This is one of those recipes that is so simple, one wonders why it should even be written. Though I had no idea how to prepare flavorful white rice until I met Heguiberto. It was not something in my culinary universe. If pressed, I’d just toss the rice in with some boiling water and let it cook. But that never tastes very good.

authentic Brazilian-style white rice

This is the traditional recipe Heguiberto’s Brazilian mother taught. I’ve travelled to Brazil several times now and his sisters make it in just the same way. We tend to use Thai jasmine rice at home, though any will do.

authentic Brazilian-style white rice

1 cup Thai jasmine rice or similar
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Kosher salt
2 cups water

Add olive oil and salt to a medium saucepan on high heat. Once oil heats up, add rice. Stir to coat with oil. Next add water and bring to a boil, covered, stirring occasionally. Keeping pan covered, reduce to simmer. Stir during simmer. Cook until all water absorbed. Remove from heat, and let sit covered about 5 minutes. Fluff and serve.

whole wheat roti

Indian unleavened breads are incredibly easy to make and very tasty. This roti is no exception. I particularly like dipping the warm fry bread in dal (lentil) soups or really with any curry dish. It is my number one choice for my vegan masoor dal.

You can use roti to scoop and soak up any type of food on your plate. That’s a good thing because nothing goes to waste. We always wipe our plates clean this way, so I’ve come to think of this bread as an environmentally friendly way of eating.

whole wheat roti

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp canola oil
Some water

Using your hands, mix together flours, salt and oil followed by about ½ cup of water. Add more water by spoonfuls and keep kneading until you get a smooth, relatively soft bread dough. Drizzle a tiny bit of oil over it. Cover with cling film and let it seat, room temperature, for about 30 minutes.

rolling out the dough

Divide dough into small balls and roll them out into thin tortilla-like pancakes with a floured rolling pin and surface.

Cook them on medium-hot temperature in lightly oiled non-stick skillet for about 1-2 minutes per side. Push the pancakes down to form a few blisters on its surface for good looks and taste! Place them on serving platters lined with warm towels to preserve freshness and heat.

pan frying the roti

In Brazil we serve lentil soup New Year’s Eve with wishes for good fortune. I served mine for New year’s in San Francisco in the company of Steven, Jasmine and Prof.T.

This is another wonderful rice pilaf adapted from our favorite Iranian cook book, New Food of Life, by Najmieh Batmanglij. I prepared it for our New Year’s Eve party and we shared it with our friends Jasmine Turner and Prof. T.

fragrant herbed basmati polow

Steven “suggested” the meal, and I’m glad. I was a bit jet lagged from our recent trip to Virginia and couldn’t organize my thoughts around what to cook for our last dinner of 2011: obviously an important decision in any kitchen. This rice is wonderfully fragrant and light. It whispers that spring is coming soon…

Here I didn’t use ghee. Instead I used just a single tablespoon of butter, and extra virgin olive oil for the rest. The recipe calls for plain yogurt but I used labneh—I can’t help it, I’m, addicted to the stuff. I mixed up the herb ratios compared to Najmieh’s recommendations and deployed the cinnamon parsimoniously.

Lastly, this dish requires attention to the process of making it otherwise it won’t turn out the way it is supposed to be. I’ve tried making similar recipes before skipping steps and the result was not as effective, so between prepping and the actual cooking, it took me about 3 hours to prepare.

fragrant herbed basmati polow

3 cups basmati rice
¾ cup whole scallions, roughly chopped
1½ cups dill, roughly chopped
2 cups Italian parsley, roughly chopped
2 cups cilantro, roughly chopped
2 stalks fresh Chinese garlic plants, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp saffron threads (~ 1 gram), dissolved/soaked in 5 tbsp warm water
2 tbsp labneh
Sprinkles of cinnamon
1 tbsp butter
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt

Rinse basmati rice 3 times in warm water. Transfer rice to a large bowl then add 8 cups of water and two teaspoons of salt. Stir it and soak for 2 hours.

