Saffron rice.. wthout saffron

ave you ever been frustrated with saffron like I am? The pesky bugger may give that sought-after flavour to your Persian rice, yet it is so finicky in handling. It is never really enough to offer an ample, full-bodied flavour, it needs to be pre-chopped and pre-soaked before you even dare to use it, then the flavour so easily escapes when cooking, and to boot it does not even colour the rice uniformly, leaving it instead tantalisingly spotted here and there. 

Luckily, by pure chance, I have discovered a mighty alternative to it, giving everything we have been begging saffron to deliver for so long, as of yet to no avail. Ta-dam, here enters the perfect couple: dry dill and turmeric powder. By some strange twist of fate, when paired together, they produce the flavour identical to saffron, at a fraction of the cost and effort, The colour too, albeit lacking saffron's reddish notes, with the addition of dill's dark green acquires a depth, elegantly finishing off with the golden brown of the tahdeg (caramelised crust). 

I also truncate the elaborate Persian procedure in favour of the more  straightforward, yet nonetheless effective Asian steaming method. Few more tricks that make this saffronless saffron rice a hit with my discerning guests.

• Add butter generously. I use about 70 g for 11 handfuls of dry rice. Butter is good for you: French people eat a lot of it and don't get fat. Junk food, snacking and eating on the run  - that's what makes you fat, not butter.
  
• Add a dash of sea salt. Without salt, your rice will come out bland and boring. I use fish sauce because it gives an additional level of depth to the flavour, thanks to the naturally occurring MSG, which is not bad for you.
  
• When the rice has been brought to a boil, stir it up to make sure that the dill is evenly spread. Very important: do that while the water has not yet been completely absorbed into the rice. Thus you will ensure that the rice does not turn into a solid slab, allowing for passages for the steam to travel through it, which is how the whole shebang actually gets cooked.
  
  
• Once ready, fluff up the rice. At the bottom, you will find a deliciously caramelised crust, tahdeg. Serve it separately, it tastes like savoury cake. Don't drag our feet though: it's only good while it's warm. To make your rice fit for a celebration table, the Nowruz only being a couple of months away, mix in some finely sliced dried apricots or sultanas as well as pistachio or almond flakes.

how to cook black rice recipe

Dolsot bibimbap: Korean stone bowl fried rice (돌솥 비빔밥)

ibimbap to Koreans is what pizza is to Italians, a beloved staple. A bowl of rice topped with stripes of vegetables, meat or seafood. Like pizza toppings, the variety is limitless.

My favourite one is sanchae bibimbap (산채비빔밥) that I yet have to find in London restaurants. Sanchae (산채 or 山菜) stands for "mountain vegetables". Every year lively packs of chirpy Korean pensioners venture out into the mountainous areas to look for looking for gosari (고사리) or fiddleheads, immature fronds of bracken fern, and an array of various edible leafs that only have Latin names in English.

But here I am on about a less exotic and more widely available type of bibimbap, dolsot bibimbap (돌솥 비빔밥). Most of times it features raw, uncooked toppings because it is served in a piping hot stone bowl. The toppings get cooked as you stir them with the rice and douse with the liquid version of gochujang. I like to see shock and bewilderment on the faces of my friends when they are served a bibimbap bowl with a raw egg on top and how it changes to as it gets nicely cooked right in front of them.

Nasi lemak: rice for the hard to please (coconut rice recipe)

he smell of freshly cooked rice wakes the Pavlov dog in me. I can't walk past Asian restaurants without my mouth suddenly starting watering. However, many people find plain rice boring. For those, there is coconut rice which is very easy to cook and compatible with a lot of dishes.

For me, coconut rice forever associates with Malaysia, where by the name of nasi lemak it is a national dish. It blends perfectly well with the lush spice-heavy aromas of Malaysian cuisine. I was quite surprised to see my old favourite served in a Colombian restaurant.

Cooking coconut rice is interpreted in a variety of ways but here's my own simple recipe that invariably yields fine results:

1. Rinse rice seven times until water runs clean.
2. Put the rice in a thick-bottomed pan and cover with twice as much coconut milk. I stick my finger upright for measurement: if the rice reaches the first joint, the coconut milk should come up to the second one.
3. Add some fish sauce. I put enough to make the content just slightly salty.
4. Put the pan on high fire until it boils, then reduce the fire to minimum.
   
