Warm Mexican Rice Salad with Crispy Pork Belly and Peppers

Step-by-step recipe

1. As I said, a rice salad can be made with quite a wide range of add-ins. I decided to make a dish of its own, with fried bell and chili peppers, pork belly and cherry tomatoes. Making it comes down to cooking the rice and frying the vegetables and meat, two independent processes, so the rice salad takes about an hour.
   
2. The salad needs fluffy long-grain rice. Of the common, easy-to-find kinds, parboiled rice works well; it's sold labeled “parboiled”. Parboiled rice doesn't need the usual rinsing to remove rice flour. There are two ways to cook it.
   
3. Usually rice is covered with water at a ratio of 1:2, or whatever suits the variety, and cooked over low heat until it absorbs all the liquid and is done. Judging by feedback, the vast majority of people have some trouble cooking rice. Rice cookers and steamers are tricky, and even rice in a multicooker doesn't always work out.
4. So I always suggest a foolproof way: cover a cup of rice with 1.5-2 liters of water, add a pinch of salt and cook until tender. Then drain the rice in a colander. If the rice will be fried later, as for fried rice, you can even rinse it. You can't go wrong with this method.
5. Take pork belly, raw or cooked, with a little fat, and remove any bones and rind. Cut it into small slices or dice, roughly the size of vegetables for a beet salad. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan and fry the pork belly. The pieces should turn a lovely golden brown and slightly crispy. Transfer the fried pork belly to a separate plate.
   
6. Seed and stem the bell peppers and dice them. Remove the seeds and white inner ribs from the chili pods. By the way, most of the capsaicin that makes peppers hot is in the seeds and white ribs. Chop the chili more finely. Dice the celery.
   
7. In the fat left from frying the pork belly, fry the mix of bell and chili peppers and celery. Fry over medium heat for 6-7 mins with the pan uncovered. Then season the vegetables with salt, a pinch of dried oregano and black pepper. Add a coarsely chopped garlic clove and sprinkle with 1 tsp of lime juice.
   
8. Stir the vegetables and add the cooked rice. Mix the rice and vegetables, turn the heat down to the minimum and cover the pan. The rice and vegetables should heat through and steam a little, 12-15 mins. Stir 2-3 times during that time.
   
9. Finely chop the green onions, only the green tops; the white part isn't used. Strip all the leaves from the parsley sprigs and chop them finely. Wash the cherry tomatoes and cut them into halves or quarters, leaving the seeds in.
10. Add the fried pork belly to the warm rice and vegetables and stir. Turn off the heat and take off the lid. The warm rice salad with vegetables and pork belly should cool a little, not be hot like plov or rice with meat.
    
11. Sprinkle the finished rice salad with the chopped parsley and green onions. Stir and put on plates. Top with the cherry tomatoes. If you're serving the salad as a side, add a piece of well-done meat, plus marinated bell peppers with garlic.
    
12. The rice salad with vegetables and pork belly may seem a bit dry to you. In that case, drizzle the rice with a little fragrant oil from homemade garlic in oil, or just mix 1 tbsp of olive oil with black pepper and a few drops of lime juice.
    
13. Rice salad with fried vegetables and pork belly is tasty on its own, with grilled meat or fish, and as a filling for Mexican tacos. Just make corn or wheat tortillas.