Stir rice with veg
I’m not recommending this recipe—go look at the discussion below. But I can’t argue with the results.
Hummm, Mostly you need a handful of leftover veg. Below is what I used, which is what I had—go look at Variations.
Ingredients
Runner beans
Bell peppers, any colour
Walnuts. I figure about 1/4 cup per person
Olive oil
Brown rice, half cup per person
Stock, probably veg. I piled in some tomato paste
Apple sauce
Chilli salt
Worcester Sauce
Tools
A big‐fry pan. You can get away with a wide boil‐pan
Method
Two tricks here. One is to keep stirring, maybe not all the time, but every few minutes. The other is to put the veg in at a good time for it to cook i.e. break down but not loose nutrients. Lordy, but I dislike mushy runner beans on the same scale I hate boiled cabbage,
Get the rice soaking in water, preferably over 1/2 hour
Peppers. Get them peeled somehow, either by roasting in the oven or a microwave, then chop thumbnail size
Chop the onions and garlic small
Get the frying pan on and fry the onion, followed by the garlic, followed by the pepper
Chop the veg into first‐joint‐of‐thumb lumps
Once the onion is not smelly and mostly transparent, throw in some chilli salt, then the drained rice. Stir about a bit
Pour on stock enough to cover rice
Stir
When pan is near‐dry—which can be missed because cheap pans will be burning underneath while there seems to be water on top, so stir every few minutes or so—when the pan is nearly dry, tip in more stock
Stir
When the pan is nearly dry, tip in more stock
Stir…
While this goes on and on and on, chop the nuts
Recipes for brown rice usually say this will take forty mins. If that wasn’t bad enough, mine took past an hour. Look, you’ve got there when the rice pops, I mean, it will near double in size to a great heap
Throw in the veg that only needs short boiling. That includes runner beans, which only need a minute
Stir in nuts
Serve out, stir in some Worcester sauce
Variations
This is probably an olive oil special, but I’m sure it can adapt to most other oils
Any kind of veg can go in. Preferably colourful, like the beans. If you have wholefood items such as sun‐dried tomatoes, try them. Also, the remains of all those little pots of pickles you have in the cupboard, like gherkins
It’s not curry, the chilli should be barely there
I let peppers and chilli do the work, but if you’ve got fresh herbs, get them working with the veg. Basil and tomato, cumin and califower etc. Not so much of a leftover recipe then, though
Worcester sauce is a bit peppery anyway, so I only added a dash, what with the chilli salt
Apple sauce went in because I had it. The recipe can be sweet anyhow—brown rice and peppers may be enough. No need to overdo it. You are only trying to brace against anything bitter like old tomatoes. A spoonful of marmalade would fix that
Discussion
Look, this reminds me of student cooking. When people pass an afternoon preparing a mushroom and peanut lasagne. I got nothing against community, but I think cooking is for the eating. Yeh, I don’t mind cooking, but I got see results if I’m going to put effort in, and a meal that drags late, like this one, is for me a failure.
A long drag is risotto, or the risotto technique. Yet i do not know a way to get round the churn. Which technique delivers this result, whatever rice you use, you get this non‐dairy creaminess. It’s a great result, but too much trouble. I’d rather peel garlics, and I hate peeling garlics.
Peeling peppers does not clear my mood, and brown rice can put me in a stink. Brown rice takes an age to pop i.e. cook, and this recipe overran time by forty minutes. I was cursing myself for knowing that this would happen, but trying anyway. So I’m not going to try again, but one day in the future I’ll try again, probably with the same result.
Feedback
Yeah, the problem is that this killed aim number one, to use up a load of leftover veg and make decent food. Then I’m beat, because it was the sort of hit that everyone remembers and can’t believe didn’t reach number one. It didn’t reach number one, but people kept asking about it afterwards, wanted to know it’s name, “That thing we had last night”, and so on. Talk about misgivings.