5. Allow to steam away about 20 min. By all means resist the temptation to peek under the lid! The fat in coconut milk will prevent the rice from burning. Instead it will start frying at the bottom. Remove the pan from the heat when you smell the characteristic fragrance.
6. Let stay covered for a few minutes, then gently fluff the rice with a wooden spatula and allow to stay for another few minutes.
7. Sprinkle with toasted garlic or onion or chopped coriander and serve with gado-gado or chorizo colombiano.

How to make plain rice exciting: turmeric rice recipe

any Westerners and Russians do not seem to like Asian style steamed rice. Though I do not share the sentiment, I kind of can see how one could find it bland and unappealing. So here is a simple way how to make rice more exciting:

1. Rinse rice seven times and cover it with cold water. (Check if interested detailed rice-cooking instructions.)
2. Add a pinch of salt or a slug fish sauce, a piece of butter and a teaspoonful of turmeric powder. Also add a few cloves, a few cardamom pods and a stick of cinnamon broken into smaller pieces.
3. Cook as usual.
4. Chop a handful of cashew nuts and half a handful of dry apricots and add to the cooked rice. Mix well. You can also substitute apricots with white raisins (it not for nothing that Sangli, world' largest turmeric trading centre is also Asia's most important place of raisin trade).
   
5. When serving, sprinkle some chopped coriander leaves on top.
   

I serve this rice with anything: from grilled fish to Indian curries. In fact, it is good enough to be a dish in its own right. The aromatic crust that forms at the bottom of the cooking pot (see the picture above) is absolutely scrumptious.

How to cook rice the Asian way - moist and fluffy (ご飯の炊き方)

remember how surprised I was to taste fluffy unsalted rice served at my Japanese teacher's place. It was almost two decades ago and then I only knew the traditional Russian way of making an uninspired and not very popular side dish of it: by cooking it into salty semi-gruel.

Seeing my appreciative amazement, Che Cheun Suni-sensei (she was, well, still is, of Korean descent) was kind enough to teach me the secrets of real Asian rice. Later I learnt many more from my Thai, Chinese and Japanese friends. I will share this unwritten Asian wisdom with you.

First of all, you need to find the right kind of rice. There are three main types of rice used in Asian cuisines:

1) short-grained Japonica;
2) long-grained Indica;
3) glutinous or sticky rice.

Japonica and Indica are cooked the same way, except Japonica, which because of its higher protein content benefits from soaking for half an hour beforehand. Sticky rice is altogether another kettle of fish, I will deal with it separately.

Finding good quality rice can be a doozy. It all looks white and grainy and how the heck do you know the difference? There are so many producers and varieties out there. Some brands and types are pretty actually pretty bad and best be avoided. Your supermarket shelving boys will, in all likelihood, just stare blankly if you ask them what rice is the best, so you be better off going straight to people actually who deal in it - ethnic grocery shopkeepers. I did my rice research in Brixton and I am very happy with the results. I advise that you do the same.

Once you have found the right kind, it is time to get down to cooking. This is how you do it:

1. Normally, about 160 ml dry rice (a small cup) is enough for one good helping for one person. Multiply that by the number of expected diners.
2. Rinse the rice 7 times in running cold water until it runs clear. This is to remove the starch and ensure that cooked grains do not stick together. There are also other opinions about why we need to do that.
3. Cover there ice with cold water. The old-fashioned Korean way is to stick your finger upright in the rice and fill as much water as there is rice using your finger at the yardstick.
4. If you use a rice-cooker, use the measure cup and follow the notches on the inside the cooking bowl. You will need to make adjustments though depending on the altitude and humidity. For example, in the humid maritime climate of Amsterdam my house sits 3 metres below sea level, therefore I fill the rice-cooker with water a couple of millimetres below the designated notch.
   
5. If you use short-grained Japonica, let the rice soak for half an hour. If you use long-grained Indica, proceed to cooking.
6. If you use a rice-cooker, just choose the desired cooking mode. Sit back and watch some crap on TV, your job is done. Otherwise proceed to Step 7.
7. Put the pot with rice and water on high fire and bring to boil. Turn the heat to low. If you use an electric stove, turn the heat to low BEFORE it starts boiling.
8. Let the rice to gently simmer and steam away. Now it is your chance to learn to bridle your curiosity as, under no circumstances, you are to open the lid and see what is going on. The rice is steaming now and letting the steam out will interfere with the process.
9. Depending on the amount of rice, humidity, altitude and such, it takes about 15-20 minutes for the rice to get steamed. The rice-cooker will switch off automatically but if you cook rice in a pot you will know it is ready by the dryish, nutty smell of rice starting to get seared where it touches the pot. The trick is to stop the cooking process right there before it get actually burned. If you use an electric stove you will need to turn the heat off a few minutes earlier or completely remove the pot from the stove.
10. After you've turned the heat off, let the rice to sit about 10 more minutes. This is yet another opportunity to learn how to keep your curiosity in check.
11. When you open the lid you will see what the Japanese call the kani no ana, crab holes, in the rice, because the look exactly like the holes that sea crabs makes in the beach sand. It's the first sign of a correctly cooked rice. It means that you did not put too much water and turned it into mashy gruel.
12. Now, gently fluff the rice with a wooden spatula. The rice grains will not be sticking (too much) to each other.
13. If at the bottom of the pot you find an aromatic brownish rice crust, feel free to come and collect your prize at the Ricecookers Hall of Fame! This crust, called koge in Japanese and tahdeeg in Farsi, is a sought-after delicacy in a number of cultures. Iranians are even known to serve it separately as a dish in its own right.
    

