The Recipe Room

Lately I’ve been trying to eat more whole-grain foods, but at first I had a hard time getting down plain, whole-grain brown rice.  It’s just so heavy and seemed to always get stuck in a ball at the back of my throat.  I’ve always loved Indian pilau rice, so I decided to try and make something similar with organic brown rice.  This Indian-style brown rice recipe is the result.

As with most Indian dishes, you need a lot of ingredients that you might not have in your kitchen, so a trip to the shops might be in order before you can start making it.  In any case, I’ve tried to keep the ingredients list as short as possible and only use the most common Indian herbs and spices.  I also added frozen peas to the mix to try and make it into a full meal in itself, although the best thing to do is to top it off with your favourite curry.  It also goes quite nicely with my baked tofu in peanut butter sauce recipe.

You Need:

• 500g organic brown rice
• 1.5L water
• 100g frozen peas
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsps unsalted butter
• Seeds from 8 green cardamoms
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp fresh chopped ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 8 cloves
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
•  2 tbsps fresh chopped coriander

Steps:

1. Melt the butter in a 3 litre pot over medium heat.
2. Add the garlic slices, cardamom seeds, fresh ginger, bay leaf, cloves and cinnamon sticks and sauté for about 2 minutes or until the garlic starts to brown.
3. Add the rice and sauté for about a minute, stirring constantly and making sure all the rice gets coated and toasted with the butter and spices.
4. Add the water, salt and turmeric and bring to the boil.
5. Add the frozen peas.
6. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes or until the rice is tender.  The exact time varies greatly depending on the brand of rice used.
7. Drain off any excess water.
8. Mix the fresh coriander into the rice and serve with your favourite curry.

Ready In:  30-45 minutes

Serves:  6

Difficulty:  2 out of 5

Note: Now that I enjoy brown rice, I also eat this brown rice salad with pecans and sultanas. Simply scrumptious!

Is it a dessert?  Is it a main course?  It’s hard to classify precisely although the one thing that’s for sure is that it is 100% awesome yumminess!  I pulled this Baked Tofu in Peanut Butter Sauce recipe out of my hat last Sunday after a meat-loving friend bet me I couldn’t prepare tofu in a way that he would consider delicious or even edible, for that matter.  Since he is notorious for having a sweet tooth, I decided to mix things up a bit and go for something leaning towards dessert than your typical savoury tofu dish.  This was the result.

So, to make a long story short, I made the dish, he tried it, and he was absolutely blown away!  The saltiness of the tamari contrasts nicely with the sweetness of the peanut butter, and the ginger, chilli pepper and garlic seemed like a good idea to give it a bit of a Thai feel.  (Another Thai dish that can be made with tofu is Pad Thai.) It may be a bit rich for some tastes, but if you’ve got a sweet tooth or just love peanut butter, I definitely recommend you try this one right away!

You Need:

• 400g soft tofu
• 3 tbsps gluten-free Tamari Soy Sauce
• 6 tbsps smooth peanut butter
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, very finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• ½ tsp fresh chilli peppers, finely chopped (can substitute ½ tsp paprika)
• 200 ml boiling water.

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC.
2. Mix the peanut butter with the boiling water in a bowl.  Stir until all the peanut butter is dissolved.
3. Sauté the ginger, garlic and chilli peppers in a little oil for about 2 minutes or until the garlic starts to brown.
4. Add the spices to the peanut butter and tamari sauce and mix well.
5. Cut the tofu into ½ cm slices.
6. Lay the tofu slices along the bottom of a deep, non-stick baking pan or casserole dish.  If you don’t have a non-stick pan, grease the bottom with a little oil or butter before laying out the tofu.
7. Pour the peanut butter mixture over the tofu slices.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the peanut butter sauce solidifies and starts to bubble at the edges.
9. Serve on top of rice or alongside some steamed veggies.

Ready In:  30 minutes

Serves:  3

Difficulty:   2 out of 5