Twice-cooked rice
Another in my occasional foray into cookery blogging. On Friday, I cooked a big meal in anticipation of my partner's daughters arriving - only to be phoned ten minutes before they should have been arriving to find out it wasn't going to happen. Well, I'd done a sticky chicken with broccoli and rice. The sticky chicken was sort of chinese influenced and very tasty, so got eaten up by my partner having seconds. But it did mean that there was lots of rice left over - just plain long grain rice boiled with some salt in the water.
So today, I stirred the rice until it broke apart into separate grains (it tends to stick as it cools) and then emptied it into a large frying pan, which I had put on a moderate heat with a tablespoon of olive oil. This recipe does not call for any standard measurements as it's rarely easy to be precise with leftovers. I then added sultanas, frozen peas and frozen sweetcorn kernels - approximately the same volume of each, which in turn was about one fifth of the volume of the rice I started with. And half a small pack of pine nuts. I continued to stir until I was happy that the entire pan full was warmed through. I then added about two teaspoons of soy sauce (fish sauce would also work well, it's just to balance the sweetness of the veggies and dried fruit with a salt umami flavour). And finally, I popped a couple of eggs in a measuring jug and beat them before pouring the egg mixture so that it was as widely distributed round the pan as possible and then stirring until the egg was cooked. Then off the heat and into bowls to serve.
The protein is provided by the egg, peas and pine nuts, there's good fibre from the peas and sultanas and starchy carbs from the rice and corn. All sugars in the dish are from vegetable and fruit origins, the fat is from egg yolks and olive oil, both of which have good reports with respect to the types of fat contained within. So a healthy balanced dish, with only about ten minutes prep, if you don't count having to boil the rice in the first place. Pretty inexpensive too. My partner enjoyed it so much he had seconds. Oh and it's suitable for vegetarians, even though both my partner and I are omnivores. I hope that this is useful for someone else and enjoyable too!
EDIT: If there's too much for one sitting in this lot, it can be boxed up, refrigerated (frozen if necessary) and then reheated in the microwave too.
So today, I stirred the rice until it broke apart into separate grains (it tends to stick as it cools) and then emptied it into a large frying pan, which I had put on a moderate heat with a tablespoon of olive oil. This recipe does not call for any standard measurements as it's rarely easy to be precise with leftovers. I then added sultanas, frozen peas and frozen sweetcorn kernels - approximately the same volume of each, which in turn was about one fifth of the volume of the rice I started with. And half a small pack of pine nuts. I continued to stir until I was happy that the entire pan full was warmed through. I then added about two teaspoons of soy sauce (fish sauce would also work well, it's just to balance the sweetness of the veggies and dried fruit with a salt umami flavour). And finally, I popped a couple of eggs in a measuring jug and beat them before pouring the egg mixture so that it was as widely distributed round the pan as possible and then stirring until the egg was cooked. Then off the heat and into bowls to serve.
The protein is provided by the egg, peas and pine nuts, there's good fibre from the peas and sultanas and starchy carbs from the rice and corn. All sugars in the dish are from vegetable and fruit origins, the fat is from egg yolks and olive oil, both of which have good reports with respect to the types of fat contained within. So a healthy balanced dish, with only about ten minutes prep, if you don't count having to boil the rice in the first place. Pretty inexpensive too. My partner enjoyed it so much he had seconds. Oh and it's suitable for vegetarians, even though both my partner and I are omnivores. I hope that this is useful for someone else and enjoyable too!
EDIT: If there's too much for one sitting in this lot, it can be boxed up, refrigerated (frozen if necessary) and then reheated in the microwave too.