Chazuke: making use of yesterday's rice (お茶漬け)

very national cuisine has great ways to deal with yesterday's leftovers. In Italy they top pizza, the British "devil" them, in Japan cold rice is made into a flavourful breakfast called chazuke, or to sound daintier, o-chazuke.

It is a simple dish: pour some green tea into a bowl with cold rice and sprinkle it with a few condiments. Cha stands for "tea" and zuke for "submerged". Kind of makes sense, innit. Depending on the region or individual preferences it can be anything:

• tsukemono pickles;
  
• salted plum umeboshi;
  
• nori (seaweed);
  
• furikake (savoury rice sprinkle);
  
• roasted sesame seeds;
  
• tarako (鱈子) (salted cod roe);
  
• mentaiko (明太子) (marinated pollock roe);
  
• salted salmon;
  
• shiokara (pickled seafood);
• nozawana (野沢菜) vegetable;
• and, last but not least, wasabi.

However, the Japanese made it even easier: most chazuke these days is instant. That is, all it takes is to open a pack.

Shopping for rice in London

ormal folks do their grocery shopping because they have to. Foodies, like yours truly, because they love to. I can spend hours ferreting out right ingredients in fresh markets and grocery stores.

The simple task of buying rice took me to four shops around Brixton Market. In each I interviewed the people about which rice they think is the best value. I was given a bewildering range of opinions about tens of different sorts and types. Indians and Pakistanis all claimed their Old Country's rice is the best.

Finally, I consulted a disinterested part, a Lebanese. I followed his advice and bought Indian Daawat basmati rice. It is more expensive than average but totally worth the extra money spent. It has long grains, faint vanilla flavour and when cooked stays fluffy, the texture the Japanese call tsubu-tsubu.

I haven't yet bought a rice-cooker but I have managed to cook rice in a pan on an electric range even with the golden brown crust at the bottom, so priced by the Iranians and Japanese!

Khao pad talay:Thai seafood fried rice (ข้าวผัดทะเล)

hai fried seafood rice - khao phat thalay (ข้าวผัดทะเล) - is a main course in its own right. It was the second dish after sushi that had lured me away from my dogged vegetarianism back in Bangkok.

It is a true magic how you can turn leftover rice from yesterday into a gorgeous meal. But fear not, the magic is actually quite simple and does not even cost much.

1. Chop and peel half a head of garlic.
2. Wash well and chop a small Chinese cabbage and half a bunch of pak bung (kangkong) or kai lan (Chinese broccoli) into 3-4-cm pieces.
3. If you don't have rice from yesterday, cook it afresh but add less water than usual.
4. As it always goes, heat a thick-bottomed wok. If you don't have one, buy it: it has been known to turn mediocre cooks into kitchen geniuses.
5. Depending on how much rice you have, add a few tablespoonfuls of odourless vegetable oil. As a rule of thumb, it's about one tablespoonful per 2 cups of rice.
6. When the oil is hot, add chopped garlic and a few dried anchovies. Fry until the garlic is golden brown.
7. For every two cups of rice add one cup of fresh seafood: shrimp, squid rings, baby octopuses, shelled mussels and clams, anything you have.
8. Add the chopped vegetables, a couple of beaten eggs and a generous glog of fish sauce.
   
9. When the eggs have just curdled, add the rice and mix gently but thoroughly.
10. Fry until the rice is hot and has absorbed all the liquid in the wok.
11. Serve as in the picture above: with spring onions, chopped fresh coriander, fresh lime and fish sauce chili dip.

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Thai language school and translation agency in Bangkok, Thailand offering Thai, Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian and Laotian (Lao, Isarn, Isaan) language courses.