Tag: rice

Pilau Rice

  • 300g Bismati rice
  • 30g butter, ghee or sunflower oil
  • 1 large onion finely chopped
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 6 cardamom pods, bashed (green)
  • 4 cloves
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1/2 tsp ground curriander
  • 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
  • 500ml stock (chicken/veg)
  • pinch of salt to taste

chop and fry the onion. Add the spices and fry for a couple of minutes.

wash the rice, and add. fry for a couple of minutes and add the stock. boil for 10 minutes, add the butter and leave for 10 mins to rest.

add a knob of butter to finish, and fliff with a fork.

Shortbread

Shortbread is a Scottish classic biscuit, perfect with a hot chocolate. The trick is to get the texture right, the more corn flour or rice flour you add, the more it crispy crumbly it becomes. Too much corn/rice flour makes it dry and unpleasant, and too little makes it more like a pastry than a biscuit- it becomes difficult to get crisp and light.

There are a couple of recipes below to experiment with- both make good shortbread, but I haven’t hit the ideal yet!

Shortbread I
225g/8oz unsalted butter
75g/3oz caster sugar
350g/12oz plain flour
15g/0.5oz cornflour/riceflour
Cream butter & sugar
Mix in flours
Roll to 5mm/0.25″
180c/350f/gm4 for 20-25mins

Shortbread II
125g butter
55g caster sugar
140g plain flour
40g rice flour

190c for 20 mins