Towards the last 15 minutes of soaking, fill a large pot with 8 cups of water, 1 tsp of salt and bring it to a boil. Rinse soaking rice and put it in the boiling water. Parboil it for about 5 minutes and drain.

Mix all herbs with minced garlic and some salt. Set aside

Using a separate bowl combine about ¾ cup of parboiled rice, labneh and a third of the saffron threads and juice. Be careful not to break the rice.

Heat a tablespoon of butter and a couple tablespoons of water in the pot used for boiling the rice. Spread rice/labneh mix over the bottom of the pan and cook rice for a couple of minutes at medium high. This will build the delicious brown crust of the dish. Reduce temperature to low.

Add a layer of rice, a tiny sprinkle of cinnamon and then a layer of herbs. Repeat until you run out of ingredients. The last layer should be rice. Sprinkle with some salt, the saffron water and threads, half cup of hot water and half of the olive oil.

Place a paper towel on the top of the pan and then cover with the lid. Continue cooking for about 45 minutes. Do not open the lid until time has lapsed. Remove from heat and let it rest, covered, for another five minutes. Drizzle the rest of the olive oil over, transfer to a serving plate/bowl and voila! Najmieh suggests that you pile the rice in a pyramid shape and serve the crust on the side. That would make it look cuter, but we were starved by then so sort of mixed it all together.

fireworks display over downtown San Francisco and the Bay. Welcome 2012!!!

I’ve wanted to make bi-bim-bap at home forever but have always been put off by the amount of work involved. All that chopping, individually cooking everything then assembling the dish seemed monstrously time-consuming and a bit annoying. The bi-bim-baps I’ve had at Korean restaurants are all served in one of those really hot stone pots (dolsot). Often you just crack a raw egg over the dish, mix all the lovely ingredients together and enjoy. The egg cooks perfectly in the hot pot and the rice at the bottom forms this marvelous toasted crust of which I’m particularly fond. Delicious!

colorful and flavorful vegetarian bi-bim-bap

I remember as a kid every now and then my mother would burn her rice and get super upset about it. What to her was a disaster to me was a treat because I loved eating the slightly burned and smoky crust. Anytime I eat bi-bim-bap I feel that there is somehow a bit of Brazil in the dish.

I regard bi-bim-bap as a version of paella or pilaf. All of them are rice dishes mixed together with other ingredients. Here are some other recipes for it: here, here and here.

fern brake

My dish calls for what to me is a novel ingredient, fern brakes. I found these dried and rehydrated at my local Korean market. I bought both types but since they need to soak overnight, I used the rehydrated ones. They have a lovely tea-like aroma and mild flavor, somewhat like subtle fiddlehead ferns.

To make this vegan, simply leave off the eggs.

vegetarian bi-bim-bap

1½ cups Thai Jasmine rice
3 small zucchinis – julienned with a bit of salt sprinkled over
2 medium carrots – julienned
1 cup broccoli florets
2 bunch spinach
3 eggs
½ red bell pepper – julienned
½ orange bell pepper – julienned
1 container brown beech mushroom
1 cup of soy bean sprouts (nato sprouts)
1 cup fern brakes
1lb firm tofu cubed
8 cloves garlic minced/smashed
2 heaping tbsp Gochujang hot pepper paste
3 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
olive oil
toasted sesame seed oil
sea salt

To make the rice:

Add 1 tbsp olive oil to a saucepan on temperature high. Add rice and give it a good stir. Add 2½ cups of water, stir again. Bring to a boil, stir again. Reduce heat to simmer for about 15 minutes, until water has been absorbed. Remove from heat let it rest, lid on for another 15 minutes.

To prepare veggies:

slicing all the veggies for vegetarian bi-bim-bap

All veggies must be cooked separately.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Drop in broccoli florets and cook for a minute or so. Transfer to a bowl.

Drop in spinach and let it blanch for a minute or so, transfer to a colander, allow it to cool down a bit. Squeeze to remove as much water as possible.

Using the same saucepan add soybean sprouts and a dash of salt and cook for 10-12 minutes. Strain and squeeze to remove water.

