just in case it has ‘caught’.

Some lightly cooked carrots go well with this.

 

Note:

• If you have an oven, finish it off in there, once you've mixed everything together and added the sesame seeds.  That way you will brown it and get toasted sesame seeds.

Variations:

• Use Swiss chard instead of spinach.
• If you eat eggs, but don't eat dairy products, use vegan cheese or mix 2 tbsp nutritional yeast in with the eggs. 

 

 You will find many more rice recipes here

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. 

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup red kidney beans

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 garlic clove

1/2 cup rice

1 cup water

1 small can sweetcorn

1 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp dried chillies

1 tbsp cream of coconut

400 g/14 oz can diced tomatoes or 3 medium ones, chopped

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Cook the kidney beans in the usual way.
• In a large saucepan, fry the chopped onion and garlic in the oil. Add the rice and fry for a few more minutes, until the grains become opaque. Add the water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 30 minutes.
• Gently mix in the drained beans, sweetcorn, tomatoes, thyme, chilli and coconut, being careful not to mash the beans. Keep hot over a very low heat until the rice is cooked
• Heat everything through and season carefully.

Serve with a green vegetable.

 

Note:

• This is the basic dish. Green pepper is a pleasant addition
• Mustard greens go very well with this, if you can find them; or chard or cabbage.  
• Cream of coconut - like a hard slab of butter - isn't always easy to obtain.  Use coconut milk or cream instead.

You will find many more rice recipes here

West Indian rice and beans

This is real voyaging on a small income food: dirt cheap and from food you have in the lockers.  It's filling and easy to cook.  I love kidney beans, but when I was voyaging, found myself cooking them too often as Chilli sin carne, but this recipe makes a pleasant change and is particularly good in areas where fresh vegetables are limited.  You can also use black beans - they are very popular in the West Indies.  

 

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.

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup kidney or black beans, soaked and cooked

1/2 cup rice

1 cup water

2 tbsp oil

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1 1/2 tsp thyme

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Cook the beans.  Drain black beans carefully so that the meal doesn't turn out grey! Put the rice in the water, add salt and cook in the usual way.
• About ten minutes before the rice is cooked, heat the oil in a saucepan and add the chopped onion and diced garlic. Cook them until they’re softened then add the thyme.  
• When the rice is cooked, turn it out of the pan onto the vegetables and add the beans, salt and pepper.
• Carefully combine everything, ensuring that the rice and beans don’t get mashed. Cover and cook until everything is piping hot.
• Serve with a green vegetable.

Variations:

• A chilli pepper, fresh or dried go well in this recipe - indeed I'd recommend it.
• 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes also works. 
• If you can't get cream of coconut, substitute a small can of coconut cream (or use dried coconut milk anda little extra water, if you have it).
• Traditionally, a sliced carrot was also added. 
• You could add some allspice for a Jamaican flavour!

You will find many more rice recipes here

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.

 

It's an out-and-out voyaging recipe and can even be made in the unlikely event that you've run out of onions, heaven forfend!

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

generous knob of butter OR (vegan) ghee OR 2 tsp olive oil

1/2 cup brown basmati rice

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 cup water

1/4 tsp dried, minced garlic

1 tbsp dried onion OR 1 tsp onion powder OR 1/4 onion, sliced

1 cardamom pod

2 cloves

 

Method:

• Melt the butter in a saucepan and gently fry the rice and turmeric for a couple of minutes.
• Add the water and while it’s coming to the boil, add the garlic, onion, cardamom and cloves.
• When the water has boiled, stir, cover and simmer for about 25 minutes, until all the water is absorbed.
• Take the pan off the heat and leave it a few more minutes to dry out. This will also release any grains from the bottom of the pan which may have caught.
• Remove the cardamom and cloves before serving.

Variation:

•   You might like to add 2 tbsp raisins, if you like a touch of sweetness.  Add them with the onion.

You will find many more rice recipes here

Rice and black-eyed peas with Swiss chard - Lobhia saag pulao

 

This recipe is very freely adapted from one of Vegan Richa’s. For a ‘real’ curry, there are no weird and wonderful spices and there aren’t too many of them, either, which made me feel that the recipe might be tackled by a cook who likes curry, but doesn’t want to faff around too much. It’s a one-pot meal and Swiss chard, if bought very fresh and looked after with loving care, will last for 4 or 5 days, which will take you well into a thousand-mile passage. Spinach would also go very well in this recipe.

 

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.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 tbsp of oil or ghee

1 medium onion, sliced

1 green chilli pepper, chopped

1 tsp ginger paste or chopped ginger

3 cloves garlic, diced

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp garam masala

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cardamom (seeds if you don’t have ground)

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

3 or 4 large leaves of Swiss chard

1/2 cup brown basmati rice

1/2 cup dried black-eyed peas

2½ cups water

salt

1/2 tsp kasuri methi/dried fenugreek leaves

Method:

• Heat the oil in the pressure cooker over medium heat. Add the onion, chilli, ginger and garlic, sprinkle over the salt and mix it in.
• Cook until the onion is translucent.
• Now add the garam masala, cinnamon, and cardamom, lower the heat and cook until the spices smell fragrant.
• Stir in the chopped tomatoes and cook for several minutes until they become juicy. Loosely cover and add a tablespoon of water if the mix seems to be getting to dry: it very much depends on your tomatoes.
• In the meantime, dice the chard. Don’t worry that there won’t be any texture after it has been cooked: the original recipe calls for it to be blended.
• Now add the black-eyed peas to the pressure cooker, together with the rice and the water.
• Put on the lid, bring up to pressure and cook for 10 minutes, let the pressure reduce naturally.
• Taste the mixture: you will probably need more salt. If it seems very wet, let it simmer over a low heat until some of the water evaporates. The amount of moisture will depend on both the tomatoes and the greens.
• Add the dried fenugreek, if you’re using it.
• Serve hot, maybe with roti if you’re really hungry!

Note:

• If you are using spinach, you would want ‘ bunch’. It is usually sold in an unspecified amount, but as it’s not filling and it shrinks away to nothing once you heat it, unless the bunch looks enormous you’re unlikely to have too much.

Variation:

• Try other greens, such as mustard greens or spring cabbage.
• Whole lentils would also work with this recipe, as would mung beans.
• Long grain brown rice should also cook satisfactorily in the same time as the black-eyed beans. If yours seems to take a very long time, I suggest adding it with the water and cooking it for a few minutes, letting the pressure reduce, then adding the beans and spinach to ensure that the rice is cooked through without cooking the beans to a mush.

 

You will find many more rice recipes here