Indian rice

Rice is nice isn’t it? (Rhetorical.)

Put a scoop of butter and a glug of oil into a saucepan. Add a good tablespoon of garam masala. Fry for a bit.

Add some mixed veg from the freezer. Stir for a bit.

Add 50g rice per person. Measure this rice in cups so you know how “big” it is. Stir it round a bit.

Then add 2.5x as much boiling water as there was rice, cover and simmer for 12-15 minutes ish, or until cooked.

Ideally, as it’s rice you shouldn’t poke it too much, but if it looks like it is drying out then add a bit more water. The aim is that you won’t have to drain it at the end, just spoon it out.

Season with salt and black pepper, and squeeze a bit of lemon juice on if you are feeling posh.

Optional: stir in some dessicated coconut, sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Goes well with curry, or just a spoon of thick yogurt. Mmm!

Lemony chorizo and prawn rice pot

Hello!

I am not as poncey as Chris, and as a result will be sharing only delicious and easy recipes which do not require the use of fancy biscuit cutters. Unless I make biscuits, in which case fancy biscuit cutters are OK, especially if baking with Panther (our small baby- she is only 11 months and therefore pre-cooking age, although in a future post I will share the story of when we made Halloween biscuits with her!)

This one comes from my good food magazine and it’s really delicious. So delicious we’re having it again this week. Keeping every new recipe on the menu will not be practical for very long so we’ll need to be careful, otherwise if we keep them all on we’ll be eating 50 meals a week after the year, which would really be too many!

Anyway, here goes (from memory):

Ingredients
200g prawns (recipe calls for raw, which you’d heat through at the end, I used cooked and left over from Christmas)
50g chorizo (for cooking, about 3 small ones, but could happily take more, sliced)
1 sliced onion
2 sliced peppers
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 red chilli, chopped
1/2 tsp turmeric
250g long grain rice (I’m not really one for measuring that much, and the scales don’t work, but this amount is quite important so it boils down to the right consistency!)
100g frozen peas
Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Method

1. boil kettle. Fry onion, peppers, chorizo, garlic and chilli for 3 mins
2. Add turmeric and rice. Stir. Add 500ml boiling water and cook for 12 mins, covered
3. Uncover and stir, should be nearly cooked. Add prawn and peas, and more water if not needed. Cook for 1 min until prawns are cooked (obviously this doesn’t apply if you use cooked prawns like me – they can be added later or even at the table!)
4. Stir in lemon zest and juice and eat. Serves 4 and is yummy!