Add 1 tsp of olive oil to a skillet, 2 cloves of garlic minced and sauté until aromatic. Add bean sprouts and cook for few minutes. Season with one tablespoon of soy sauce and ½ tsp sesame oil. Set aside.

Wipe skillet and return to burner. Add 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 garlic cloves minced and mushrooms. Sauté mushrooms on high heat for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle with some salt, cover the pan and let the mushrooms sweat. Set aside.

Wipe Skillet with a paper towel. Add ½ tsp of olive oil, 1 clove of minced garlic and sauté. Add spinach and cook for another minute, season with 1 tsp of soy sauce. Set aside.

Wipe skillet off again. Add ¼ tsp olive oil. Drain zucchini; add to skillet and sauté for 1 minute. Set aside.

Repeat process, this time with no oil with peppers and carrots.

Return skillet to stove. Add 1 tsp of olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic minced, cook until aromatic. Drop in fern brakes and sauté for a couple of minutes, towards the end add 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tsp of sesame oil. Set aside.

layering some of the veggies over the rice

adding the soy bean sprouts to the bi-bim-bap

To prepare pepper sauce:

Meanwhile, mix rice wine vinegar, 3 cloves of garlic minced and Goshujang pepper paste together. Once all mixed it should have the consistency ketchup. Taste it and adjust flavors if necessary. Look for spice, sweet, umami and sour flavors. The paste will be used as a condiment to the Bibimbap at the table.

To assemble dish:

Add a few drops of sesame oil to a non stick paella pan. Using a paper towel rub oil all over its surface including border. Add cooked rice and press with a spatula, making sure the surface and borders are filled. Cover, bring temperature to high and cook for about 10 minutes. This is where rice develops the smoky, brown, nutty slightly burned crust.

Time to assemble the dish! Place cubed tofu in the center over the toasted rice; arrange mounds of each of the ingredients interchangeably along the border, forming a kind of flower pattern. Cover and let it warm through. Serve with fried egg sunny side up and dollops of Goshujang sauce on top of everything. The flavors are out of this world!

rewarming everything before serving

You can serve this dish with banchans, or side dishes, like pickled cucumbers or/and kimchi. I was going to serve both but forgot to bring the kimchi to the table.

In the summertime, I prefer stuffed peppers, but when the cool fall weather comes, stuffed mushrooms are my homey comfort food. It is particularly easy to enjoy stuffed mushrooms these days, since so many kinds are available. I especially like the meatiness of large portobellos here, as it moves the recipe from a side to the main course and into the center-of-attention.

portobello mushrooms stuffed with gen-ji-mai rice, black-eyed peas and sage

I used leftovers from Hegui’s gen-ji-mai rice with black-eyed peas here and sort of added some things. The combination of the multi-grain rice, black-eyed peas and mushrooms, accented with a bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano and sage was incredibly earthy and satisfying.

portobello mushrooms stuffed with gen-ji-mai rice, black-eyed peas and sage

2 large Portobello mushrooms, cleaned, and stems removed but retained
½ onion, coarsely chopped
1 shallot, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 Serrano chile, stem, ribs and seeds removed
3 tbps olive oil plus more
2 cups gen-ji-mai rice with black-eyed peas
¼ pignoli nuts
¼ cup shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano
3 to 4 dried sage leaves
Salt and black pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Coarsely chop Portobello stems.

In a large skillet, add olive oil on high heat. Toss in chopped Portobello stems, onion, shallot, garlic, Serrano chile with a pinch of salt. Cook until onions start to wilt. Pour everything into food processor and run until a smooth thick paste develops.

Return veggie paste to skillet. Add gen-ji-mai rice with black-eyed peas, pignolis, sage and salt and pepper to taste. Sauté a bit longer to heat through and mix flavors. Stir in Parmigiano-Reggiano. Remove from heat.

