Pilaf with turmeric, mustard seeds, and cardamom

Cooking plain basmati rice, I tend to throw it into about three times its volume of boiling water, simmer for 10 minutes, and drain. That’s it. Works fine every time. The absorption method is hard to perfect, in my experience: cooking utensils, brands of rice, and other factors may vary, and have significant effects.

However, if you want a pilaf, you need to use an absorption method – try mixing pre-cooked rice with fat and spices, and you’ll end up with a sticky clump. Here is what works pretty well for me.

Measure the rice. You’re going to cook it in one and half times its volume of water. (I have little measuring pots.)

Soak the rice for 30 minutes or longer – soaking results in softer (more digestible?) grains, which need to be cooked in less water, and which will soften by steaming more readily.

Warm a knob of butter or about a tbsp of oil for each person in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add what spices you like – this week, for three people, I used a tsp of turmeric, half a tsp of mustard seeds, and the seeds from five cardamom pods. Let them sizzle briefly, then drain the rice and add it to the pan, turning it in the spicy fat.

Add the water, with salt if you like, and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat to its lowest setting. Cover the pan loosely with foil, crimping it round the edges to make a seal, and clamp the lid on top. (Probably you should use a tea towel, which absorbs the steam. But foil works ok for me.) Simmer for 10 minutes, and leave to rest for a further five.

You do need basmati rice for this recipe. Long grain rice takes longer to cook, and tends to be stickier.

Rice and vegetables with harissa

There are certain dishes that one enjoys while acknowledging that they are not haute cuisine, and may not be as well liked by others. Such are the rice concoctions I give myself when I arrive home late, and want to eat something that will be ready in about 20 minutes.

Olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1tsp cumin seeds
1 red onion, sliced
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into pieces
75g basmati rice
1 tin black beans, drained and rinsed
1tsp (or more, according to taste) harissa
Salt, pepper

Warm about 2tbsp of oil in a heavy pan over a gentle heat, and fry the garlic and cumin for a minute. Throw in the onion and pepper, stir, and cover the pan. Check the vegetables regularly, stirring each time. The liquid they throw off should prevent their catching – but add more oil if necessary. (Covering the pan should enable the onions and pepper to soften more rapidly.)

Bring a saucepan of water – about three times the volume of rice - to the boil. Put the rice in a sieve, and give it a quick rinse. Tip it into the boiling water, bring back to the boil, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, tip the drained beans into the pan with the vegetables. Stir in the harissa, with salt and pepper – if the beans have been sitting in brine, go easy with the salt. Cover the pan. Again, check it and stir the contents regularly.

Drain the rice, and stir it into the spiced vegetables.

I sometimes add small cubes of cheese to this mixture.

Risotto with chorizo

A fusion – is this word still fashionable in cookery? – of Italian and Spanish. Serves 2.

Chicken stock
Olive oil
4 cooking chorizos, sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 red onion, sliced
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into fork-sized pieces
200g Arborio rice
Salt
4 heaped tbsp grated Parmesan, Pecorino, or Manchego

You’ll need about 700ml of chicken stock, or more. Bring it to simmering point in a saucepan.

Meanwhile, put a splash of olive oil in a heavy pan, and fry the chorizos over a gentle heat until they have started to brown and have exuded their rust-coloured fat. Throw in the garlic, onion, and pepper, and continue to cook until they are soft. Add more oil if necessary, but you may have enough.

Add the rice, and stir it with the vegetables and chorizo until hot. Now start adding the stock. Because of the quantity of extra ingredients, you may at first want more than the ladleful traditional in risotto cookery, in order to submerge all the rice and to get it to start to soften. The heat should be just high enough to keep the liquid at a moderate simmer. Wait until the stock is absorbed, and add some more, repeating the process until the rice becomes plump, but with a faint residual bite – 20 to 25 minutes. Add a little salt to taste; but remember that the sausage will be salty, as will the cheese.

Take the pan off the heat, stir in the cheese, and serve.

Armenian rice pudding

This is a delicious and easy pudding, adapted from Arto der Haroutunian’s Middle Eastern Cookery (Grub Street). It is traditionally served to visitors on the birth of a son, he tells us. "When I asked my mother what people served on the birth of a daughter, she gesticulated with her hands, shrugged her shoulders and said: 'Oh, a glass of orangeade or something like that.'"

