Brown Rice (Rosematta) with Chicken and Pumpkin

My attempts to incorporate rosematta into our meals continue......the rice dishes have gone down well so far and the latest dish I put together had chicken and pumpkin in it.

Made for a lunch at my place for a few friends and their kids, it was a nice summer dish paired with Lobia Saag(cowpeas and spinach), fresh cucumber and tomato salad, raw mango chutney and a crustless spinach and feta cheese quiche - fusion food at its best I guess!

This what I have learnt about cooking with rosematta.

1. Soaking for about an hour or so helps the plump grains to absorb moisture, swell and cook faster.
2. One cup of rice requires about three to four cups of water/liquid to cook.
3. Using vegetable or chicken stock or even stock cubes greatly enhances the flavour if you are cooking it as a one pot dish.
4. Cooking the vegetables along with the rice makes the dish very flavourful.

Next time I am going to try making idlis using rosematta rice.

So what has your experience been with cooking rosematta rice? and do you have any special recipes or tips you would like to share?

Brown Rice (Rosematta) with Chicken and Pumpkin

Ingredients:

Brown rice - 2 cups
Vegetable stock (I used two stock cubes dissolved in 1 litre of water)
White wine - 1 cup (optional, add one more cup of water to the vegetable stock if you omit this)
Boneless chicken cut into strips - 1 cup
Pumpkin - peeled and chopped - 1 cup
Onions -1 big sliced finely
Garlic - 3 cloves chopped
Cinnamon stick - 1 " piece
Bay leaf - 1
Cloves - 2
Oil - 1 tbsp
salt to taste
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Wash and soak rosematta rice in water for an hour.
2. Heat up the vegetable stock and keep aside; heat it up a bit later, if necessary.
3. Take a large non stick pan, heat the oil and add the cloves, cinnamon and bay leaf. Saute 1 minute then add the onions and fry till it is golden brown.
4. Add the chicken pieces and fry on high heat for two minutes till it gets seared on both sides and cooks a bit. Sprinkle chilli powder, lower heat and cook for 5 minutes.
5. Add the white wine, drain the soaked rice and add it to the pan. Saute for 3 minutes.
6. Add half the hot stock to the rice and cook for about 8 minutes, then add the pumpkin pieces, the remaining hot stock and salt to taste and cook further for 10 minutes or till the water is absorbed and the rice is tender.
7. If you think the rice needs more cooking, add hot water or vegetable stock half a cup at a time.
8. Serve hot.

Creamy Curried Eggplant and Pumpkin Risotto

My efforts to include rosematta rice into our diet are still on, though not as often as I would like. After consuming raw rice for so many years, it's a little difficult to have plain rosematta rice with our usual sambar, kootu and rasam. And since I know it would probably put hubby off brown rice totally, I don't even try; preferring instead to make other kinds of dishes with it. And that's definitely not an everyday affair.

One evening while deciding dinner (can't we have some kind of lottery system for this?), I felt like eating kathrikai murungakkai thokku (a curried eggplant drumstick preparation) which is a favourite on hubby's maternal side - it's delicious and one aunt who specialises in making it, is the de facto "thokku chef" for every family gathering. Well, with no drumsticks in near sight and a firm resolve to make brown rice for dinner, the "thokku" seemed like a pipe dream. But one can always improvise, n'est ce pas?.......

I soaked some rosematta rice and then played it by the ear. Pumpkin seemed to be a good substitute for the sweet fleshiness of drumsticks. The thokku has a bit of sambar powder added to it, so if I wanted to do the same with the rice it seemed apt to add coconut milk to balance things out. As you can see, my train of thought may make no sense to anyone else.....but that's how things get cooked in this house!

I had no idea how this dish would turn out, but when it was finally done, I knew this recipe was a keeper. The rice cooked in coconut milk was as creamy as risottos come and the pumpkin and eggplant made a whole lot of difference - I doubt if the usual french beans and carrots would have tasted as good. The sambar powder was not overpowering, so it lent a nice touch to the dish.

This dish goes to the Monthly Mingle event which Meeta of Whats for Lunch Honey?, hosts, where this month's theme is One Dish Dinners.

Creamy Curried Eggplant and Pumpkin Risotto

Ingredients:

Rosematta rice - 1 cup, washed and soaked for about an hour, in 3 cups of water
Onions - 1 big, sliced thin
Tomato - 1 medium, chopped roughly
Red pumpkin (kaddu/paringikai) - 1 cup of 1" cubes
Eggplant (brinjal) - 3-4 small, cubes
Green pepper - 1 small, cut into squares

Coconut milk - 2 cups ( I added a couple of green chillies to the coconut while extracting the milk; if you are using canned or powdered extract , then you could add a couple of slit green chillies with the whole spices to increase the heat)
Vegetable stock - 1.5 cups kept hot (can be substituted with broth made from one soup cube)

Oil - 1 tbsp
Star Anise - 1
Bay leaf - 1
Cinnamon - 1"stick
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Sambar powder - 1 tsp
Ginger garlic paste - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large nonstick pan and add the whole spices to it (bayleaf, star anise, cinnamon), when they change colour put in the cumin seeds.
2. Toss in the sliced onions and saute till golden brown. Then add the ginger garlic paste, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.
3. After a minute, add the chopped pumpkin, eggplant and peppers. Saute on high for five minutes, then sprinkle the sambar powder and fry on low for 5-6 minutes till the vegetables soften. Cover for another 2 minutes till they are cooked, but firm. Throw in the chopped tomatoes and fry a couple of minutes.
4. Drain the soaked rice and add to the pan, fry for about 4 minutes till it is well coated with the oil and a bit toasted.
5. Add about 1 cup of hot vegetable stock and salt and bring to boil, reduce flame and simmer covered till the water is absorbed.
6. Mix the remaining half cup of hot vegetable stock with one cup of coconut milk and pour into the pan. Cover and simmer again till all of it is absorbed. (If you have divided the extract into first and second, then start with the second extract, which will be thinner)
7. Check the rice and adjust salt if needed; add the remaining cup of coconut milk, cook for about 4-5 minutes, turn off the flame while there is still some liquid in the rice and keep covered for 3-4 minutes. Serve warm.

It takes about 45 minutes to an hour for the rice to cook, so you can tend to other stuff while it cooks (I grated some bottle gourd(ghia) for a raita to go with the risotto - recipe to follow).
The risotto doesn't need constant supervision and is quite forgiving as compared to white rice which, when I started cooking fried rice or pulao on the stove top, would either get mushy or dry out and stick to the bottom.

Rosy Tomato Risotto

I first came across rosematta rice almost a year ago, on Mahanandi, in this post where Indira waxed poetic on this rich, beautiful, unpolished traditional rice from Kerala. I then saw it on Jugalbandi too - used in different recipes , each more beguiling than the other. The fact that both these talented bloggers (three actually) used rosematta to make these lovely idlis piqued my interest even more.

Then this year as part of our resolve to eat more healthily and to make healthier eating a part of our life rather than a diet which would fade away, I decided to try rosematta as an alternative to the white rice we consume. I have been thinking of brown rice for some time, and then thought I might as well try our own traditional rice first.

I bought it and looked wonderingly at those fat pink grains....and I thought to myself, for the first time I won't just cook these and try to eat it as part of our usual meal with a sambar or rice - that could come later when we were on more familiar terms - the first time I would treat it like a guest and make something suitably different and special!

I went over to Jugalbandi for some inspiration....and came across this post where they had one of Ursula Ferrigno's recipes - and there was another one called Risi e Bisi also from the same author.

While following this link from their post, I came across a recipe for tomato risotto which instantly appealed to me. I couldn't resist the plump peas I had just shelled, and added them to this recipe.

Cooking this rice risotto style was a bit longwinded, what with adding the stock one ladle at a time and waiting for it to be absorbed fully before repeating it, stirring it constantly; but I must say that it was completely worth it.

I soaked the rice for an hour before cooking;I omitted the parmesan, since I didn't really envision this as a Western dish, instead wanted to incorporate it as part of an Indian meal.

The white wine is an aberration in an Indian meal, but I could live with that.

I also followed J&B's recommendations to cut down on the fat content in the original recipe.

I made vegetable stock from scratch since I don't get a good quality vegetable stock cube hereabouts.

I served this with grilled aloo tikkis (potato cutlets) and a lovely raita made with grated bottlegourd (ghiya/lauki/sorakkai) and cumin spiced curd. It was a delicious meal and I loved the texture of the rice - firm and flavourful- a completely new experience for us.

The tomato flavour was just right too - not too tangy; and I'm glad I added the peas! The best part for me was the shallots - completely divine plump soft sweet pieces in a mouthful of rice!

This tastes best when eaten immediately, the leftovers I tasted the next day weren't the same.

Rosy Tomato Risotto

Rose matta rice - 1 1/4 cup, soaked for an hour

Vegetable stock - 6 cups - heat up the stock when you are cooking the rice.
To make veg stock from scratch, saute two small chopped onions with a 1 tsp butter, add 1 cup assorted chopped vegetables like potato, carrots,beans, cabbage,pumpkin and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add 1.5 litre water, salt and pepper powder and bring to boil; simmer over medium flame for about 20-25 minutes till the vegetables are well cooked and stock is reduced. Strain the vegetables and use the stock. Vegetables can be lightly sauteed, tempered and eaten separately.

Garlic - 3-4 cloves, crushed

White wine - 1/2 cup

Tomatoes - 6 medium sized, deseeded and roughly chopped

Peas - 1//2 cup

Olive oil - 1 tbsp

Butter - 2 tbsp

Shallots - 8 (I put them whole)

Mint leaves - 1/2 cup torn

salt - to taste

Lots of Freshly crushed pepper

1. Heat the butter and oil in a heavy pan till just warmed, add the shallots and saute for 2-3 minutes, then add the crushed garlic and saute for 1 more minute

2. Drain the soaked rice and add to the pan and if you are using fresh peas then add these also now; fry lightly for about 2 minutes.

3. Pour in the wine and keep stirring till it is absorbed.

4. Add 1 ladle of hot stock and simmer. Stir the rice and wait till the stock is completely absorbed. Repeat this for the next 10 minutes.

5. Now add the chopped tomatoes, mix well. Add the hot stock one ladle at a time as before, waiting for it to be absorbed before adding the next ladle - it will take another 10 -12 minutes for the tomatoes and rice to be cooked. The grains should be tender and plump, but not mushy.

6. Add the mint, salt and crushed pepper and give it a final stir, remove from heat, transfer to a warm serving bowl and cover and keep aside for a couple of minutes.

7. Serve immediately. I chose to make it part of an Indian meal and served it with ghiya raita and aloo tikkis.