Rice & Grains
2019 recipes found
Louis Armstrong’s Red Beans and Rice
In New Orleans, red beans and rice speaks to the soul of the spirited and storied city. Many native New Orleanians have expounded their own recipes, with some calling for ingredients ranging from jalapeños to mustard. The jazz singer and trumpeter Louis Armstrong loved the dish so much, he would often sign his letters “Red Beans & Ricely Yours,” and had several iterations that he shared with loved ones. In this recipe, adapted from the Southern Food and Beverage Museum booklet “Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours” by Christopher Blake, Mr. Armstrong makes a promising case for his essential red beans and rice ingredient: ketchup, which adds a hint of sweetness and tang. Though it’s not in the original recipe, oil helps brown the pickled ham hock and onion, for maximum depth and body, and keeps the pork from sticking. “As they say in New Orleans, red beans need no thickening because they got it in themselves,” Mr. Armstrong recounted in his recipe. However, if you crave more creaminess, smash a few beans against the side of your pot, just like many cooks do in the Crescent City.
Pineapple Fried Rice
“It’s a whole balanced meal inside a tropical fruit,” writes Pepper Teigen about this pineapple fried rice recipe in her book “The Pepper Thai Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter, 2021). This is fried rice, which means in place of the bacon and chicken, you can use shrimp, beef or whatever vegetables you have languishing in your crisper drawer. The one thing you shouldn’t skip are the assertive seasonings, which merit a party: The full 2 tablespoons of curry powder and 1 teaspoon of ground white pepper are what make this dish tingle and trot with a hot, addictive savoriness.
Doenjang Salmon Rice Bowl
This speedy meal is for seekers of the sweet-salty, known as dan-jjan in Korean. Doenjang, a glorious Korean fermented soybean paste, anchors the sauce with funk and umami. This sauce, balanced with sweet mirin and tangy rice vinegar, both marinates and lacquers salmon, which is quick-roasted. Cutting the fish into cubes allows more surface area for the salmon fat to render quickly, while the centers cook to a medium-rare, melt-in-your-mouth tenderness, a satisfying contrast to the still-crunchy, just-charred onions. This soul-warming breakfast, lunch or dinner tastes best with white rice, kimchi and whatever other accompaniments you might enjoy.
Thai Larb Gai (Chicken With Lime, Chili and Fresh Herbs)
Larb gai is a dish of browned ground chicken, mint, basil and red onions dressed with lime juice and ground red chiles that's popular in Laos and Isan, neighboring rural sections of Thailand. (The dish is sometimes spelled laab, lob or lop.) It's perfect hot weather food: spicy, crunchy and light, but rich in flavors and contrasts. Traditionally, this dish is made with a roasted rice powder that's prepared by toasting raw rice in a wok, then grounding it to a powder, but you can find premade roasted rice powder at Asian markets. Whatever you do, don't skip it — it adds a nuttiness that's essential to the authentic flavor of the dish.
Farro With Mushrooms
Farro is chewier than Italian rice and doesn’t release starch when it’s cooked, so there’s no need to stir it the way you’d stir a risotto. This hearty dish has a rich, earthy flavor. Although it takes about twice as long as a risotto to cook, it doesn’t require tending.
Pad Thai-Style Rice Salad
My basic technique works like this: Cook the rice as you would pasta, in abundant salted water, tasting as you go; the cooking time will range from around 15 minutes for white rice to as long as 45 minutes for the most stubborn brown varieties (almost all will be done in 30 minutes or so). Drain and rinse; you want to get any remaining surface starch off so the salad isn’t too clumpy. When the rice is cool enough to handle, dress it; it will absorb a bit of the dressing. Add herbs and garnishes just before serving.
