Rice 2 ways - The Cookbook Challenge - Week 19

The theme for this week was rice.  I really wanted to make both a savoury & a sweet dish this week so I chose 2 recipes from the same book, Bill Granger's Holiday & both had an Asian feel to them.  It's funny how I thought the pudding would be sensational & the rice just ok yet things turned out completely the other way around.  I loved the simplicity of the rice with chicken yet the pudding didnt do it for me at all though I was quite partial to the gorgeous caramelized pineapple on top.

The chicken dish was quite interesting for me in that it was cooked a bit differently to my normal method, the rice had ginger, onion, garlic & sesame oil through it, I love the aroma of anything cooking with sesame oil in it?  Once this was simmered for a while the chicken was poached on top.  When I tried this before adding the soy, spring onions & chilli I was a little disappointed as it was a bit bland (as well as looking way too white!), however the addition of the last minute extras lifted the dish to one I was very happy to eat, a great simple combination.

Ginger & Sesame Rice with Poached Chicken - from Bill Granger, Holiday

Serves 4

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbspn freshly grated ginger
400g jasmine rice
750ml chicken stock
500g chicken breast fillets, cut into thin escalopes

To Serve

Finely sliced spring onions
Chopped red chilli
Soy Sauce

Heat the oils in a large deep frying pan over medium-low heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-6 minutes until soft.  Add the garlic and ginger & cook, stirring for 2 minutes more.

Add the rice and stir to coat the grains of rice with the oil.  Add the stock and bring to the boil.  Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.  Place the chicken in a single layer on top of the rice.  Cover again and simmer for a further 8-10 minutes, or until the rice is just tender and the chicken is cooked through.

Remove from the heat and set aside with the lid on, for a further 5 minutes.  Serve sprinkled with spring onions, chilli & drizzled with soy sauce

My second rice dish was a coconut rice pudding with caramelised pineapple.  Now I love anything flavoured with coconut or coconut milk so I thought this was a definite winner.  Wrong, it was ok though my version turned out a little dry, didnt really brown all that well on top & the flavour just didnt taste quite right to me.  Funny as I made a classic rice pudding for Josh yesterday & served it to him with some blackcurrant jam stirred through & this one was sensational!  As mentioned the pineapple got a big thumbs up, I guess anything coated in sugar & cinnamon & fried has to taste good right?

Coconut Rice Pudding with Caramelised Pineapple - from Bill Granger, Holiday

Serves 4

400ml coconut milk
500ml milk
225g arborio rice
3 tblsons caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170c and lightly grease a 1.5 litre capacity baking dish.  Put the coconut milk, milk, rice, sugar & vanilla in the dish & stir together well.  Cover with foil & bake for 1 1/4 hours, remove the foil & bake for a further 30-35 minutes until nicely browned on top.  Leave to rest for 10 minutes before serving with pineapple.

Caramelised Pineapple

1/2 tspn ground cinnamon
2 tblspns brown sugar
3 thin slices fresh pineapple, cut into small triangles.

Mix together the cinnamon & sugar on a plate.  Toss the pineapple in the cinnamon sugar until coated on all sides.

Heat a large non stick frying pan over medium high heat & cook the pineapple for 1 minute on each side until caramelised.  Serve with the pudding.