FoodFunk.ca

When I was just a kid, maybe 30, I was a sucker for Rice-A-Roni.

I admit it, I loved the stuff. I gave up processed foods for the most part a few years ago but that one was one of the harder ones to let go of. That little box packed a lot of comforting goodness. It also packed a lot of salt and chemicals but oh man, the comfort.

Rice-A-Roni is definitely old school processed food because it actually requires a bit of skill in preparation. This is a product that requires you to get a knob of butter to a temperature in a pan that actually browns the lovely bits of rice and vermicelli before you dump in the salt-chemical-comfort packet and water. It’s a lot more skill and effort than is required by the today’s typical processed food, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that we as a society were remarkably less stupid in the 60s and 70s than we are today.  Today, we don’t really want to do more than shove things into the microwave or oven for a few minutes before ramming the food into our faces.   Oh, we’re quite a bunch eh?  I digress.

Anyway, perhaps the best part about Rice-A-Roni is the final texture of the dish. It’s got that classic pilaf thing happening where the grains are free-flowing and flavourful.  I’m personally pretty tired of glumpy white rice.  And don’t feel bad – there is a time in everyone’s life when you thought that purchasing a counter top electric rice cooker was a good idea.  I had one too.  It’s now in a box.

Browning rice in fat before adding liquid is a technique used in a variety of cultures around the planet.  Frying the raw rice causes the starches of the rice to cook, which then keeps the starches from leaching out and making the rice sticky when it’s done cooking.   This action can be applied to all kinds of rices, from regular white long or short grain rice to aromatic rices such as jasmine or basmati.   I most recently tried it with basmati which made for a rice I enjoyed a lot more than the boiled or steamed method that’s recommended on the bag.

So if you’re tired of glumpy gooey sticky bland rice, give a simple pilaf a shot.  In my pilaf, I use very little butter as I find too much makes the final rice a bit more greasy than I’d prefer.  The aim – at least my aim – is to have a rice that’s cooked, free-flowing and actually fairly dry, but still packed with flavour.

I hear that’s how they like it in San Fransisco.

Rice pilaf

2 teaspoons butter
3/4 cup basmati or regular long grain white rice
pinch of salt and pepper
1-1/2 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade, but a good low-sodium stock will work well)

In a fry pan that has a lid, heat the butter over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes until it begins to foam. Once the foam subsides, add the rice to the pan. Stir often and fry the rice until it’s giving off a nutty fragrance, about three to five minutes. The rice should turn to a bit of a whiter colour as the starch cooks. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper, then pour in the chicken stock. Place back on the heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat to low and put the top on. Let it simmer gently for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let stand for 10 more minutes before you remove the top. Fluff with a fork and serve.

There are all kinds of variations you can add to this very basic base. You can add a bit of onion and garlic to the rice as it fries initially. I like adding broken up bits of rice vermicelli (rice stick noodles) to the rice as it fries. That makes for a mixed texture of little rice noodle pieces with the rice that I kind of like. You can also add cooked vegetables such as finely diced cooked carrot or peas to the finished dish when you fluff it. I’ve also added lightly toasted almond slices to the finished pilaf for great flavour and texture too. So many possibilities! So easy!

By Mike Hawkins
www.FoodFunk.ca

We were a bit late with the festivities this year, holding our annual Ukrainian Christmas meal on January 10, four days after the actual celebration.

My wife has a Ukrainian-Croatian background and introduced me to this tradition when we first met more than a dozen years ago.  The meal, served on Ukrainian Christmas Eve, is a 12-course meatless meal to represent the 12 apostles.

Although I’m of half black, half Scottish background (it’s a long story), I was already fairly well versed in this cuisine, having lived for 18 years in the Northern Manitoba community of Thompson, a mining community made up of 49 per cent Ukrainians, 49 per cent Newfoundlanders and the balance from the rest of the planet.

The ingredients and preparation say a lot about the way of life that produced it.  There are potatoes, cabbage, rice, beets, carrots, dairy products and a sparse list of flavours from herbs.  It is simple fare, a reflection of living in a place where living can be the kind of tough most people can only imagine.  But yet with this short list of ingredients came a diverse cuisine, packed with creativity and eye-widening presentation.   This is the stuff cravings are made of.

Lisa makes the bulk of the meal each year, while I handle just a couple of the main dishes.  She prepares the simple kutya, a pot of stewed buckwheat kernals that’s sweetened with honey (it’s reallllly good!!).   She handles the nalynsnyky, a stack of fresh made crepes sandwiched with sweetened cottage cheese layers and baked like a cake.  She always has a few friends over the night before the feast for a perogie-making party and this year they made nearly 80 perogies while singing along to the Mamma Mia DVD I bought her for Christmas.  Yeah, that was something.

Anyway, my usual duties involve the borscht and the cabbage rolls, two recipes I’ll share with you.  The original recipes come from Lisa’s mom, my mother-in-law, Fran Hrabluk, but I’ve tweaked them a bit over the years.  I tweaked them with love.  With love.  Sorry Fran.

As I’m known to not ever eat the same thing twice, there were even a few tweaks in this year’s recipes.   I’ve finally nailed down the perfect way to roast the beets and I urge you to give this a try.  Wrapped in foil and roasted at 400 F for an hour, the beets are like little balls of candy, they’re so sweet and tender.  All of their goodness makes it into the soup this way.

