Category Archives: rice

Jack is Cooking Persian Rice

Posted on by under cardamom, coriander, cumin, eggs, garlic, ghee., honey, kale, onions, prunes, rice, saffron, sausage, yogurt
Well Hello Internet!
I recently discovered the deliciousness of persian cuisine.  One of the things i liked the best was the way this particular method of cooking rice creates a delicious crust of rice on the top.  Hidden inside can be all sports of delicious meats, fruits, and vegetables.  I investigated some recipes, and before long i had figured out my own delicious version of it.  There are quite a few steps to it, but each of the steps is relatively straight forward.  The rice is cooked very differently from my Perfect Rice recipe, which was an interesting thing to discover.  All together this takes about 3 hours.

Heres what you will need:
For the Filling:
1 lb Merguez Sausage with no casing (look for Jack’s Merguez Sausage at Herondale farm)
1.5 Onions (sliced)
1 cup prunes (chopped up0
1 small bunch of kale (finely chopped)
3 cloves of Garlic (finely chopped)
salt
pepper
a few strands of saffron
1 teaspoon turmeric

For the Marinade/Crust
2 cups Yogurt (Especially good with Greek yogurt, but any yogurt will do fine.)
9 or 10 strands of saffron – soaked in 1/4 cup boiling water
zest of half an orange
salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
2-3 cardamom pods (cracked open and ground)
1 tablespoon honey

For the Rice
3 cups basmati rice (cleaned and rinsed until the water is clear)
2-3 tablespoons ghee
1/2 onion
3 egg yolks
salt and pepper.

To Prepare the Filling

1.  Mix all the ingredients from the marinade together

2.  Take the sausage and place in a pan with 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, saffron and turmeric,  cook over medium heat until the sausage is cooked, and the onions are tender.  Leaving the juice in the pan, mix the cooked sausage and onions into the marinade.

3. Heat back up the juice in the pan, and add the other half an onion plus 1 clove of garlic.  Cook until its starting to get soft, then add the kale.  Toss for a few seconds, then add the salt and pepper, plus the prunes.  cover and cook for about 5 minutes.   Set aside.

To Make the Rice
1.  Preheat oven to 375°

2.  Fill a large pot of water and bring to a boil.  Add 3 cups of rice stir making sure all the grains are separate from each other (kind of like cooking pasta).  Cook for maybe 4 minutes, then strain the rice out through a sieve.  You want the rice to be soft on the outside, but still crunchy on the inside.  Its going to be cooked some more in a little bit.  Run it under cold water to stop the rice from cooking.

3.  Remove the meat from the marinade, and set aside.  Add 3 egg yolks into the marinade and whisk together.  Mix in about 1/3 of the rice.

4.  Take a Pyrex dish (it could be round or square), and add 2 tablespoons of ghee.  place in the oven for to heat up the pan and melt the ghee.   ( about 5 minutes)  Remove from the oven

5.  Spread the rice mixture into the bottom of the hot pan.  Try to make a nice even layer that goes a little up the sides.  Keeping mostly to the middle of the pan, spread out a layer of about half of the spinach and prune mixture.  Then a layer of all the meat followed by another layer of spinach.  Finally cover everything with the rest of the rice, fully encasing all the meat and spinach.  sprinkle with any leftover marinade and juice, salt and pepper.

6. Cover with a layer of greased wax paper, followed by 2 or 3 tight layers of tinfoil.  Press down on the rice mixture to make sure everything is good and compacted.  Place in the oven for about 1.5 hours.

7. After about an hour and a half, take a look at the underside of the rice, through the pyrex.  it should be turning a nice brown color.  At this point i like to turn the oven up to about 450° for the last 20 minutes or so.  This will make the crust nice and dark golden brown – and nice and crispy..

8. Remove from the oven and let it sit for 15-20 minutes still covered.  Remove the wax paper, and tinfoil.  carefully run a knife around the edges to separate the rice on the sides.  Place a serving plate over it, and flip the rice out onto the plate so the brown side is up.  Garnish with some fresh parsley, and serve.

Jack is Cooking Mattar Batata… Or something Similar

Posted on by under asafetida, carrots, coriander, cumin, cumin seeds, garlic, green beans, indian, mustard seeds, onion, potatoes, rice, Tomato, turmeric

Well Hello Internet!

as part of my continuing experimentation in learning to cook indian food, i made a tomato based curry with potatoes and green beans.  The Recipe i started with called it Mattar Batata, and was made with potatoes and green peas (Green Peas are called Mattar).  However i didn’t have any green peas, and instead i had beans.  So the name Mattar Batata is not really correct and this should really be called something else, probably with the name Aloo in it (Aloo is potatoes).

Anyhow its very easy to make.

Heres what i used in my made up curry based off of Mattar Batata.  As with my other recipes for indian food i will divide the spices into groups, for when they need to be added to the mix.

3 Tbspns Olive Oil

(GROUP A)
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 dried red chillies (broken)
1/2 teaspoon asafetida

1 lb Potatoes (cut into one inch cubes)
2 Carrots (diced)
1/2 an onion (diced)
1 clove garlic (diced)

(GROUP B)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon sugar

A Handful of green beans (put your two hands together and however many beans fit in there.  thats how many you need!! )

1 tomato (finely diced)
1 80z can crushed tomatoes

So first!

Organize your Spices into two bowls, and have them ready.

Heat up the oil in a medium sized pot, and add in Spice Group A:

SPICE GROUP A

 Cook for about 10 seconds, and then add in the onions, garlic, and carrots.  stir and cook until the onions are a little wilted, and then add the potatoes.  fry the potatoes until they start going brown.  don’t worry if they are sticking, let them stick.  This will add to the flavor!

