Basmati Rice with Mung Beans (topped with fried onions and hummus)

Today, felt like a healthier more simple day after a bit of excess over the weekend – a bowl of miso soup did feature!

This was a recipe my sister very kindly passed on, she even bought us the Moong Dal/mung beans to go with it…



This is so easy to make, washed basmati rice is mixed with the mung beans (split green beans) and put in the Cook Japan rice cooker.  All you then have to do is press “Start” and wait for it to finish cooking – talk about simple and my word is it tasty.



Rather than cooking my normal “x” number of cups, this was made with 2/3 cup of rice and 1/3 cup of mung beans as the ratio to which water was added.  While the rice cooker was working its magic, I leisurely fried some onions and grabbed the remaining hummus from the fridge.

Hey presto, the rice is cooked, the onions go on top and hummus makes a great accompaniment…



…the rice cooker is sitting there on “keep warm”, think i’ll pop back to the kitchen and have a bit more!
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Ottolenghi Roast Chicken and Three-Rice Salad

We’re going a bit Ottolenghi crazy at the moment…the cookbook is amazing!!

Sunday night (and yippe, left overs for lunch today) was Ottolenghi’s Roast Chicken with Three-Rice Salad.

First up, roast a chicken that has been liberally rubbed with olive oil and salt and pepper then when cooked put to one side at room temperature and let cool, and keep the juices.  While the chicken is roasting you start making the rice salad…first in the pan (or in our case the Cook Japan rice cooker) was the basmati rice which once cooked was then put to one side to cool, and into the rice cooker went the brown rice and wild rice to be cooked together, and then put the combined rice aside.

Carve the meat, or tear off in chunks, then mix lemon juice, sesame oil, thai fish sauce and olive oil and pour this dressing over the chicken. 

Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry sliced onions until brown and let cool.  Add the three rices, fried onion, spring onions, chopped chillies and coriander, mint and shiso (or rocket) to the chicken.

Absolutely delicious…

Three rice salad

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

A beautiful bowl of Kosheri

We recently got the Ottolenghi Cookbook which is full of fabulous dishes, one we tried last night was KOSHERI…although we didn’t have all the ingredients so had to cut a few corners, but the result was still delicious.  Kosheri is a traditional rice and lentil dish from Egypt that is usually served alongside a spicy tomato sauce…



What you should do is fry some garlic and oil then add tomatoes, water, vinegar, salt and cumin and bring to boil, then simmer seasoning with coriander and a bit of salt ‘n pepper.  Then wash and cook lentils until tender, and then wash some rice, fry some vermicelli noodles in butter until golden brown, add the washed rice and cook.  Leave to steam then sautee the onions and add these plus the lentils to the rice, garnishing with a bit more coriander.

Takes a bit of pan juggling, but is a simple dish to make and tastes wonderful.

What we did, was basically as above, but didn’t have any tomatoes to hand (and couldn’t be bothered to go shopping at night for more) and our lentils were more yellow than green, but other than that we did what the book told us – and anyway, good cooking is always about tweaking things a little…

Its a great dish and a great cookbook if you don’t already have a copy…


For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk