Spicing Up My Rice

[carpy1985]

Hello All :)

I got a new set of Prestige Pans and a Wok for Xmas and since i have been a bit more adventurous with my cooking!

My favourite so far is to bring some water to the boil and add a chicken stock to the pan and adding rice once this has dissolved. Beautiful!

What i want to do next is to add some spice / colour to the rice... but i am a bit fussy and dont like onions and so was wondering what you would suggest i try adding!

So far i am thinking to finely chop in some peppers or something to add flavour and colour!

If it helps this is to accompany a load of diced up chicken (which i tend to dry fry with some Nandos hot sauce)

Also i am Gluten Intolerant which shouldn't make a difference but just in case!

Thanks Guys and Happy New Year!!

Andrew

[merstar]

You can make Spanish rice and omit the onions, ie, sauteed garlic, peppers, tomatoes, and spices, such as chili powder, cumin, etc.

Or sauteed garlic and peppers, along with some green peas and spices. If you have saffron, it's great in this.

Do you like shallots? You can use those instead of onions in many dishes.

[carpy1985]

Must admit I've never tried Shallots. Think my stigma with Onions is that I hate it when they are either fried or people put massive chunks of them in my food.

I may try some of the things you have suggested including some finely diced dry fried onions (I'm dry frying everything at the minute ha) to see what I like.

Not a clue what saffron is though - nothing google won't solve though!!

[4meandthem]

Try some rice salads. use different veggies,different herbs,different onions. Try some different dressings like pesto,italian.tarragon,green goddess etc. serve warm or cold. try different rices too. They all have their own taste/texture.

For example:
cooked brown basmati
small dice red onion
thawed frozen corn
small dice red bell pepper
chopped Italian Parsley
small dice zuccini
Homemade italian dressing with some fine grated pecorino.

[4meandthem]

Try "Blooming" your onions or shallots if using them raw. My wife won't enjoy them unless i do. It just means a quick marinade in vinegar to cut the sharpness. Try different vinegars. 10-20 minutes is all that is needed.

[carpy1985]

I like brown rice so that's a good one.

Some of those things are another language though haha but I'm seeing that there are a lot of options!!

#Newbie
#StillLearning

[carpy1985]

Originally Posted by 4meandthem

Try "Blooming" your onions or shallots if using them raw. My wife won't enjoy them unless i do. It just means a quick marinade in vinegar to cut the sharpness. Try different vinegars. 10-20 minutes is all that is needed.

NOW!!!

That seems like a very, very good option!!

Do I just literally plonk them into some Vinegar or do they require cooking?!

[Siegal]

sometimes I put a cinnamon stick, tumeric (color), and some other whole spices like crushed cardamom, star anise, cloves, etc
sometimes a black lime (loomi) but not with the other spices

[GLC]

Saffron, the real thing, soaked in water for a while to motivate it and added to the not too strong stock. And for depth, shallots sliced paper thin and added during the last five minutes of cooking.

If barely cooked shallot doesn't appeal, slice them thin and fry them in a bit of oil and top the finished rice with the crispy fried slivers.

[no mayonnaise]

Toast up some cumin seeds in a dry pan and toss them in the rice before cooking, along with a bay leaf. Bonus points if you toss a little butter or ghee in the pan just before the cumin seeds finish toasting.

Also maybe you can try risotto.

One of my favorite things is Furikake. You can get it in a million different flavors but it's the equivalent to putting ketchup on fries or cheese on a burger. Just put it on the rice at the table, with maybe some shoyu or tamari.