Category Archives: Rice

Malaysian glutinous rice & pandan dessert

April 30, 2017 2:56 pm / 1 Comment /

After returning from our eating trip to Penang I wanted to try one of my favourite Malaysian desserts in the steam oven.  So much easier than the original recipe I found and it tastes delicious!

I have used fresh pandan leaves in the glutinous rice but only essence in the green top layer.  I had a bad experience once with chopped pandan leaves curdling a panacotta custard so I wasn’t game to put in the water from the pureed leaves into this custard (as in the original recipe).  Have a look at that recipe if you like but the pandan essence (providing it is a good one from the Asian food shops) is fine.  Be mindful though it is very green.

So easy in the steam oven, just pour over the top layer and cook.  It must be served at room temperature and doesn’t keep well.  The glutinous rice becomes hard and chewy but can be warmed a little in the steam oven to rejuvenate.

Ingredients:

For Bottom layer:
300g white glutinous rice, washed well and soaked in plenty of water overnight
100ml coconut milk or cream (I used a 400ml can of Ayam Light coconut cream and just split it)
100ml water
2 pandan leaves, ripped in strips and tied in a knot
1 tsp salt

Top layer:
200ml thick coconut cream
¼ cup water (wash out the coconut cream can with this)
3 x 70g eggs
¾ cup castor sugar
¼-½ tsp pandan essence (or to your liking/colour/taste)
2 heaped tablespoons cornflour

Method:
Bottom layer:
Drain the rice.
Mix together with all the ingredients for the bottom layer.
Pour into small, solid steam oven tray.
Cook @ 100°C steam for 30 minutes.  It should be sticky but cooked.  Remove pandan leaves.
Line a square 23cm cake tin with baking paper and transfer cooked rice into pan.
Press down firmly to make a solid, dense layer.
Set aside.

Top layer:
Prepare this while the bottom layer is cooking.
Whisk the eggs, sugar and cornflour in a medium size mixing bowl until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has lightened in colour a little.
Add the coconut cream, water and essence to colour.  It should be a mid-green if you are using essence.  Be careful it is very bright.  I only use a dash.
Pour over glutinous rice layer, cover the dish with foil.
Cook @ 100°C steam for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and set aside with the foil over to cool.
Cut into squares or diamonds to serve, see my note above  🙂

 

This is a recipe I adapted for the steam oven & made it gluten free, from rasamalaysia.com

 

 

Posted in: Desserts, Gluten free, Malaysian, Party Food, Rice

Sous vide wagyu with wasabi dipping sauce

January 19, 2017 9:09 am / 6 Comments /

Sous vide wagyu with wasabi dipping sauce

I had a great In-home cooking class with a lovely lady in Milsons Point who gave me a gift of two beautiful wagyu steaks.  I put them in my freezer before Christmas but had in mind what I wanted to do with them.  They weighed 320g and were already vac packed.  Perfect for sous vide as no need to even bag them up again.  They were quite thin so I reduced the cooking time from my previous sous vide attempt here.

Perfectly cooked to medium rare the sous vide method is definitely the way to go with good quality cuts of meat.  Apart from a very quick searing of one minute on each side in a smoking hot pan or BBQ you don’t have to worry that you are overcooking it; something that can easily happen, especially on the BBQ or with thinner cuts of meat.  Cooking at such a low temperature will allow the fat marbelling to melt away.

Try this, the sauce is amazing.  You can adjust the amount of wasabi to suit your tastes but start with these quantities unless you have a real issue with spicy food.  Remember to taste as you go.  Great with a green salad (also even better dipped in the sauce!) and a bowl of steamed rice here.

