rice and pasta

Are you talking about using rice as a pudding or as a savoury? I use different rices for different purposes - Basmati is my favourite for curries and similar - arborio for Italian and Spanish style - 'wild' rice (OK, not a rice!) for other purposes.

Either for sweet or savoury purposes cardamom (black and green) and saffron are great flavours to add.

Also your question really depends on whether you're cooking for yourself or for a restaurant.

If you're talking about eating at home I would take my personal ethnic background into account we don't eat flavoured rice much, with the exception of fried rice and things put on top of rice (either cooked separately or steamed with). Green Chinese vegetables added to rice is very traditional, and I personally think rice makes a very good stuffing for various proteins. (and even steamed in lotus leaf).

As for low fat pasta sauces how about an herb pesto? Replace some of the oil that usually goes into pesto and you can replace with a dash of honey and a bit of stock. Also, apart from the traditional herbs and nuts you can play around with it and get some really great flavours.

Try cooking Basmatti or Jasmine rice in (Jasmine) green tea. It adds a nice background flavor to the rice. Brown rice can also be cooked in green tea, but I'd not use Jasmine tea for that, perhaps a heartier green tea. You'll have to play around with the strength of the tea to suit your own taste and the amount of rice you're making, as well as the type of tea that you're using.

Shel

I make both risotto and pasta with vegetables of various kinds. The ones i like best are cauliflower, broccoli, zucchine, asparagus.
The method is pretty much the same. You need to cut up the vegetables to a bite-size shape, and peel those with hard skins (broccoli and cauliflower stems, and i also peel the bottom part of asparagus - but not zucchine).
The big difference between pasta and rice dishes is you cook the vegetables separately for pasta and then mix when the pasta is cooked, and for rice, you pre-sautee the vegetable partly, then add the rice, sautee that, and then add broth or water and cook through.

a couple of examples:
pasta with zucchine
cut zucchine into cubes, about half an inch across. About one small or half a large one per person. Take a large garlic clove per person and slice it in 4 or 5 pieces. Put extra virgin olive oil in a large frying pan or chicken fryer (high straight sides, works easier to turn the vegetables without them flying all over the place). You need to completely film the bottom, and maybe have it 1/8 of an inch deep, or a little less. Turn heat on low, add garlic and zucchine, salt and pepper, and cook very slowly, till the zucchine "melt" - get soft and squishy - don't let the garlic brown. Cook short pasta (penne, elbows, shells, rigatoni) and when it's done mix the pasta with the zucchine and garlic. Put plenty of parmigiano on top.

risotto with zucchine
For risotto with zucchine, i would use onion rather than garlic. I use less fat, in any case, than for pasta, since it doesn;t have to become like a sauce. Start sauteeing the onion till it gets almost soft, add zucchine and let it begin to sautee, then add the rice (short grain, not perfumed, not parboiled, plain rice like arborio, if you can get it, but you can do it with any unperfumed rice and it tastes good even if not traditional. I also make this sort of dish with brown rice or wheat or barley, different, but also good). Cook stirring till the rice is all wet with the fat and has cooked a little but not browned. Add water, or stock of your choice, just enough to let the rice poke through, stir regularly, add more stock (or you can just add an equal part by volume - measure from top of rice to bottom, putting your thumb on the side of a knife you stick into the pot, then add that much water measuring from the top of the rice to the top of the water.) (Oh, and a rule of thumb is to use two good fistfuls of rice per serving). Cook till creamy and rice is al dente.

broccoli or cauliflower
With broccoli or cauliflower, for pasta or rice i use garlic, and occasionally some hot pepper (two or three small red cayenne type peppers). Sautee till the vegetable is completely cooked and mushy if it's going to be for pasta, a little less for rice (since it will finish off with the liquid and rice). This is not the time for bright green crunchy broccoli.

For asparagus i use butter, scallion greens, cut to the same length (about an inch) as the asparagus. I sautee till tender for pasta, and till half tender for risotto, adding chicken stock for risotto.

Add lots of grated parmigiano as soon as you drain the pasta, and it will melt onto the pasta, then add the vegetables.