Place Portobello caps in a baking dish, upside-down. Drizzle with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Stuff with prepared gen-ji-mai rice. Cover and bake about 30 to 35 minutes. Remove cover and broil for a few minutes. Serve warm.

gen-ji-mai rice with black-eyed peas

I’ve been a little bit obsessed with gen-ji-mai rice ever since I discovered this cereal, grain mix at a Korean market in the West Coast D.C.—that’s right, Daily City, California

We’ve already eaten it simply cooked with olive oil, salt, garlic and onions. This time I decided to go for more protein and give it sort of a granola, southern flair with the addition of black-eyed peas. Another success! Super simple to make and a nutritious and satisfying meal by itself.

gen-ji-mai rice package

gen-ji-mai rice with black-eyed peas

1½ cups gen-ji-mai rice
¾ cup dry black-eyed peas
1 medium onion, diced small
1 clove garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt
Black pepper
Italian parsley

Soak rice and black-eyed peas in two separate bowls, each with plenty of water, for 30 minutes. Rinse.

Heat ½ of the olive oil in a saucepan, add onions and sauté until translucent.  Add garlic then cook for a minute or so. Add black-eyed peas, gen-ji-mai rice and salt. Give it a good mix, add about 3 cups of water, bring to a boil, then reduce temperature and simmer for about 20-30 minutes until liquid is absorbed. Black-eyed peas should be soft.   If not add a bit more of water and continue cooking a little longer. Turn the heat off and let sit, lid on, for about 10 minutes. Remove lid, add remaining olive oil, a few grinds of black pepper, sprinkle with parsley, fluff and serve!

This is our recipe for the biryani cook-off that the delightful Heavenly was so good to sponsor. Though after making this marvelous, complex dish; I’m starting to think that she might have been misnamed, as it appears that a tiny bit of a devilish streak lies hidden among all that domestic goodness and glamour. Have you ever seen one of those cartoons with the good angel and the bad angel sitting on the main character’s shoulders, giving opposite confusing advice? Then you know where I’m coming from here.

fish biryani

Okay I always promise myself whenever I’m about to cook Indian that I’ll get the spices out first, so I don’t get mixed up or forget anything, then proceed to the actual cooking adventure. But no, I didn’t do that again! Perhaps that was my evil angel’s counsel. I got dizzy from relentlessly having to go back and forth to the pantry and spinning the lazy-susan over and over and over again to locate the next needed spice for this dish. How funny that now that we have a new kitchen with a dedicated place for spices, I still find myself unable to find anything. I hope that one day they add some computerized artificial intelligence with a soothing voice to kitchen cabinets that will both find anything that I want via verbal-command and will calm me with his/her flattery and encouragement as I freak out at the stovetop. Then no more getting lost in the aromatic black hole I call my spice cabinet.

spice chaos as I look for ingredients for fish biryani

I must confess I think I have never made a dish that was so complicated. Lots of steps! I quite liked the result, but this was an effort. I am going to test the recipe again using spices in different proportions. I feel sure each time it will come out tasting slightly differently, so I can mix it up some. I’m excited to read about everyone else’s versions in the cook-off. You should be too. Follow these links for the other “contestants’” biryani masterpieces.

Heavenly Housewife from donuts to delirium
Vanessa from sweet artichoke
Glamorous Glutton
moinetteTeczcape: An Escape to Food
Laura from healthyjalapeno

fish biryani

Make Masala powder first. See below for recipe.

toasting the spices for the Masala powder

for the rice:

2 cup basmati rice
1 bay leaf
2 inch piece of cinnamon stick
Few peppercorns
¼ tsp kosher salt

Soak rice in plenty of water for about one hour. Drain. Place rice in a saucepan with 5 cups of water. Drop in salt, bay leaf, pepper corn, and parboil the rice for about 10 minutes. Do not overcook it! Drain and set aside.

for the fish:

1 lb monkfish cut into individual pieces, or any other firm white fish
Juice of 1 lemon
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp Masala powder*
1tsp coriander powder
1 tbsp ginger paste
1 tsp kosher salt

Make a paste by mixing lemon juice, garlic and ginger paste, salt and powders. Rub on fish pieces and marinate for about ½ hour. Keep it refrigerated if your kitchen gets too hot.

gently poaching the monkfish in the Masala sauce

for the Masala sauce:

1 large onion, cut into thin half moon slices
4 ripe tomatoes, peeled and cubed
2 Serrano peppers, minced, ribs and seeds partially removed
½ bunch cilantro, chopped
A few mint leaves, julienned
1 tsp Aleppo pepper
¼ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp fresh garlic paste
1 tsp fresh ginger paste
2 tbsp Masala powder *
1 bay leaf
1 tsp ajwain seeds
1 tsp black peppercorn
½ tsp allspice powder
¼ tsp clove powder
¼ tsp onion seeds
1½ cups plain yogurt
2 tbsp canola oil
A few strands saffron
1 tsp sugar

Add oil to a large skillet followed by onion and minced Serrano pepper. Cook until onion becomes wilted and translucent. Push onion to the side of skillet. Add ginger and garlic pastes, ajwain seeds, bay leaf, black peppercorn, Aleppo pepper, Masala powder, turmeric, allspice and clove powder, saffron, onion seeds, sugar and cook until raw smells dissipate. Add tomato, stir everything together and cook until tomatoes begin to dissolve. Mix yogurt with half cup of water and fold into the sauce. Carefully lay fish pieces over the Masala sauce, cover pan and cook on medium heat for about 8 minutes. Mix in cilantro and mint leaves.

At this point heat up the oven to 450F.

ready to layer the baking dish with rice and fish

several layers of rice and fish to form my biryani

*for the Masala powder for fish

5 whole cloves
4 green cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks ~3 inch each
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp cumin leaves
1 bay leaf
½ tsp grated nutmeg
1 tbsp ground coriander

Place cloves, cardamom, fennel and bay leaf in a saucepan; put it over burner over high heat. Dry roast spices for a few minutes until aromatic, being careful not to burn it. Transfer to a coffee grinder and pulverize. Mix in ground nutmeg and coriander. (My coriander was already ground, if you have seeds use them instead).

to assemble the fish biryani:

Using an oven-proof baking dish with a cover, assemble the biryani with one layer of rice, followed by a layer of fish masala, and finish with the remaining Masala sauce. Repeat so you end up with three or four layers of all ingredients. Cover and bake for about 30 minutes. The rice will finish cooking in the masala sauce without becoming overly cooked. Remove from oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

If you haven’t had enough fish biryani yet, look here, here and here for other related versions.

If you’re like me, and you enjoy eating rice of all kinds, try this recipe. I just stumbled upon gen-ji-mai rice mix at a local Korean supermarket and fell in love. I’ve never seen it elsewhere even though it is American-made.

Gen-Ji-Mai with olive oil, garlic and onion

Rice mixes are popular in the Korean kitchen. According to this marvelous book, Korean Cuisine: an Illustrated History by Michael J. Pettid, the story goes that shortly after rice was introduced to Korea, nobody could afford to eat it because, at the time it, was prohibitively expensive to produce. Rice could only be grown in the warm southernmost part of the country, and most of the crop was used for export. So eating white polished rice was an affair for the rich. The poor had to content themselves with mixtures of polished and unpolished rice blended with other grains such as barley, millet, sorghum and at times red beans. This is obviously a much more nutritious option than plain white rice. Because of that, and the great taste, these rice blends have been making a comeback these days. I’m hooked.

This gen-ji-mai contains brown rice, hull-less barley, rye berries, jasmine brown rice, red rice, calmati brown, black barley, long grain red rice, black rice, whole oats, brown sweet rice and wild rice. It has a wholesome, nutty flavor with a really enjoyable texture.

Gen-Ji-Mai with olive oil, garlic and onion

1 cup gen-ji-mai
1 clove garlic, mashed
½ onion, cubed
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt

Rinse rice, place in a bowl, add two cups of cold water and soak for 30 to 45 minutes. Drain. Add olive oil to a saucepan followed by onion. Sauté onion until it becomes translucent. Add rice, garlic, salt and a cup and a half of water. Bring it to a boil, stir. Reduce temperature to low and simmer lid on for about 20 minutes or until water is absorbed. Remove from heat and let rest, lid on, for about 10 minutes. Serve with a side of sautéed green leaves and/or grilled vegetables or fish.