For the cabbage rolls, or Holubtsi in Ukrainian, I decided to double the normal time I bake them, but do it at a lower temperature than I normally do.  This produced a more tender cabbage roll this year.  I also put a good half hour into carmelizing the onions that flavour the rice stuffing, making for a more flavourful filling than I’ve made in the past.

But there’s still the good old Heinz condensed soup in there.  Thanks Fran.

Borscht (Funky Beet Soup, and you can dance to it)

Two bunches of beets, about eight beets, 1.5 lbs or so

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, finely chopped

1 large or 2 small table white potatoes (waxy), peeled and cut into small dice

1 large or 2 small carrots, peeled and cut into small dice

1 litre chicken stock (or you really want to stick to the meatless thing, vegetable stock)

14 oz can tomatoes, chopped, or just used a 14 oz can diced tomatoes

4 bay leaves

good pinch each of salt and fresh-cracked black pepper

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill, plus more to serve in each bowl

sour cream, a dollop for each bowl

Preheat the oven to 400 F.   Cut the greens off the beet, leaving just a tiny stub of the greens, and cut off the pointy root end, near the bulb of each beet.   Rinse them under cold water to wash off any dirt, dry them with paper towel, then place them on a large piece of aluminum foil.   Fold over the foil and pinch and roll the edges all the way around to seal it well.   Place on a baking sheet and in the oven and roast for one hour.

During this time, you can start the rest of the soup.   Heat a soup pot over medium heat for a couple of minutes and add the butter.   Add the onion and saute for two or three minutes to soften (keep and eye on them – you don’t want them to take on too much colour.  Reduce heat if that happens).   Add the carrot and potato and then then chicken stock or vegetable stock, tomatoes, bay leaves, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and sugar.  Bring to a boil and let simmer.

Remove the beets from the oven and use a knife to open up the foil.   Let them cool for 15 minutes or so, so you can handle them.  Cut the rest of the greens and the root end off each beet.   Use your fingers to squeeze off all of the skin from each beat.  Slice the beets into small dice, about the same size you used for the carrots and potatoes, and add them to the pot.  Continue to simmer the soup for at least another hour to tenderize everything and really blend the flavours (at this point, the soup can be cooled and stored if necessary).   Add a tablespoon of fresh dill 15 minutes before serving.  Remove and discard the bay leaves.   Ladle hot soup into bowls, add a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of fresh dill.

Cabbage Rolls

2 tablespoons butter

2 large onions, finely chopped

1.5 cups white long grain rice

3 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

Good pinch of black pepper for the filling

1 large head of cabbage

The sauce:

1 can of Heinz condensed tomato soup.  I kid you not.

28 oz can tomatoes, pureed (preferably passed through a food mill)

1 clove garlic, mashed

salt and freshly cracked black pepper

In a large, preferably non-stick pot that has a tight-fitting lid, heat the butter over medium heat for a couple of minutes.  Chop the onion and add it to the pot.  Pour some beer or wine, you’re gonna be here for a while.  Once the onions start sizzling and sauteeing audibly, reduce heat to medium low and very, very gently saute them for at least a half hour.   You’re looking to reduce them to just a half cup or so of very sweet, deeply golden and tender onion (this is the basis of really great French Onion soup, by the way).   Now, add the rice and saute with the onion for five minutes or so, increasing the heat to medium high.   Add the water and bring to a boil.  Season with salt and pepper and put the lid on once it comes to a boil.   Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove the pot from the heat and let stand another 10 minutes.   Fluff the rice with a fork.  Oh hell, it’s Christmas, add another good knob of butter if you want these buggers to taste really good.

Now for the torture that is the cabbage.   Cut the root off the cabbage, a good inch or so up from the base.  The bottom of each leaf is a thick stem that you don’t want anyway, so you’ll want to chop about 20 per cent of the head off the bottom right off the bat.   Fill a large pot that has a lid with about 2 inches of water and place it over medium high heat.  Season the water with salt for reasons that are probably only mental and not really necessary.   Add the cabbage and put the lid on the pot.   You’ll want to vigorously steam for about six to eight minutes each time you pluck off and remove a steam-softened leaf.  Have lots of beer on hand.  Trust me.  This is what I do when the Mamma Mia crew is making perogies.

As you put each leaf on a side plate, let it cool for a couple of minutes, then spoon on about 1/4 cup of rice filling near the root end.  Roll it up half way along the leaf, trying to maintain a tight shape, then tuck in the sides and continue to roll up the rest of the leaf.  Place the roll in a casserole pan that’s been buttered and repeat for the rest of the leaves.   It’s really not that bad.  You’ll be done before Meryl Streep is singing Waterloo.

The sauce is easy.   Puree the tomatoes and season them with salt and pepper to taste.   Add the mashed clove or garlic and the can, I kid you not, of Heinz condensed tomato soup, and stir that all together.  By this time, you’re pretty loadered so it makes sense to do something this simple.    Drizzle the sauce all over the cabbage rolls in the pan.  Top with more cabbage leaves (the crappy little ones near the core) and bake for two hours at 300 F.