Ingredients:  Serves 2

2 x Wagyu beef steaks as above
2 bowls of pre-cooked steam oven rice
Cucumber and mixed salad to serve

Dipping sauce:
1-2 tsp wasabi (from the tube)
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp Canola oil
Spring onions

Method:

  1. For dipping sauce mix all ingredients together in a small bowl except oil & spring onions.
  2. Whisk in oil to emulsify.  Set aside.
  3. Bring steaks to room temperature in bag, about 15 minutes from the refrigerator should be enough.
  4. Place steaks, in unopened plastic bag in perforated steam oven tray and cook @ 56ºC for 30 minutes for thin steaks of 320g.  If your steak is thicker you will need to adjust the time.
  5. Preheat a non-stick frypan or BBQ until smoking hot.  Add a dash of olive oil just before you are ready to sear them.
  6. Cook for ONLY 1 minute on each side, sprinkle with a little sea salt and remove to a plate to rest while you reheat your rice in the steam oven for 4 minutes @ 100ºC.

Serve with warm steamed rice, dipping sauce and a fresh green salad.  Yum!

 

 

Posted in: Cooking classes, Japanese, Main Courses, Rice, Sauces & custards, Steam Oven

Forbidden Mexican red rice

February 25, 2014 2:42 pm / Leave a Comment /

Mexican red rice

We had our first Mexican Fiesta evening with a few friends after our trip to the USA last year.  We were inspired by the fantastic Mexican cuisine that we ate in all parts of the States with memorable meals in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.  The food was amazing, which has now inspired me to get into the whole Mexican thing.

Loving the new Mexican series on SBS1 with Peter Kuruvita on Thursday nights @ 7.30pm.  He is correct, authentic Mexican isn’t all soggy cheese and sour cream but is in fact a wonderful combination of earthy flavours and fresh ingredients.

I found this great Mexican cookbook on our travels and made this rice dish with just long grain rice on our return.  A great dish to cook again, this time with the Red rice from Forbidden foods cooked in the steam oven.  Their red rice is a combination of red and white long grain rice which is fantastic with this simple rice dish as it works well with the nuttiness of the rice, spices and colours.  Red rice is just SO Mexican!

Delicious served with my Pulled pork and Mexican Watermelon salad here and no, you don’t need the sour cream (that was just for the pic 🙂 )

Ingredients:  Serves 6-8

1½ cups Forbidden red rice, washed quickly
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1¾ cups chicken stock

Method:

  1. Heat oil and sauté onion and cumin seeds until soft and fragrant
  2. Add tomato paste and red rice.  Stir well
  3. Now add stock and place into the solid steamer tray.
  4. Cook @ 100°C for 30 minutes

Stir and garnish with chopped red chilli and coriander.

Posted in: Gluten free, Mexican, Rice, Side dishes, Steam Oven, Vegetarian

Healthy brown fried rice

February 12, 2014 7:29 pm / 1 Comment /

Brown fried rice

Fried rice doesn’t have to be bad for you.  Not when you use brown rice and only a tiny amount of oil.

Try this healthy, steam oven version whereby you can cook all your extra ingredients whilst the rice is cooking.  If you have a steam oven that doesn’t allow for multi-level cooking then you can just throw everything in directly on top of the rice!  Sounds amazing but it won’t hurt.  This will just give the rice a little more flavour.

Try to think like this when using your steam oven.  For a start you don’t want to wash up heaps and heaps of dishes so try to minimise these by testing just how much you can pile into one steamer tray.

For example the rice takes 40 minutes so you have lots of time to add and remove different items.  For my fried rice tonight I am going to add corn on the cob, sliced beans & frozen peas – 5 minutes.  You could also try adding a chicken breast fillet to the rice (see timing here on Tips & Tricks but reduce the time a little as your cooking at 100°C).  Beans usually take only 2 minutes but it didn’t overcook them on this occasion.

