If you live in the Northern hemisphere chances are you are right in the middle of a heatwave with soaring temperatures at the moment. Many of you will be thinking about what to cook for lunch or dinner, something which doesn’t require a lot of effort and is also healthy, as well as a crowd pleaser. The word salad is prominent in your vocabulary around about this period, but rather than repeating the same old ones perhaps you are looking for an alternative? Rice salad has always been a favourite of mine, however, as I have discovered over the years, and despite the fact that millions across the world eat white rice at every meal, white rice is not a healthy food. White rice is to brown rice what white sugar is to honey. The second of each pair being the healthier (less processed), more wholesome alternative.
You could replace the white rice with brown rice, of course. But what if I was to tell you that there is another type of rice which is even healthier than brown rice? A rice which is considered a wholefood, is packed with minerals (magnesium, manganese, selenium, zinc …) as well as other nutrients (iron, copper, phosphorus, vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin C…) and trumps brown rice in that it also has antioxidants which fight free radicals (those rascals responsible for making you age faster!).
In fact red rice is full of fibre, it is highly nutritious and gets its colour from an antioxidant called anthocyanin, which can also be found in other deep purple and reddish fruits and vegetables. All this translates into a food which helps reduce inflammation, prevent cancer, helps lower blood sugar and helps to fight heart disease, as well as helping you manage your weight.
Once cooked, red rice has a fragrant, nutty and sweet flavour. Like brown rice, it takes longer to cook than your regular white basmati rice, but the wait is well worth it. In Indonesia, where their own variety of organic red rice is grown, the locals consume it daily, often mixed with white rice.
Of all the different types of rice, red rice is not as common to find on supermarket shelves, but if and when you do find it, I strongly recommend you give it a try, if only to vary your diet a little!
Here is a recipe I cooked up recently using red rice and seasonal ingredients, but feel free to play around with the other ingredients to cater to your tastes, needs and audience.
Summer Red Rice Salad
Ingredients (per person)
approx 50 gm organic Red Rice (Jatiluwih Balinese variety)
a handful of Greek Kalamata olives
60 to 70 gm shelled prawns
5 to 7 organic cherry tomatoes
approx 60 gm broad beans (shelled)
100 gm fresh baby asparagus
2 to 3 tsp sea salt for cooking
2 to 3 tbsp olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon (to season)
Method
1. Wash the tomatoes and asparagus in a water and bicarbonate soak for approximately 10 minutes.
2. Measure and wash the red rice, place it in a pan with a pinch of salt and hot water. How much water and how long you need to cook it for will depend on the variety of red rice that you found. (In my case it needs a ratio of 3:1 water to rice and cooks in approximately 35 minutes.)
3. In the meantime, shell the broad beans and place them in a small saucepan with a pinch of salt and enough water to cover them. Cook until tender. This should take approximately 8 to 10 minutes depending on the size of your beans. Drain and place in a serving bowl.
4. Shell and clean the prawns if using fresh ones. Place in a bowl to marinade in a mixture of oil and fresh lemon juice for a few minutes. Then drain and move to a ceramic frying pan to cook (no oil needed). This will take only a couple of minutes and you will know when they go from translucent to pink. Remove from the heat and add to the bowl.
5. Dry and halve or quarter the cherry tomatoes. Place them in the serving bowl with the prawns and broad beans. Add the Kalamata olives. (I use Kalamata as they are salty and the flavour provides a nice contrast to the sweetness of the other ingredients).
6. Carefully pat dry the asparagus and place them in a steamer. Steam for approximately 5 minutes until the stems are tender. Make sure you time this correctly so that your asparagus are still warm when the rice salad is ready to be served. Season with olive oil and lemon.
7. Once the rice has cooked, place it in the bowl with all the other ingredients (except the asparagus), mix well and season with olive oil and fresh lemon to taste. Serve warm or room temperature.
And voila! A complete summer meal with a healthy twist on your usual rice salad.
Bon appetit!