I used raisins rather than the sultanas in the recipe, and pine kernels rather than split almonds, which some members of my family do not like.

75g pudding rice
1 pint milk
Peel of 1 lemon
100g raisins
100g caster sugar
2tbsp (yes, really) vanilla essence
50g pine kernels, toasted in a small saucepan over a very gentle heat

Bring a pan of water to the boil, throw in the rice, bring the water back to the boil, and drain. You’re getting rid of some of the surface starch and dust.

Put the drained rice into a heavy saucepan with the milk and the lemon peel. (I managed to peel my lemon in about five vertical strips.) Bring slowly to the boil, and simmer gently, uncovered, until the rice is tender and the milk is absorbed – by this, I took Haroutunian to mean that you want a consistency like that of a thickly soupy risotto. Stir in the raisins and simmer for a few more minutes. (I soaked the raisins first in boiling water, perhaps unnecessarily.)

Remove from the heat, and stir in the sugar, vanilla, and pine kernels. Chill.

Remove the lemon peel before serving, and loosen with a little milk or cream if you like.

These quantities will provide about six modest portions.

Jasmine rice

As I mentioned in the fried rice entry, jasmine rice is sticky. Don't bother hoping that you will get separate grains; indeed, stickiness is useful, enabling you to pick up a clump of rice with chopsticks.

I was a little sceptical about the instructions on my packet of Biona jasmine rice: put the rice in a pan, cover it with twice its volume of water, bring to a simmer, cover, and leave on a low heat for 20 minutes. After that length of time, I suspected, a good deal of rice would be stuck. However, I tried it, turning down the flame as soon as bubbles reached the surface of the water, and inserting a heat disperser between pan and hob. It worked. Yes, I had to work loose some of the rice, but not with a chisel.

Basmati rice takes 10 minutes to soften, in my experience. Jasmine rice takes longer.

Egg fried rice

The dish above does not look much like egg fried rice, and it did not taste much like it, either. It was good in its way, just not the authentic article.

I was inspired - prompted would be a better word - to make it by Felicity Cloake's article this week in the Guardian. I agree with Cloake's reservations about pouring the egg first into the very hot wok, and I was intrigued by her suggestion that you stir the egg and rice vigorously, so that the egg coats and is to a certain extent absorbed by the rice. This dish is not analogous to spaghetti carbonara, which has a sauce of creamy curds.

I did not want to use Cloake's recommended 500g of rice, even for three people. But I did think we should have an egg each. That may have been my first mistake. The second was not owning a wok, and making the dish in a big Le Creuset casserole. Cloake fries her rice until she has separate, slightly caramelised grains. It is not possible to achieve this result in the Le Creuset: as you cook, more and more of the egg and sticky rice adhere to the pan. I stopped at the stage you see above.

My one disagreement with her concerns her instruction about waiting until the oil smokes. Why cook with burned oil?

For the record, I used 250g of jasmine rice, cooked in the afternoon and allowed to cool - it becomes a rice cake. I heated my pan over a medium to high heat, poured in about 3tbsp of sunflower oil, and immediately tipped in the rice, stirring and breaking it up. Then I tipped in my three beaten eggs, stirring vigorously all the time. As I say above, I stopped when I felt there was a risk of getting a stodgy, stuck, burned clump. I stirred in chopped spring onions away from the heat.

Spiced chicken with rice and lentils

This is a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe from the Guardian, with a few adaptations. I used dried apricots rather than dates (not because I prefer them, but because I had some in the cupboard), and scaled down the quantities slightly. But I deviated most in my timings and quantities.

First, I made my dish with chicken drumsticks, which I allowed to cook in the spiced stock for 30 minutes before adding the lentils and rice. I like the meat to be very tender. I don't think I used as much as 4tbsp of oil, because the chicken exudes its own fat when frying.

The dish shown in the Guardian appears to be dry, but the quantity of stock specified, 700ml, is a lot more than 150g of rice and 80g of lentils will absorb. I decided to use just enough stock to cover the ingredients. I had to be sure that they would soften under these conditions, so I pre-soaked them (separately) for a couple of hours.