Another possibility is risotto with squash. Onion, butter, squash, let it start to get mushy, then add rice, liquid.

leftover risotto croquettes
I always made extra risotto when the kids were still living here. Next night, into the cold risotto i mixed a couple of handfuls parmigiano, an egg, and a little flour if it was too liquid to shape into balls. Shape into croquettes, cylinders are easiest. Roll in flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs. Fry in a half an inch of oil till browned. You can also add some ham or bacon or pancetta, and/or you can bury a piece of cheese or mozzarella in the center, and you have "suppli' al telefono" - telephone croquettes - when you break them open they have a string of cheese between the two halves, like a phone and its receiver.

other choices are combinations of rice or pasta and beans or chick peas. These will give you full useable protein if you eat them together. If you want some recipes, let me know. that's enough for tonight

for pasta or rice and legumes or pulses, the basic principle is to soak the beans (lentils don;t need soaking) overnight. Then in a heavy bottomed pot with a little olive oil, sautee very slowly any or all of the following: garlic, onion, celery, carrot, leek, shallots, parsley. You can chop finely or roughly, depending on how you want the final product. Add the drained soaked beans (or chickpeas) and enough water to cover and a little more - they need to cook a long time, usually around an hour. They should become very soft.
Traditionally you would leave the beans or chickpeas (garbanzos) a little soupy, puree half of them, and put back in the pot, and either cook pasta in the soup, or cook the pasta separately and add.

In the old days, pasta was sold loose, and the pasta pieces that would fall on the floor as well as the dregs that were left in the bag, would be scooped up and sold cheap for making bean soups. Most italians couldn;t afford pasta during the war. My inlaws' families had grocery stores and they would say peasants would come in to buy some few things they couldn;t grow and wuold buy pasta only on holidays, christmas and easter - otherwise it was soup, usually with bread. A really interesting book by the neapolitain author de crescenzo, describes how in naples kids would work for the grocery store to blow out the dust from the fallen pasta so it could be sold "clean"! They would get a bowl of it a day as pay.
Anyway, it is still traditional to use all the pasta scraps (short pasta or broken long pasta like spaghetti) all mixed together. This is one case where the pasta is not necessarily eaten al dente.
alternatively you can use rice.
alternatively you can toast some hefty bread, then rub a piece of garlic on it, lay it in the bowl, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, grind some black pepper on it, then ladle the soup on top. here, again, you get full protein at one tenth the cost. And much more filling.

Olive oil is usually drizzled on bean dishes, at the last minute ("a crudo" - uncooked) and some grated pepper.

another funny/sad story, my father in law knew a guy who was very poor. He owuld always undercook the beans. Why? because they would take a long time to digest and he would feel full longer.

To these mixtures you can add a sausage, crumbled up and browned with the garlic etc, or vegetables of any kind and make it a minestrone. Some like bean soups with tomato in them (i don't, but it;s typical in tuscany and other regions).

Lentils are especially good with a sautee of crushed garlic and parsley, and if you like also pancetta chopped up, then boiled with spinach in the water. Add rice, wheat or pour over bread. Use leftovers to make a lentil loaf, with grated onion, bread crumbs, parmigiano, an egg.

I know this sounds very simple but I really like rice with just butter and grated cheese on the top.

One really simple way of flavouring your cooked rice is to sprinkle fried chopped garlic.

I know rice cookers are not regular items in the west but if you do see it, invest in one. It does wonders to your rice dishes!

to tell you the truth, despite all the recipes i have, that is also my own favorite way of eating rice. I make all the risotto stuff for the rest of the family, but i actually prefer it plain with butter, i don;t even use cheese. Rice and butter, simple and exquisite.

But jamesstout was looking for unusual ways of making it.

Oh yes, James. There is a delicious Jewish sweet noodle dish called "kugel". It can be made savory with potatoes, rice, noodles or matzo meal crumbs. The sweet version is really a dessert or brunch dish. There are many versions on the web, but here's one I like which I modified from Raymond Sokolov's book, The Jewish American Kitchen (1989). It's very rich, dense and delicious. Enjoy! :lips:

Lokshen Kugel (Noodle pudding)

8 tablespoons butter, melted
16 ounces broad egg noodles
3 cups cottage cheese
3 cups sour cream
6 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup (or more) granulated sugar
1/2 cup raisins
1-1/4 cups plain bread crumbs
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F). Use some of the butter to grease a 3 quart ovenproof dish. (I've used a 13X9" glass baking pan.)

Cook the noodles in boiling salted water until tender; drain.

