I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never been the biggest rice fan. I’ll eat it fried, Thai-style, made into rice pudding, or mixed up with black beans and shoved into a tortilla, but other than that, I’ll pass.
I do like Mexican rice, but only if it’s made without frozen peas and carrot cubes, but I wanted to try to come up with something that wasn’t tomatoey.
I needed color on the plate, and I wanted something green. For me, green means cilantro.
I looked through a bunch of my recipe books and found something in Diana Kennedy’s “The Art of Mexican Cooking” that sounded pretty good, so I tinkered with it until I came up with something that I really liked.
Part of the key, I found, in making good rice, is to cook in much less water than the package directions usually call for. I know. It sounds crazy, but after you’ve thrown away three pots of soupy, sticky rice, made with way too much water, you’d try another route, too.
Also, the type of rice is key. After I tried all of the different types of rice (brown, long and short grain white) at the health food store, Naturalia, I thought that I’d give the rice from the Camargue (the marshy area in the south of France between the Mediterranean Sea and the Rhone river, known for its beautiful white horses) a try. Plus, it would only take 15 minutes, the package said.
Turned out to be perfect – in every way. The Camargue rice was not sticky or gummy, like all of the Naturalia stuff was. Instead, it was the most elegant, delicate rice that I’ve ever tasted. It’s my new favorite thing to make alongside my refried black beans and whatever other Tex-Mex magic that I’ve created.
Cilantro Rice
INGREDIENTS
500 grams (nearly 3 cups) Camargue rice
3 tablespoons onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup cilantro, packed
5 cups water*
sea salt (to taste)
safflower oil, lard or duck fat
WHAT YOU DO
Chop and onion and garlic finely; put the cilantro in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped, too. Put three tablespoons oil in a heavy, deep pot, add onion and garlic and turn on heat to medium low. When onion becomes translucent, add rice, and turn up heat. Add cilantro to rice, and continue to stir until blended, and until rice begins to dry. Now, add water, cover pot, turn up heat to medium high and once it boils, turn heat down and cook per directions or until holes appear in the rice.
*You may also use chicken stock for this instead of water.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, I came to your blog via Petey’s Mum’s blog.
Rice always proved difficult and temperamental for me when cooking it. I will try the rice you recommend here if I can source it in the supermarket (UK!).
At the moment though I am having great success with using Basmati rice, and using the measuring jug
method.
i.e. 6 fluid ozs of rice, 12 fluid ozs of water, or whatever this is in metric. So doubling the water to the rice used.
I fry the rice first in a little good quality oil, then add boiling water in the required measurement per rice ratio.
cover and cook for ten mins exactly. Then take off the heat and cover with a tea towel for up to ten mins. Forking it through gently before serving. This has so far, never failed to produce, fluffy and well separated rice grains.
But there is always the chance it doesn’t work and I will be back to square one again! ;0)))))
Kind regards, Jeannie (sorry I am logged in as my dog blog name!)
Isn’t rice tricky? I’m going to try your Basmati rice recipe. I actually like Basmati, too…but I’ll also have to make some dal to go with it, and it drives me crazy when the house smells like curry for days and days. Ah well!