Black Rice

Chinese Black Rice

recipe # 200 & 201


I went to Crate and Barrel yesterday to use up some gift cards I got for xmas (Thanks Wendy!) and upon entering the store, front and center was a display of Chinese black rice. It was $15 with a thing of salt. I'm not sure what my point is other than DO NOT BUY THAT. You can get black rice sans salt for 99¢ in any China Town grocery store. Mine was from Sunset Park, Brooklyn and I dragged it all the way to Venice when we moved.

There are a few different kinds of black rice. Chinese is the most straight forward to cook. Treat it like brown rice. I made a risotto with it the other day from the Down to Earth Cookbook. It worked well for that too.

It is lovely. It turns everything a dark deep purple. I'm going to make it my standard rice as soon as I can find a place in LA to buy it that doesn't charge $15 for 12 oz.

Last night I made a rice bowl and rice pudding with it.

99 cents from your local Chinese grocery store or $15 bucks from C&B in Beverly Hills

This is just too ugly to post a picture of. It is fantastic way to use up leftover rice the next afternoon for lunch. My goal with this is to get the rice a bit browned on the bottom of the pan so it will be a little like bimbibap without the stonde bowl.

Afternoon Rice Bowl
2 tablespoons of oil (olive, canola, whatever you want)
1/2 -1 cup onions of some sort (onions, shallots, leeks, scallions, whatever you got or a combo)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 cups left over rice (brown long grain seems to work the best
3/4 cup chopped up canned pineapple or maybe mango
1-2 cups some sort of nice dark leafy green, chopped (spinach, broccoli rabe, pea tendrills)
any other vege you might having around in your fridge, diced (carrots, bean sprouts, tomatoes, red peppers)
pressed or baked tofu, diced (optional)
1/2 to 1 tablespoon of fish sauce (soy sauce if you prefer)
1/2 teaspoon on sriracha hot chili sauce or any other garlicy but not vinegary hot sauce
1/4 cup of pineapple juice from the can
2 eggs, beaten

Heat a big ole pan and put some oil in it. Toss in the garlic and onion and cook until browning. Add rice. Cook 2 minutes. Add pineapple. Cook a few more minutes. Add any and all vege, fish sauce, hot sauce. Cook 10 minutes. Try to get the mixture to brown. Deglaze pan with pineapple juice and cook down until mixture dries out a bit. Then add eggs. Fold in eggs. Turn heat up high, let stand to a minute or 2 to try to get the bottom of mxiture to brown. Serve.

top with a bit of rice wine vinegar, mirin or more hot chili sauce and chopped up roasted salted peanuts

black rice pudding

Black Rice and Lemongrass Pudding
Basically you use any left over black rice. I think I had about 1.5 cups.
Take a can of unsweetened coconut milk, pour it in a pan. Throw a chopped up and bruised stalk or 2 of lemongrass in there and simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool, strain our lemongrass and then throw coconut milk, rice, one beaten egg (or tofu if vegan) and hopwever much of desired sweetner in a pot. Cover. Bake for 30 minutes covered and another 15-20 uncovered. Serve hot or cold.

Great for breakfast.