In a large bowl, combine the cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, sugar and raisins. Mix well. Add the drained noodles and mix well. Turn the mixture into the prepared baking dish.

Combine the bread crumbs with all but one tablespoon of the remaining melted butter. Add the cinamon and the brown sugar. Cover the top of the pudding with this mixture and drizzle it with the remaining butter. Bake the kugel for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the top is nicely browned and the kugel is bubbling.

Makes 10-12 servings.

They are excellent. You just need to add rice and water according to instructions, close the lid, turn the power on and voila! The rice will turn out fluffy and nice after a couple of minutes. No more soggy rice.

You can even make savoury rice dishes in it. I have a couple of home-cooked recipes for rice on my recipe website below. Just look for "rice" and you'll find them.

How much does a rice cooker cost where you are at?

This UK website shows a lot of rice steamer/cookers at various prices.
http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPP-rice_cookers_and_steamers

Hi,

Whenever I make rice, I make enough for whatever meal or meals I'm planning for the next couple of days, and make enough for freezing, and then I always make some extra for snacks, which are eaten either cold or warm. One snack is to just sprinkle a favorite soy sauce on the rice, or a combination of soy and oyster sauce, and some green onions. Another is to warm the rice in the microwave, grind a blend of pepper on it (the typical red, green, white, black peppers with some Szechuan pepper mixed in), and add some green onions and appropriate soy sauce ... real simple and real tasty. I especially like these snacks made with long grain brown rice.

As for freezing, after the rice cools a bit I place it in large plastic freezer bags - I think they're the one gallon size - and spread the rice so it's about 1/2 - 3/4 inch thick. The bags lay flat in the freezer, and when the rice is frozen you can even put other items on top of the bags, thereby taking up very little actual space in the freezer. Whenever I need some rice I just open the bag and brek off an appropriate-sized piece. Very convenient ...

Shel

How about rice stir fried with scallops, kailan, egg white, garlic and green onions? It's really easy and this dish is found in Chinese restaurants.

You can use broccoli stems to replace kailan. I use Thai Jasmine rice. For full recipe, search for 'scallop fried rice' in my website (below).

I don't foresee that as a problem. You do need to adjust the water though, as I think brown rice absorbs more water compared to the usual white rice.

By the way, yeah, I was previously studying in Leicester and my housemates were wondering what gizmo I brought with me to the kitchen from Malaysia. It was a rice cooker and they were fascinated. I had difficulty finding one in the stores over in Leicester. Anyway, if you can get one, do invest in it. You won't regret as the rice will turn out almost perfect everytime! As for that rice cooker of mine, I gave it to my housemates when I left university and they are pretty pleased!

I have not used a veg steamer to cook rice...so, I won't be able to answer that question. You can actually steam rice by placing rice plus appropriate amount of water in a container and placing it in a steamer but you will have to experiment a bit to find the right amount of rice + water.

when i want just plain rice, to serve with butter, or to make a rice salad, or with just a sauce on top (like as a side to a stew or something) I boil it like pasta. It's the way i learned here in italy, where everyone does it that way unless making risotto. It's foolproof, because you don;t have to have the exact amount of water which can vary if the rice is drier or very fresh. Just boil a big pot of salted water, put the rice in, and start tasting for doneness before the time indicated on the box is up, and drain immediately when it tastes right. It's advantage and disadvantage is that it doesn;t get sticky, the grains stay separate. (For oriental and some other dishes, this is not desirable, but for other dishes it might be). I was at a loss when i came here, and the rice was very different from back home (about five kinds of short grain just at the local store and no long grain anywhere) and no indications on the package how to cook it (the boxes in the states always said how much water and how much rice). Then i saw how they did it here, and it was so simple.

Tea

I love cooking with tea. I like bowtie pasta cooked in chamomile tea, then tossed with butter, salt, and pepper. It's easy to cook rice and pasta with tea; just add some tea to your water (and only use as much as you want)! I only use whole-leaf tea for drinking and cooking, the flavor is much better and not bitterly tannic. I also cut up a little bit of beets to add to rice, or other starches, because the color is EXPLOSIVE (as you all well know with beets).

A Darjeeling Basmati rice topped with an acorn squash curry is one of my favorite dishes. I would sell that if I had a commercial kitchen; it tastes splendid.