Sorry I’m late posting this week’s recipe for Golden Vegetable Rice.
My recent recipes have been going live on a Sunday; in Algeria our week starts on a Sunday rather than Monday. It’s now Tuesday but better late than never, yeh?!
I’ve been without Wi-Fi for a number of days and will be for the near future. Using mobile data which is more expensive, therefore I will post as and when I can.
This recipe I developed after I was craving the convenience and flavour of those microwave packets of rice. Homemade goes without saying is 100% better, even it isn’t as quick to cook.
Originally I added only onions & peppers with garlic and tomato as my ‘vegetables’ (yes I know tomato is a fruit). While that is adequate for pairing the rice with some roast chicken, I wanted to extend my range of vegetarian dishes here on the blog.
Also my photos of said rice with chicken were BAD. Not the rice, that looked crazy good but the chicken leg somehow looked uncooked. I hadn’t bothered to wait for the skin to crisp up in the oven. A big no no when you want to photograph roast chicken. Doh!
When I tried the rice again, I increased the variety of vegetables and left off serving it with chicken. You can omit and/or add almost any vegetables you want to the rice. Just be sure to cut whatever vegetables you are using small or they’re naturally small like peas and sweetcorn. This is so they cook at the same rate as the rice.
Normally, I’m all for basmati rice but since this long grain rice is widely available here in Algeria I used that instead. Conveniently It’s also the same type of rice as those microwave packet rice I have a weakness for.
Can you tell I really love this rice dish?! I made it twice in three days! and I plan to cook it weekly even if it’s just to satisfy my cravings alone. My youngest – Zayd 4yrs, happily eats this with me, my other two children don’t have any love of rice except in Dolma (speaking of terrible pics!).
Zayd does tend to pick out most of the vegetables from the rice but he’s eating and I’m happy.
I nearly forgot to mention, I use turmeric both for the golden colour and for flavouring the rice. As I’m in North Africa, where Ras el Hanout spice mix goes into almost everything, it too goes in this scrumptious golden vegetable rice…
Ingredients
- 1 cup long grain rice
- 2 tablespoon oil
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 2 small green peppers, finely chopped
- 1/4 of a medium aubergine, skin peeled into stripes, finely chopped.
- 1 small carrot, peeled, core removed and finely chopped
- 1 medium garlic clove, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon ras el hanout spice mix
- 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 medium tomato, skin removed and finely chopped
Instructions
- In a small bowl rinse rice 3 times, then leave to soak in water whilst preparing vegetables.
- Fry onion & green peppers until starting to soften – covering the pot helps speed up this process. Add carrot, aubergine and salt, stir, cover and cook for a few minutes – stir frequently, until aubergine starts to soften.
- Add garlic & spices, fry a minute or so more. Add tomato, stir, cover and cook until tomato pieces collpase, releasing juice – this should only take a few minutes.
- Drain then add rice, stirring to coat in veg-spice mixture. Add 300ml water, stir rice mix once more, bring up to a boil, cover and lower heat to lowest setting.
- Allow rice to cook 20mins without uncovering, until rice has fully absorbed the liquid. Turn off the heat and leave rice (still covered) for 10 minutes or until you’re ready to serve. Seperate rice with a fork and serve warm