Gamja Salad With Cucumber, Carrot and Red Onion
Gamja (“potato”) salad is likely to be included among a sea of other banchan at Korean restaurants, and is typically mounded on a plate using an ice cream scoop. It’s similar to mashed potatoes in texture, mayo-laden like many potato salads, and studded with crunchy vegetables and hard-boiled egg. It’s generally a restaurant food, but when home cooks do make it, the salad might be sandwiched between two slices of soft white bread and eaten for lunch. The world is your oyster when it comes to gamja salad: It may include apples, peas, corn kernels, raisins and even nuts, and you can add whatever you like and nix whatever you don’t. But the cucumber is gibon (“standard”), and essential, because it adds a vegetal freshness that pulls this dish back from feeling heavy in any way.
Hainanese Chicken With Rice
While this is the most basic version of Hainanese chicken, the best one is the provenance of devotees, who save the stock they don’t need for the rice, freeze it, and use it as a starting point for the next time they cook chicken this way. If you do this repeatedly, the stock will become stronger and stronger, as will the flavors of both chicken and rice. If you do this hundreds of times, the way restaurants do, the flavors will be quite intense. But even if you do it once, the dish is a total winner.
Baghali Polo
Home to one of the world’s largest Armenian populations outside Armenia, Burbank, Calif., is also home to Adana, where the chef Edward Khechemyan serves food that reflects his Armenian-American upbringing and his Iranian father, and is tinged with Russian influence. This Iranian dish, adapted from Mr. Khechemyan, is a combination of basmati rice, garlic powder, fava or lima beans and fresh dill. It's easy to make and pairs well with kebabs.
Quick Pizza Dough
The trouble with most homemade pizza dough recipes is that they’re sort of a pain. You have to plan ahead. Knead the dough. Let it rise. Clean up after it. This might be the pizza dough recipe that finally persuades you it’s worth the effort — what little effort is required. With the help of two allies in the kitchen — your food processor and your freezer — now homemade pizza dough is nearly as simple as taking a chicken breast out of the freezer to thaw on your way out the door in the morning.
Herby Polenta With Corn, Eggs and Feta
Cooking polenta in the oven has turned out to be quite a game-changer for me, and completely contradicts the belief that polenta needs to consistently be attended to. Do try to find coarse cornmeal here rather than the quick-cooking kind, as that style of polenta simply won’t yield the same smooth and creamy result that you’re looking for. You can also swap out the chicken stock for vegetable stock or water if you’re looking for a vegetarian alternative. I like to serve this as a midday brunch with a zesty green salad, as it’s hearty enough to keep you going until dinner.
Homemade Fritos
The beauty of a Frito is in its simplicity: a little cornmeal, lots of salt, not much else.
Tomato-Ginger Chicken and Rice Soup
Chicken and rice soup is meant to be gentle, and this one is. But it’s also subtly spicy from fried ginger, and a little sweet from tomatoes used twice: in paste form to build a caramelized base and in fresh, bright bursts. The final additions of fish sauce, lime and sesame or chile oil make the soup reminiscent of sizzling rice soup and tom yum, and allow you to adjust how robust you need the soup to be. Add less for a calming, mild soup and more if you need something powerful and pungent to clear your mind and congestion.
King Cake
This Carnival cake is more like a brioche, with a bitingly sweet frosting and sugared pecans for crunch. Browse the baby shower section of a party supply store for the Mardi Gras king cake baby, where plastic babies are often sold by the dozen. A large dried bean works too. Tradition dictates that whoever finds the baby is king or queen of the party (and also has to bring the king cake to the next Carnival celebration).
Pineapple Pork
Sonoran Carne Asada Tacos
If you’re trying to replicate the carne asada experience in Sonora, there are rules to follow: Diezmillo (chuck roll) and palomilla or aguayón (top sirloin) are the traditional meats of choice. The first brings a deep beef flavor and a sturdy chew, while the second has a milder taste and a tender bite. Use one or the other, or a combination. Either way, they need to be sliced to 1/2-inch thickness, grilled over high heat, and seasoned with a generous amount of salt — and only salt — right as they are thrown on the grill. They should be flipped just once, when meat juices rise and start to bubble, allowed to rest covered, and then thinly sliced or diced into bite-size pieces. There is no carne asada just for the meat, though the meat turns out as tasty as can be, but it should end up in a taco that should have trouble closing (with its proper accompaniments of refried beans, guacamole and salsa) and should be eaten in good company.