Experiment – that is what cooking in a new appliance is all about 🙂

Ingredients:

1½ cups brown rice
1¾ cups water
pinch salt

1-2 corn on the cob, halved
4 spring onions, sliced diagonally
1 teaspoon grated ginger
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 eggs beaten
Large handful of bean sprouts soaked in ice water
½ red capsicum, diced
Sliced cooked chicken, green prawns, bacon slices, chopped, ham, Char Siu pork chopped, Chinese sausage sliced, BBQ Chinese duck or roast pork, shredded
½ cup frozen peas
chopped coriander & chilli (optional)
splash of soy sauce to taste

Method:

  1. Wash rice and place into the solid steamer tray with the water and a pinch of salt.
  2. Set the timer for 40 minutes @ 100°C
  3. While this is cooking chop all your other vegetables
  4. Heat a large wok on high and add 1 teaspoon of peanut oil.  Pour in your 2 eggs that you have beaten and swirl around to make a thin, crisp omelette.  Turn to cook the other side then fold over and remove to cool.   Slice.
  5. When you have 5 minutes cooking time remaining on the timer, put in your vegetables or chicken as above.
  6. Remove everything from the steam oven and set aside to cool.
  7. Heat your wok again with a little more oil (just a teaspoon is plenty) and sauté  the white part of the spring onion with the ginger, garlic and capsicum until soft.  If you are using bacon or prawns add it here too.
  8. Add all your other ingredients and stir well.
  9. Season to taste with soy sauce and cover.  Lower the heat and cook 5 minutes to reheat all your ingredients and blend the flavours.

Pile into warm bowls and top with some coriander leaves to serve.  Delicious, a perfect way to use up that left over chicken, ham or whatever you have in the fridge.

Posted in: Gluten free, Healthy eating, Main Courses, Rice, Steam Oven

Forbidden Nasi Lemak red rice

December 29, 2013 6:50 pm / 1 Comment /

Nasi lemak rice

A Malaysian friend of mine, Lily, was kind enough to lend me a book on Singaporean cooking when she heard about all my rice adventures.  This is a recipe adapted from a very old edition of ‘The Best of Singapore Cooking’ by Mrs Leong Yee Soo.  First published in 1988 and then again up to 2004 it must have been the local favourite.  You can tell that it was an old book as a lot of the recipes included MSG!  It is a long time since I have seen that in a recipe.

Lily said that the combination of the lemongrass and spices were good in this dish so I thought I would try it with the Red rice from Forbidden foods and cook it in the steam oven.  The Red rice is a longer grain than the other varieties so it will suit this dish better.  Our friends in Manly regularly use the Hainanese Chicken rice recipe here so it will be good to offer them another Asian rice dish too.

Ingredients:  Serves 6

1½ cups Forbidden Red Rice, washed
1/2 tsp chilli powder
2 fresh pandan leaves if available (optional)
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp peanut oil
2 tbsp. finely chopped lemongrass, white part only
¾ cup chicken stock
¾ cup coconut milk
½ cinnamon stick
1 medium onion, finely diced
Salt if required

Method:

  1. Heat oil and fry lemongrass and onion until fragrant and softened
  2. Add cinnamon, chilli powder and rice
  3. Stir to mix well and place into the solid stainless steel steam oven tray
  4. Pour over the stock and coconut milk, add the pandan leaves and cook @ 100°C 30 minutes
  5. Stir through the fresh lime juice and taste for seasoning.  You may need salt depending on your stock.

Garnish with sliced egg omelette (2 eggs beaten and cooked in a hot, oiled pan), fine chilli strips and crispy shallots 🙂

Posted in: Gluten free, Rice, Side dishes, Steam Oven, Vegetarian

Forbidden green rice Japanese salad

November 18, 2013 12:42 pm / Leave a Comment /

Green rice Japanese salad

Green rice conjures up Asian flavours to me, especially seeing that this special Forbidden rice is brown rice infused with bamboo juice!  This is the new rice from my friends at Forbidden foods.  It also comes from China and is par-boiled to allow for a quicker cooking time and cooks beautifully in the steam oven without the worry of it boiling over or boiling dry.

The concept of it sounded amazing so I thought it would lend itself really well to  a Japanese salad, especially with this dressing and the selection of salad ingredients.