I used green lentils, which - pace Fearnley-Whittingstall - take longer to cook than does rice. I cooked them for 30 minutes, just covered with stock, and checking the liquid level regularly. Then I added the rice, pouring over just enough extra liquid to submerge it. Fearing that the ingredients would stick to the bottom of the casserole if left on the hob, I put the dish in the oven at this point, for a further 20 minutes at gas mark 4/180C.

The rice and lentils absorb all the fat, so be prepared to taste it as you eat them. It's not unpleasant. I'd have liked a little heat in the dish, perhaps from some cayenne pepper.

Stuffed courgette

We received this yellow courgette, the size of a small marrow, in our vegetable box. It would be useless for sautéing in the normal way, because it is too watery. But it is fine for stuffing. You can scoop out the flesh much more easily than you would that of, say, an aubergine.

My stuffing consisted of the flesh and ingredients I happened to have in the house: olive oil, 1 red onion, 1 chopped clove of garlic, 75g rice, 60g diced Gruyere, a tbsp of cream cheese (I'm not sure that this was a good idea, but I thought the bit left in the tub needed using), salt, cayenne pepper. Extra or substitutional ingredients might have been pre-soaked raisins, toasted pine nuts, a few anchovies, and herbs such as flat-leaf parsley, tarragon, or thyme.

Cook the rice in the normal way. (There's plenty of advice, only some of it inconsistent, on this blog.) Meanwhile, finely chop the onion, and gently cook it with the garlic in a tbsp or two of olive oil. Chop up the courgette flesh, throw it into the pan, and gradually turn up the heat as it exudes water. Cook it on a high heat until the water evaporates. Stir in the rice, cheese, and seasoning.

Put the courgette halves in a baking dish or roasting tin, and stuff them with the mixture. Pour boiling water into the dish to a depth of between 50mm and 1cm. Bake at gas mark 6/200C for about 25 minutes, or until the courgette is soft and the stuffing is slightly browned on top.

'Perfect' rice from the Guardian

I may as well just face it, and admit that I'll never come up with a 100% satisfactory and fool-proof method of cooking rice. Such a method may not exist: the 153 comments below Felicity Cloake's Guardian article on How to cook perfect long grain rice, many of them claiming also to be perfect but giving widely differing instructions, suggest its elusiveness. What of Cloake's "perfect" advice?

She suggests 450g basmati rice for four people. Wash it in a sieve under running water; soak it for 30 minutes; put it in a pan with 585ml water, and salt, on a medium heat; bring to a simmer, cover, and cook on a very low heat for 25 minutes. Place the pan on a wet tea towel, leave for a further five minutes, fluff up the rice, and serve.

I had three reservations about this recipe. The first is that the measurements are unhelpful, unless you want to cook precisely 450g of rice. What you need are proportions, or general guidelines, that work for various quantities. It turns out that 585ml of water is about 1.2 times the volume of the rice; perhaps the more important point is that it covers the rice in the pan with just a mm or two to spare. If you had not pre-soaked and softened the rice, you would need more water than this to cook it.

My second doubt concerns the cooking time. Twenty-five minutes? As many of the comments on the Guardian piece point out, the rice will be cooked in 10 at most. Are the extra 15 minutes required to separate the grains by steaming?

I followed the recipe to the letter. The rice was a little clumpy, but not nearly as clumpy as I had feared; and the grains separated nicely with the addition of sauce. But I think the result would have been better had I switched off the heat after 10 minutes.

Do you need - this is my third doubt - to soak the rice at all? The practice originates in places where rice is not as clean or as carefully sifted as the stuff we buy. Yes, soaking softens the grains; it also leeches nutrients. The only occasions on which I think it is necessary is when you cook the rice with other ingredients, in a pilau, for example. Then, you want to ensure that the rice will cook with just enough water to cover it. Otherwise, the bulk of the ingredients forces you to use too much water in order to ensure that the grains are submerged.

The closest I came to perfection recently was when I reheated rice. Every grain was separate. It explains why Indian restaurants' rice - reheated, for sure - is usually good. So maybe the ideal recipe involves cooking rice in your normal way, tipping it into a foil-lined colander above steaming water, wrapping up the foil, putting a lid on top, and allowing it to steam until you need it. But who can be bothered to do that?

Spiced rice, reheated

The cooked rice above is sitting in foil in a colander. I parcelled up the foil, rested the colander on the lips of a pan above vigorously simmering water, and put a lid on top. I gave it 10 minutes. (Inadequately reheated rice can be dangerous.)

The yellow rice is another recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's terrific CURRY EASY. Adaptation, for 4, below.

300g basmati rice
2tbsp olive or sunflower oil
1 whole dried red chilli (I think she means ones of normal size. Mine, which are fiery, are minuscule. I used a couple)
1tsp skinned urad dal or yellow split peas (I used red lentils. But I'm not sure what the point of them is - perhaps it's to add colour, along with the turmeric)
1tsp mustard seeds
1tbsp sesame seeds
1/2tsp turmeric
1tsp salt (optional)

Put the rice in a bowl. Cover with cold water and stir gently. Pour out the dirty water. (I do so carefully and slowly, in an effort to leave all the rice behind. Draining the rice in a sieve, then trying to return it to the bowl when a good deal of it sticks to the mesh, is a pain.) Repeat the process four or five times. Leave to soak for 30 minutes. Drain.

(What is it that turns the rice water so murky? Starch? Or less pleasant stuff?)

Warm the oil, in a heavy pan, over a medium heat. Throw in the chilli, dal (if using), mustard seeds, and sesame seeds. When you hear the mustard seeds popping, add the drained rice, turmeric, and salt (again, if using).

Pour over enough water to cover the rice by about 0.5cms. Bring to the boil, and simmer until the water level sinks beneath the surface of the rice. Cover, and turn the heat right down. (I put a heat disperser under the pan.) Give the rice 10 minutes' cooking time in total. After you've turned off the heat, you can leave the rice to rest until you need it.

Madhur Jaffrey tells you to steam the rice for 25 minutes. Lots of cookbooks give similar timings, but in my experience most brands of basmati rice are ready much more quickly than that. I suppose that the extra steaming might help to separate the grains, but I find that long cooking simply causes them to clump together.

Bolognese, lentils, and rice

What to cook when you're going out for Christmas drinks with neighbours, and will be back after 8pm, with several glasses of mulled wine inside you and with no enthusiasm for work in the kitchen? A one-pot meal, which you can leave in the oven on a low heat.

The dish above (for 2) consists of a Bolognese sauce (made with 150g of beef mince and 150g of pork mince), Puy-type lentils, and arborio rice. I boiled the lentils (100g) for 10 minutes, then threw in the rice (175g) and allowed the pan to boil for a further 10 minutes. The idea was to leave the lentils and rice slightly undercooked.

I drained them, stirred them into the Bolognese in the casserole, and covered the mixture tightly with kitchen paper (to enhance the effect of the steam in the pot) before putting on the lid. I put the dish in a low oven - I won't give a setting, because my thermostat is not working properly - as we went out; we ate it when we arrived home, two hours later.

(The Bolognese sauce was similar to the mince stew in this cottage pie, only with tomato puree instead of the ketchup.)

Risotto balls

These fried balls are made with left-over risotto. I rolled the risotto (squash, kale and onion) into balls in my palms; then I dipped the balls in egg, and rolled them in flour. I fried them gently in sunflower oil for about 10 minutes, turning once.

They were delicious, with the crisp surfaces complementing that sticky, rich interiors.

Rice - yet another way

I got this method (for Basmati) from the back of a packet. It's my new favourite. The advantage over this one is that the rice doesn't clump together if you hold it in the covered pan.

1. Measure the volume of rice. (In weight, about 75g is a good single portion.)
2. Put twice that volume of water in a pan, with a little salt.
3. Wash the rice, and add it to the pan.
4. Bring to a simmer.
5. On a medium heat, simmer the rice until the water level drops below the surface, which shows bubbles.
6. Turn down the flame to the minimum, put a heat disperser under the pan, and cover the pan.
7. Cook for a further five minutes.

It's probably ready now: I usually leave it, covered, for a few minutes longer.

Steamed rice, refined

Every so often, cooking rice obsesses me (see below, and previous posts, including this). The following method, I reckon, works perfectly with most of the widely available brands of Basmati rice, so I should be able to give the subject a rest for a while.

1) Soak rice for 20 minutes or longer.

2) Drain, tip into a saucepan, and cover the grains with 1.5 times their volume of cold water. Add salt, if you like.

3) Bring to the boil. Turn down the heat to its lowest, cover the pan, and put a heat disperser under it.

4) Cook for a further 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, and serve when you're ready.

Pre-soaking means that the rice will soften in less water. (If you are cooking 250g or more rice, you may find that you need less than 1.5 times its volume of water. Covering it by a mm or two should work.) By the end, its surface is dry, and it separates when stirred, even after it has stood for a while. Boiled straight from the packet and then covered, it is apt to clump.

Rice, steamed

My most recently recommended method of cooking rice works very satisfactorily. (Wash, bring twice its volume of water to the boil, tip in rice and a little salt if you like, lid on, return to boil, heat down, simmer for 10 minutes, drain.) But I get restless after doing things the same way for a while.

Yesterday, I soaked my rice for half an hour - as when you soak beans or lentils, it has a softening effect, and reduces water consumption and cooking time. I measured out water to 1.5 times the volume (of rice), poured it into a pan with a little salt, and tipped in the rice (drained). The water came to just above the level of the rice.

If you cook unsoaked rice in just 1.5 times its volume of water, it may remain hard - it will absorb the water too quickly, and the subsequent steaming will not tenderise it. The pre-soaking compensates for the less efficient tenderising process; the cooking time is probably the same as for boiling unsoaked rice. I reckoned that giving the rice a longer submersion, by starting it from cold, would aid the process.

I brought the rice to the boil in the covered pan, turned down the flame, and allowed 15 minutes in total.

The cooked grains were smaller than normal. The rice clumped a bit, but separated when fluffed with a fork. The Basmati rice available here in France tends to get mushy more readily than do the brands I buy in England, so this process may work better there. I may be on to something.

Rice - one further refinement

I shall post this entry, and then I shall shut up on the subject for a while. Since writing last Thursday, I have discovered that you need use only twice the volume of water to rice if you cover the pan. So:

Wash rice (75g a person is a generous quantity) in a sieve, or by giving it a quick bath in a bowl and draining it. Do you need to wash it? I am not sure; but it can be a bit dusty.

(If you do believe that you should wash it, then surely you should wash the rice you use in a risotto as well? Experts tell you not to, in order to avoid losing any starch and in order to ensure that the grains are properly coated in fat before you add the liquid. I doubt whether damp grains would affect the consistency or flavour of the finished dish at all.)

I have a measuring cup which holds the right amount of rice for one person. So, cooking just for myself, I pour two cups of water into a pan, bring it to the boil, tip in the rice, and cover. I start counting 10 minutes from that point. When the contents of the pan are simmering again (steam starts puffing from the lid), I turn down that flame to its lowest.

After 10 minutes, there is usually just a little water left in the pan. Drain the rice in a sieve. You can return it to the pan to stay hot: put a paper towel over the top, and the lid on top of that.

This technique works perfectly with most of the widely available Basmati brands.

Rice again

Since blogging compulsively (see this post, and previous ones) about ways of cooking rice, I have continued to experiment. I have discovered that a lot of what I have written before, particularly in my book, is wrong. Well, not wrong exactly - it won't lead anyone to make disastrous mistakes; but not based on entirely correct premises.

The key point about rice - obvious, really - is not to overcook it. So when I wrote that soaking rice always caused it to go sticky on me, I should have realised that it was not the soaking that was at fault: the problem was that soaking softened the rice, reducing its absorbent qualities and its cooking time. If I then cooked it by the absorption method, I ended up with a sticky mass of overcooked grains that had been sitting together in a covered pan.

Nevertheless, it remains preferable to cook rice in the smallest volume of water possible, to reduce the dispersion of nutrients. So you need to know, with each variety you use, the optimum cooking time, as well as the amount of water it will absorb.