I was in a pancake mood the other day. For breakfast we dined on delicious buttermilk pancakes with syrup and the works. And come dinner-time, it was all about savory pancakes for a Korean inspired meal.

scallion and shrimp pancakes

Steven and I were chatting about the remarkable two-kinds-of-pancakes-in-one-day while I flipped these scallion and shrimp beauties for the last time before serving. It is so fun to make pancakes, don’t you think? What a great evening! I find cooking pancakes very relaxing. Plus it never hurts that they taste wonderfully fresh and good. I adapted the recipe from my new darling cookbook, The Kimchi Chronicles. See this link, and that one for more great ideas from the book.

Actually I’ve made scallion pancakes before using a Vietnamese recipe. The original version of this one calls for oysters, which I omitted in place of shrimp.

scallion and shrimp pancakes

2 cups unbleached flour
¼ cup rice flour
2 tsp coarse salt
2¼ cups cold water
1 cup scallions, roughly chopped
8 shrimp, peeled, veins removed, cut into bit size pieces
Canola oil

Place flours and salt in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add water and whisk again until smooth and lumps dissolve. Fold in scallion and shrimp.

Place a couple of non stick pans over hot burners. Add ½ tbsp of oil to each, bring temperature to medium high. Swirl pans to coat. Add one ladle of batter to each pan, making sure scallion and shrimp are distributed evenly. Cook for about 6 minutes, flipping half way through. Pancakes will caramelize a bit on surface. Serve it as it or with a soy pepper based dipping sauce, or perhaps a Vietnamese dipping sauce.

I think cilantro, parsley and basil are the top three most popular herbs present in our cooking. Every time we go shopping for the week we make sure we stock on these incredible herbs. Routinely we’ll have basil or parsley pesto either with pasta or used as a flavor enhancer in something else. I like cilantro in soup or salsa.

cilantro flavored basmati rice

But sometimes we over-buy, and since these beauties are highly perishable, occasionally we need a simple flavorful way to use up the extra.

This time I turned some extra cilantro we had in the fridge into a sort of a pesto sauce that was subsequently cooked with basmati rice. It is a very aromatic and flavorful dish you can serve as a side with grilled fish, shrimp or tofu. We had ours with another favorite: garlicky bean stew!

cilantro flavored basmati rice

1½ cups basmati rice, rinsed
2¾ cups water
1 large bunch cilantro, rinsed
1 green chili pepper, seeds and ribs removed
¼ small onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
4 tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt to taste
wedges of lime for decoration

Heat up a saucepan with olive oil. Add onion and sauté until translucent. Add basmati rice, garlic, bay leaf, salt and toss to coat, cooking for a minute or so until raw garlic smell is gone. Add in 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil and reduce temperature to medium low. Cover.

Meanwhile place cilantro, ½ cup of water and chili pepper in the food processor. Blend into a runny pesto. Add it to rice with remaining ¼ cup water. Cover and let it cook until juices are absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Let it rest for 8 minutes, lid on. Serve with cilantro leaves and wedges of lime or lemon.

And now for the latest all-bloggers-welcome food challenge: create your own biryani! I feel like that guy from the Iron Chef who gets so excited at the beginning of the show when he reveals the secret ingredient: BIRYANI, yeah! Here are several suggested recipes that the oh, so charming and endlessly fascinating Heavenly has assembled, but don’t feel restricted in any way: a, b, c, d.

According to Wikipedia, my go-to for last-minute information on food and wine, biryani, generally considered a rice dish layered with a flavorful sauce containing meat, fish or veggies, is thought to have originated in Iran and migrated across much of Asia and Arabia. There’s a wide range of possible ingredients and flavors that you can use to assemble yours; the sky’s the limit. I’m really excited by this savory challenge, and hope that you’ll join in the fun.

can't wait for the biryani challenge!!!

All you need do is let Heavenly or me know that you’re in, make your biryani any which way and publish it on November 8th. All participants will be contacted before to put links to everyone’s blogs on their page for the challenge. That’s it! Can’t wait to see your marvelous creations.

“Allez cuisine!”