Ingredients:  Serves 4-6

1 cup Forbidden Green Rice, washed quickly
1¼ cups water
pinch salt

Salad:

1 carrot finely grated
Handful bamboo shoots
Handful snow pea sprouts
150g firm tofu, cubed
1/2 cup Edamane beans after shelling

Dressing:

1tbsp grated ginger
1 clove garlic, crushed
70g onion (1 medium)
2tsp Gluten free soy sauce
2½ tbsp. rice vinegar
½tsp sugar
1tsp lemon juice
1tbsp tomato sauce (ketchup)
1tsp seseme oil
1tbsp Peanut oil – or more to your liking up to 1/4 cup
Touch salt & pepper to taste

Method:

  1. Cook rice in water @ 100°C for 30 minutes.  Fluff with a fork, remove and set aside to cool.
  2. Grate the carrot and mix through all other ingredients into the rice when it’s cold.
  3. Blend all dressing ingredients in a small food processor until combined.  Stir through rice mixture but retain a little to drizzle over the salmon if you are serving it with fish.
  4. Taste and season.

I served it with steamed Salmon on the top which you can get the instructions for from any of the Salmon recipes in the ‘Fish category’.  It didn’t need the Salmon as it has heaps of goodness with the tofu, rice and vegetables but it did add that special ‘main course’ touch for a dinner.

 

Posted in: Fish, Gluten free, Rice, Salads, Steam Oven

Forbidden black rice, vongole & tomato risotto

November 14, 2013 4:54 pm / Leave a Comment /

SAM_0376

My friends at Forbidden Foods have sent me a box of samples to test in the steam oven.  What fun this is going to be!  I thought I would start with the Black Rice which is their original product (they now also have Red Rice and the new amazing Green Rice).  It is not long grain black rice as we know it here (which is actually Wild Rice) but a short grain, par-boiled rice from China.

This is a recipe for the Black rice in a risotto as everyone who knows about a steam oven can confirm that risotto cooked in this appliance is absolutely fabulous.  No stirring, just sauté off your ingredients add the dry rice before adding the stock and placing it in the steam oven.  Some people don’t even do that, just choosing to put everything into the solid stainless steel tray to begin with but I think the flavour is better using this method.  I also cooked it in this shallow casserole which looked stunning for serving and only one pan to wash up!

Ingredients: Serves 4

1¼ cups Forbidden black rice
1-2tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
2 birdseye chilli, seeded and finely diced or to your taste
1½ cups fish stock
1kg Vongole, soaked in fresh water for 1 hour, scrubbed then drained
1 vine ripened tomato, diced
fresh coriander to serve

Method:

  1. Sauté onion and garlic in the olive oil on low heat until soft.
  2. Add the black rice and chilli and stir to coat.
  3. Now add the stock.
  4. Place into the solid steamer tray @ 100°C for 30 minutes, stir
  5. Now change the cooking temperature to 85°C, add Vongole and cook another 10 minutes to open the shells.
  6. Remove from the steam oven and open any shells that are partially open with a sharp knife.  Discard any that are unopened.
  7. Leaving the Vongole on the top, scatter the tomato around the shells and top with coriander.
  8. Squeeze over half a lemon to serve 🙂

Photograph was using 500g Vongole and 1 cup rice which would only serve 2-3 so I altered the quantities to Serve 4 as above.

Posted in: Fish, Gluten free, Rice, Steam Oven

Spring vegetable risotto

October 23, 2013 7:02 pm / 2 Comments /

Spring vegetable risotto

I haven’t done a risotto for a while so this is a lovely Spring dish which I cooked in the LeCreuset Shallow Casserole without the lid.  I sautéed in it and then it fitted straight into my steam oven!  No other pan to wash up as it’s also a beautiful serving dish.  You can use the lid on serving to keep it warm (and it also looks great).

Just like asparagus means Spring to me, so does basil.  I have drizzled some fresh pesto over the top of the risotto and a few extra basil leaves to give it another level of flavour.  It works, the combination of the creamy rice, fresh vegetables and the hit of the pesto is delicious.

You can make some fresh pesto from the recipe here.  I had a little I reserved from the Buckwheat salad to use for this recipe but remember if you want to store pesto it must be stored in a jar with a layer of oil over the top.  You can also press a circle of baking paper or glad wrap directly onto the surface of the pesto which will help prevent discolouration.