Once the Potatoes are browned add in Spice Group B:

SPICE GROUP B

Stir them together and then add half a cup of water (it won’t cover it completely).  Bring to a boil and boil for about 10 minutes (or until the potatoes are soft).  The water will mostly boil off at this point, but some should remain.

At this point you can add in the beans, the tomato, and the crushed tomatoes, and simmer for a further 5-7 minutes – or until the beans are tender, but still a little crunchy (As good beans should be!)
Everything in the Pot

and that’s it!  Serve it with some Rice.

YUMM!

Jack is Cooking Coconut Fish with Kale and Coconut Rice

Posted on by under coconut, coconut milk, fish, kale, rice
Well Hello Internet!
Last night i made the most delicious fish covered with coconut, and rice cooked with coconut, and some kale!  it was a coconut inspired meal.  anyways its really easy to do.  
heres what you’ll need:
some kind of fish (i used sole)
coconut milk
coconut flakes
salt and pepper
kale
garlic
ginger
coconut rice (follow rice directions, but use substitute half of the water with coconut milk.  also add in some coconut flakes)
First i let the fish sit in some coconut milk with salt and pepper for like 30 minutes.  
while this was sitting i prepared the kale.  i just cut it roughly, chopped up some garlic, and chopped up some ginger.  i’ll be back to that in a little bit.
After it soaked in the milk for 30 minutes, i took the fish, and i coated it in a mixture of flour salt and pepper.  (at about this time you should start cooking the rice also) then i put it back in the coconut milk, just to get a coating on both sides, and then i covered both sides with coconut flakes (the unsweetened kind!)
i heated up 2 pans.  one to cook the kale, and the other to cook the fish.  in the kale pan i put a tablespoon of olive oil, and started to saute the garlic and ginger.  in the fish pan i put about 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil.  and let that heat up til it was pretty hot.  Add the kale to the ginger and garlic, and stir around.  cover to let it steam.  this can cook for about 5 minutes and then its done.  (a little lemon juice is really good in this also!)
while the kale was cooking, i added the fish to the other hot pan, and let it cook until it was nice and golden brown, then i flipped it and cooked until it was nice and golden brown on the other side! (fish cooks pretty quick, so this all happens in like 5 minutes.  you got to stay on top of this and the kale!)
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if you time it right, the kale, the fish, and the rice should all be done at the same time!
yum!
mmm mmm delicious!!

Jack is Cooking Vietnamese Style Lemongrass Tempeh Stir Fry

Posted on by under rice, Rice Syrup, snow peas, tempeh, yellow pepper

Well Hello Internet!

For dinner tonight Julie and I made some stir fried Tempeh with Lemongrass, Peppers, and Snow Peas

to make this you will need:

2 inches of lemongrass very finely diced

1 inch ginger diced 1 tablespoon olive oil
4 ounces tempeh, cut into cubes
1 yellow pepper sliced
a handfull of snow peas 1.5 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar

1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar 1/2 tablespoon rice syrup
1 teaspoon chili garlic sriracha 
2 cups rice or Coconut rice  (to make coconut rice, if you are making 1 cup of rice, use 1 cup of water and 1/2 cup coconut milk.  follow recipe in link)
cilantro 
lime juice

So first, we sautéed the tempeh in the olive oil until it got brown.

then we added in the lemongrass, the ginger, the pepper, and the snow peas and stir fried for about 4 minutes, or until the pepper started to get a little soft.
Then we added the soy sauce, the rice vinegar, the apple cider vinegar, the chili garlic sriracha sauce, and the rice syrup.  stir fried it for another minute, and then took it out and put it over the rice!  sprinkled a little cilantro on top and a squeeze of lime juice! and that’s it!
mmm mmm delicious!

Jack is Cooking a Peanut Butter Rice Casserole Thing

Posted on by under carrot, coconut milk, garlic, ginger, green onions, milk, peanut butter, red pepper, rice, sweet potato

Well Hello Internet!

tonight for dinner, i have made a delicious Rice Casserole thing.  im not really sure what you would call it. but its got rice, and vegetables, and peanut butter in it, and its really really good!  the other really awesome thing about this is that it all happens in one pot, or pan, so the cleanup is very minimal.

Heres what i used:
2 tablespoons oil
2 green onions
1 cup of rice
1/2 cup of stock
1 slice of ham (totally optional)
1/2 to 1 whole red pepper
2/3 cup of milk (you can also use coconut milk, which makes this even more delicious)
2-4 cloves garlic
2 inches of ginger
1/2 teaspoon sriracha sauce
salt
3 tablespoons of peanut butter
1 small can of chopped tomato
1 large sweet potato, or a few small ones
1 carrot
baby bok choy

heres everything all chopped up and ready to go:

so the first step, is to mix the peanut butter, the milk, the garlic, and the sriracha sauce together in a bowl.

then in the casserole pan (or dutch oven)

put the oil.  then the onions.  then the rice:

then add the stock:
lay the slice of ham on top of this. ( i recommend slicing some holes in the ham so that the milk mixture while incorporate with the rice mixture below)  on top of the ham put the peppers and the ginger:
Pour the milk and PB mixture over this.  then put the carrot, the tomato, and then sweet potato over that:
Finally, put the Bok Choy over everything, and drizzle some spicy sesame oil on it:
Cover with tinfoil and bake in the oven at 450° for 45 minutes
take out and enjoy!
keep the leftovers in the fridge.  its even better the next day!
mmm mmm delicious.