Ten minutes is about right for most commercially available types of Basmati; and I find that three times its volume of water works well. I bring the water to boil in a saucepan, and give the rice a rinse, either by putting it in a sieve and running water through it, or by putting it in a bowl and giving it a quick bath. When the water is boiling, I tip in the rice, bring the pan back to a simmer, and simmer it for 10 minutes (counting from the moment when the rice hits the water - even when there is a large quantity that takes longer to come back to the boil). When or if the water reduces to the level of the top of the rice, I cover the pan and turn down the heat. At the 10-minute mark, I drain away whatever water is left.

You can hold the rice, once drained, in the pan, with a paper towel on top and the lid clamped on top of that. It might clump together a little, though. The steam will continue to cook it for a while - another reason why you need to be careful not to simmer it for too long.

A friend recently brought me some organic rice from Indonesia. It takes about 12 to 13 minutes to cook, and turns the surrounding water very starchy. I find that the only way to prevent this rice from becoming sticky is to cook it in at least five times its volume of water. But, with most other brands I have tried, this ratio is not necessary.

Pepper, tomatoes and chick peas

My wife has developed a mild intolerance to gluten. I don't share it; but it has made me more aware that wheat products can sit heavily on the stomach. Coming home late, one is tempted to cook a quick and simple pasta dish, ending up with a slightly bloated feeling. Now, I usually have rice instead, probably with a more substantial sauce than I would serve with, say, spaghetti.

This is what I made for myself last night.

1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
I green pepper, deseeded and cut into fork-sized pieces
2 tomatoes, plunged into boiling water for 20 seconds, skinned and chopped
5tbsp tinned chick peas
1tsp harissa
2tbsp creme fraiche
Salt, to taste

Soften the garlic in the olive oil. Throw in all the other ingredients, and simmer until thickened. Reducing the sauce to a rich consistency may take a good 20 minutes: the tomatoes and pepper will cause it to be very liquid at first. So you have time to cook the rice while that's happening.

Another way with basmati

Cooking rice, an apparently simple matter, has been something of an obsession, as previous posts have shown. (The trail of experiments starts here.)

If you have trouble with the absorption method, and if you do not want to boil the rice in a large quantity of water, try this. The measurement and timing work for all the brands I have found.

Allow 75g of rice as a generous quantity for each person. Tip it into a measuring jug, check its volume, and tip it into a sieve. (I have some measuring cups, one of which holds exactly one portion, and the other, two portions.) Give it a rinse under the cold tap. Now measure four times its volume of water, bring it to a boil in a saucepan (with a little salt if you like), tip in the rice, return to a simmer, and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes are up (I usually count from the moment when the water has returned to a simmer), the water will probably be just above the level of the rice. Drain what is left. If you need to hold the rice, return it to the pan, put a paper towel on top, and the lid on top of that.

Spinach and pea risotto

This was a very rich, indulgent risotto for a Friday night. The combination of cream, Gruyere, and green vegetables -- tanginess, richness, and freshness -- worked perfectly.

The basic risotto technique is here. In brief: soften an onion, slowly and thoroughly, in a little butter, adding water if it threatens to catch; meanwhile, heat stock in another pan; tip the rice on to the onions, and stir until the grains are coated and hot; add stock, a ladleful at a time, keeping the contents of the pan at a gentle simmer and adding more stock when the previous addition has been absorbed; stop cooking when the rice is plump but still ad dente.

This time, I had 300g of arborio rice, a bag of spinach from the vegetable box, three handfuls of frozen peas, 150g of grated Gruyere, and about 125ml of cream. I washed the spinach and removed the stalks, and cooked it in my usual way: shoved wet into a pan, covered and cooked at full heat, stirred round after a minute or so until it has all wilted, and drained. When it was cool, I squeezed out some of the water (it seems as if you could go on extracting water from it for ever; I give up after a while), and chopped it. I cooked the peas in a little of the stock.

You (perhaps I mean I) want risotto that is moist but not fluid, so the trick is to get it to that state just as the rice is perfectly cooked. At this point I added the cream; there seemed to be rather a lot, and I turned up the heat to thicken it. But the risotto threatened to catch on the bottom of the pan. So I turned down the heat, tipped in the spinach and peas, gave them a quick stir, turned off the heat, and stirred in the Gruyere. I need not have worried: it all thickened up nicely. It served three greedy people.