Risotto With Squid Ink and Ricotta
Pork Chops With Jammy-Mustard Glaze
Fruit and mustard are two classic accompaniments to pork, and really, a juicy chop doesn’t need much more than that for a sweet and tangy sauce. Mix together water, grainy mustard and any fruit preserve that’s good with pork like cherry, fig, peach or apricot. Sear bone-in pork chops mostly on one side to prevent overcooking, then pour the fruit-mustard mixture into the skillet while they rest. The pork will stay moist, and its juices will have time to mingle with the sauce. Then just slice the pork and drape it in the velvety two-ingredient glaze. Eat with mashed or roasted potatoes and a green salad.
Scrapple
Most recipes for scrapple, a dish popular at diners in eastern Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic, call for offal rather than cooked pork. But ours, first published in December 1953 and later in the Food News Department’s booklet “Encore for the Roast,” was devised as a way to use up leftover pork loin. You can substitute in 1 1/2 cups puréed pork loin or start from scratch with ground pork. You’ll need a food processor and a double boiler for this recipe. The latter will save you 45 minutes active stirring time.
Pickled Mackerel
The chef Kyle Connaughton’s recipe for pickled mackerel is straight out of the Japanese playbook. It’s simple and foolproof to prepare, and the time it takes is mostly unattended. He serves it plain or over rice that’s been dressed with some cucumber and toasted sesame seeds. I also tried seasoning the rice with a couple of spoonfuls of the leftover vinegar marinade plus grated ginger, black sesame seeds, minced scallions and diced avocado, and Mr. Connaughton seconded that idea, as well as the notion of serving the pickled fish Scandinavian-style, with sour cream, sweet onions and boiled potatoes.
Herby Pork Larb With Chile
In this take on the classic Thai dish larb moo, ground pork is pan-cooked, then stirred together with a combination of funky fish sauce, fresh and dried chiles, shallots, lime juice and an abundance of fresh herbs for brightness. If you don't eat pork, ground chicken or turkey will work well in its place. Making the toasted rice powder is a little fussy, but it gives the dish an authentic nutty flavor and crunch. That said, if you skip it, it will still be delicious. If you have the time, top this dish with crispy shallots: It takes the whole thing to the next level, as does a flurry of chive blossoms when in season. Serve this spicy dish with sticky rice, and grilled or roasted wedges of cabbage squeezed with lime, but for a low-key weeknight, plain white rice and lettuce leaves work just as well.
Wild Rice and Roasted Squash Salad With Cider Vinaigrette
Toothsome wild rice, caramelized roasted veggies and crisp radicchio all shine in this generous salad, which can be served as a hearty side or satisfying lunch. Radicchio adds a pop of color and a punch of bitterness, but a peppery green like arugula would also make a great substitute. This salad is tossed with a generous batch of mustard-cider vinaigrette. If you decide to double the dressing or have any left over, it pairs beautifully with just about any grain or hearty green, and will keep refrigerated for up to three days.
Spicy Ginger Chicken and Rice Casserole
Polo Ba Tahdig (Persian Rice With Bread Crust)
No dinner in an Iranian household is complete without polo, or rice. And no pot of polo is complete without tahdig, the crisp crust whose name means “bottom of the pot.” Tahdig is a highlight of Persian cuisine, and it can be made of rice, potatoes, lettuce or bread, as it is here. If you can’t get your hands on lavash bread, use a thin flour tortilla to line the bottom of the pot. Tahdig is easiest to prepare in a nonstick pot, but you could also prepare it in a cast-iron Dutch oven by reducing the heat to low and extending the cooking time to 50 minutes.