Saturday, April 12, 2014

Staying With the Grain

So I'm on a bit of a whole grain kick in 2014. I haven't seen quinoa, but brown rice is readily available, as well as barley (with which I  had a humorous encounter in December), wheat berries and bulghur. I keep them all on hand in the pantry. On my way into work yesterday, I wondered about making brown rice risotto. Risotto works better with short grain rice, but I've made it with barley before, so it might work. And the local rice is not that different than the classic arborio.

Luckily my boy Mark Bittman had already weighed in on the topic in a 2012 article. Brown rice can be turned into creamy risotto same as the refined version. You just need to parboil it for 10-15 minutes by itself, and then do everything else the same. I tried it last night, stirring in at the end some spinach, smoked salmon, butter parmesan and some other mild white cheese I had lying round, along with a squeeze of lemon and a little oregano and red pepper flakes.

Tomorrow, red beans and brown rice, Serbian style.

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