Green Beans Rice

Green Beans Rice
serves : 3-4 portions

Ingredients
Instant rice, cooked and cool
1 Tbsp Oil for stir frying
1 Onion, mince
2 cloves Garlic, mince
70g tomato paste
1 tsp smoked paprika
salt to taste
450gm frozen green beans, defrosted
2 sticks Carrots, sliced

Method
1) In cooking pan, on medium heat, heat up the oil, saute mince onion until transparent. Add in mince garlic. Cook until fragrant.
2) Add in sliced carrots, cook for 5 mins. Then add in green beans and cook another 5 mins.
3) Next put in the tomato paste, smoked paprika, salt to taste and a little water, cook for another 2 mins.
4) Finally add in cooled cooked rice, mix well with spice and paste-. Cook until rice is hot.
5) Serve hot.

Risotto with peas

I've read that risotto is quite an intimidating dish to cook. After a few recipes cooking risotto, I am really getting the hang of cooking this grain ; it is quite enjoyable!
How creamy the end result should be is still a a question mark for me, but this last risotto was a real treat.

I simply used the previous recipe as the base and substitute the squash with peas, served with camembert and sprinkled fresh dill .... yum!

Pumpkin Risotto

In an effort to learn to cook risotto, we've been eating it once a week for the past three week! I have to say, this recipe is the best tasting thus far. I already planned to cook it again next week ;)

Simple Squash Risotto

recipe from BBC GoodFood

Ingredients

1 butternut squash

4 tbsp light olive oil
600ml vegetable stock
50g unsalted butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 celery stick, finely chopped **omitted, not avaulable
2 garlic cloves , crushed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, picked ** used a pinch of dried thyme instead
140g risotto rice (we like carnaroli) ** used 100g of arborio rice
100ml white wine
50g Parmesan, finely grated ** sprinkled with feta instead
** added fried bacon for sprinkling

Method

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/ gas 6. Peel the squash and separate the bulbous seed-bearing section from the slender end. Chop the slender end into 2cm cubes, toss in half the oil, season lightly and roast in the oven, stirring occasionally, until golden brown on the outside and soft in the centre, about 30 mins. Cut the bulb in half and scrape out the seeds with a spoon - you can keep these to toast in the oven and sprinkle over salads. Chop the flesh into 2cm pieces. Warm the vegetable stock in a small pan, set over a low heat. Drop in squash and leave to gently poach.
2. While the squash is roasting, warm a medium-size frying pan over a gentle heat. Add the remaining olive oil and half the butter, followed by the onion. Cover and cook for 3 mins until the onion turns translucent. Stir in the celery, garlic, herbs and a few turns of pepper (no salt at this stage). Cover again and cook for a further 2 mins. Increase the heat slightly and stir in the rice. Stir, uncovered, for about 5 mins - this will help to develop the toasty aroma of the rice without burning the veg.
3. Turn up the heat, stir in the wine and let it bubble away to almost nothing. Reduce the heat and start adding the stock. Add one ladle at a time, stirring gently but constantly during each addition. The idea is to encourage the rice to absorb the liquid and soften, but also give up its starch to thicken the remaining broth. Don't stir too aggressively or you will end up with a pan of mush. When the stock has been absorbed, it's time to add the next ladleful and so on. It will take about 15 mins to reach the final ladle of stock. By this time the squash in the stock should have softened. Mash it up with the remaining stock and stir into the risotto.
4. Turn off the heat, dot the top of the risotto with remaining butter and most of the Parmesan, cover, leave to rest for 2 mins, then stir through and check the seasoning. Spoon the risotto into shallow bowls and sprinkle the roasted squash and leftover Parmesan on top.

Homemade turmeric rice { Nasi kunyit }

Sticky rice or Glutinous Rice is commonly featured in SE Asian cuisine. It could be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. As the rice could be quite rich, we consume only in small quantity, and even on special occasions.
I followed the easy instructions given in the video below. I think I added too much water; hence, a bit too sticky. Since I didn't have a proper steamer, the result is satisfactory for now.

Yellow Sticky Rice

For soaking overnight :-
Glutinous rice
turmeric powder, to taste
tamarind pieces (sub. with lemon juice)

Seasoning
white pepper corns (sub. with white pepper powder)
coconut milk (see video)

1) Clean and soak rice in soaking ingredients with enough water to cover rice, overnight.
2) Drain rice, place rice on steaming dish. Heat up steamer.
3) Cook rice as per video instructions.

Stir-fried rice

Fried rice is best from left over rice; so, when you have plain rice left over from Chinese take-outs, keep it in the fridge and use it to cook fried rice. In the case where you would like to try this using fresh rice, then before cooking store your cooked plain rice, uncovered, in the fridge for at least 2 hours to dry it out a little.

Chinese-style Fried rice
Ingredients
Day-old cooked Rice or freshly cooked, quantity according to portions you need
1 shallot or red onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cm ginger, minced or slice
1-2 tsp sesame seeds
mix vegetable, according to portions you need
few dashes of oyster sauce
few dashes of light soy sauce
white/black pepper , to taste

Method
1) Heat oil in a wok, put in minced onion and ginger. Cook until fragrant. Then add-in minced garlic & sesame seeds, cook until browned. Be careful not to burn garlic or it will taste bitter.
2) When aromatics are fragrant, add in mix vegetables. Stir-fry for a few minutes.
3) Add in rice, seasoning and mix everything well. Stir fry until rice is "jumping" in the wok because you want to achieve the "char" (not burn) flavour in the rice.
4) Serve hot as side dish or main.

Bibimbap Imitation { Korean cuisine }

You know sometimes when you see a dish that you really fancy in magazines, etc..but it didn't come with a recipe, what do you do? Me, imitate!! I'll lock that dish in mind or if i'm not tooo lazy to get a pen and paper, i'll quickly write down with guesses on what goes into the mysterious dish and hopefully be able to cook it as soon as possible ;)

So, the following dish was inspired under similar situation..Tadaa! my version of Bibimbap!

Bibim bap is Korean and it simply means mixed (=Bibim) rice (=bap) . After researching online, the way to eat this meal is to mix the rice/vege whatnots thoroughly with spoon or in this case, chopsticks. See here for the original serving of Bibim bap.

I didn't bother to look for the actual recipe, the ingredient was "what you see is what you get" basis minus some bits which are not available in the 'super' i.e. a bit of Hungarian pickled cabbage, 1 egg -sunny side-up, spring onions, toasted sesame and dash of soya sauce and its ready!

The crunchy soury taste of pickled vege. and everything else matches so well, an appetising comfort food, and a keeper for those lazy days.