Rice with Broccoli

Broccoli

1. Vegetarian rice with broccoli makes an excellent side dish for meat or fish. For a side dish, it’s better to use a fluffy rice variety so the dish doesn’t turn into porridge. Of the widely available varieties, basmati and parboiled are ideal.

   Besides broccoli, it’s worth adding carrot, parsnip root, and perhaps other vegetables to the rice. And of course onion, since most dishes like this are rarely made without it. Fresh broccoli keeps only a short time and turns yellow as it starts forming seeds. So if you can’t get fresh dark green florets, it’s better to buy frozen broccoli, which is sold year-round in almost any store.

2. Prepare the ingredients: broccoli, rice, carrot, parsnip, onion, and hot pepper.

   

3. Cut off the green broccoli florets and put them in a pot.

   The florets need to be boiled briefly before you make the dish, since the broccoli is added at the very end of cooking.

4. Pour in 1-1.5 l of water and add a scant 1 tbsp of sugar (14 g).

   When boiled, broccoli and other green vegetables lose their green color, but a little sugar in the water prevents this.

5. Bring the water to a boil and cook the broccoli over low heat for 2-3 mins.

6. Transfer the broccoli to a plate and cover it with something.

   

Vegetables and rice

1. Peel the carrot and parsnip. Cut them into fairly large cubes, roughly twice the size you’d use for vinaigrette salad.

2. Heat the vegetable oil in a deep skillet with a lid and fry the vegetables over medium heat. The carrot and parsnip cubes should be easy to pierce with the tip of a knife and just beginning to brown.

   

3. Peel the onion and cut it into thick strips.

4. Add the onion to the fried vegetables and keep frying over medium heat. Onion fries quickly, and in a few minutes it will soften and take on a wonderful golden color.

   

5. Add the rice to the fried vegetables.

   Polished rice usually needs rinsing to remove rice flour, which is unwanted in fluffy side dishes or pilaf. It’s up to you here. Parboiled rice is more often sold as “steamed” and has already had the rice flour removed. Good basmati also contains almost no rice flour. I add the rice without rinsing it, and it comes out fluffy and fragrant, with no stickiness at all.

   

6. Stir the rice with the fried vegetables, add a little salt and black pepper. Add 1-2 pinches of dried aromatic herbs, such as basil, thyme, savory, dill, and parsley. Such blends are often sold as “Mediterranean.”

7. Add hot water: parboiled rice absorbs about two volumes of liquid, and basmati about one and a half. Use these figures as a guide. They make sure the rice cooks through and turns out perfectly fluffy.

   

8. Bring to a boil, cover with a lid, and cook the rice over low heat for 15-20 mins, until it has absorbed almost all the free liquid but a little moisture remains to “glue” the grains together.

9. Meanwhile, cut the hot pepper in half lengthwise, trim off the tips, and carefully remove the seeds and inner white membranes. They contain almost all the capsaicin that gives the pepper its sharp, burning taste (see the Scoville scale). Chop finely.

   The pepper flesh itself has an almost neutral flavor with just a little heat. In any case, add hot pepper to taste; you can replace it with an ordinary sweet red pepper.

10. Add the chopped pepper to the rice.

    

Steaming and serving

1. Cover the skillet with a lid and steam the rice for 8-10 mins over very low heat, stirring once or twice.

   Steaming is the important step that makes the dish perfectly fluffy.

2. Shortly before the end of cooking, add the boiled broccoli florets and stir.

   Rice with broccoli is even tastier if you add one or two tablespoons of natural light soy sauce at this point. We sometimes do this, and we like the flavor, which is a bit like the Chinese fried rice we always make to go with fried or roasted chicken.

   Ideally the finished rice with broccoli should have no moisture and be dry and fluffy, yet the grains should be soft and fully cooked.

   

3. Divide the finished side dish among plates and add separately cooked meat, poultry, or fish.

4. If you serve rice with broccoli as a vegetarian dish, sprinkle it with finely chopped parsley and, if you like, add thinly sliced pepper or pickled pepper with garlic and fresh herbs.