Ingredients:  Serves 4-6

1 cup Arborio rice
2 cups chicken stock
1½ tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
100g Swiss brown mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch asparagus, cut into lengths
1 cup sugar snap peas
½ cup frozen peas
¼ cup sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
½ cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1 tbsp. fresh pesto mixed with 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
few fresh basil leaves

Method:

  1. Heat the olive oil in the LeCreuset shallow casserole, sauté onion & garlic on a low heat until soft
  2. Add mushrooms and sauté on a medium heat until it starts to colour.
  3. Stir through rice for 1 minute, add stock and cook @ 100°C for 15 minutes without the lid on the pan (see note below)
  4. Open steam oven and add all other ingredients except the parmesan, pesto and basil and cook a further 2 minutes
  5. Stir in parmesan and top with the pesto and basil leaves.

A one-pot Spring dish!

Recipe adapted from Miele

Taste your risotto after it’s been in for 15 minutes as cooking in a cast iron pan may alter your timing compared to other recipes that are cooked in the solid stainless steel tray.  It may need another 3-5 minutes before the vegetables are added depending on your taste.  I didn’t have any different cooking time but I think that was because the pan was hot off the stove.

 

 

 

Posted in: Gluten free, Main Courses, Rice, Steam Oven, Vegetarian

Mushroom & Asparagus Risotto

July 3, 2013 7:39 pm / 3 Comments /

Another all time favourite is this Mushroom & Asparagus Risotto.  You can change the asparagus for a bit of variety.  Try baby spinach, green peas or  something like sliced baby zucchini.  Added just at the last minute it really lifts the dish and adds a bit of colour.  Cooked in the Steam Oven like my other Risotto recipe  without the need to stir, it is a great solution for a busy mid week meal!

Mushroom & asparagus risottoPlate and fork provided by Les Bonnes Addresses, McMahons Point, Sydney

Ingredients:

1 cup Arborio Rice
1 tablespoon of Butter
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
¼ cup dry white wine
About 200g Swiss Brown Mushrooms, thinly sliced
8g Porcini Mushrooms soaked in 1/2 cup boiling water then chopped and water retained (that’s a small packet from the herb section in stores)
1¾ cups Vegetable stock (or you could use Chicken if your not vegetarian)
1 bunch fresh Asparagus, trimmed and cut in half
Fresh Thyme and a little Continental Parsley finely chopped
Lots of freshly grated Parmesan Cheese
Black Pepper to taste

Method:

  1. Melt butter in frypan, add onions and garlic and cook until soft on a low heat.  Add both types of mushrooms and cook for a couple of minutes to soften.
  2. Add rice and stir well to coat with the butter/mushroom mixture.  Now add the wine and boil off the alcohol.  This only takes a minute or two.
  3. Put rice mixture into the solid steamer tray with the stock and the soaking water from the mushrooms.
  4. Cook at 100°C for 15 minutes.  When time is up open the door, and add the asparagus.  Just on the top is fine, no need to even stir it.
  5. Cook at 100° for another 2 minutes.
  6. Remove from Steamer, add a handful of grated Parmesan Cheese, the chopped herbs and some black pepper.  Taste to see if it needs any salt.  Usually it doesn’t if you are using commercial stock.

Serve in warm bowls with some crusty bread and a side salad 🙂

 

 

 

Posted in: Main Courses, Rice, Steam Oven, Vegetarian

Hainanese Chicken in the Steam Oven

June 25, 2013 8:30 pm / 4 Comments /

After seeing this on SBS I desperately wanted to cook it and eat it! We had eaten it years ago but had forgotten exactly what it was like.  So went to the local Singaporean restaurant just to try it again and it lived up to all our expectations.  That combination of the steamed, succulent chicken breast with the chicken rice, chilli sauce, garlic and ginger sauce and sweet soy took us back to that little Singaporean hole-in-the-wall where we enjoyed it the first time.

Hainanese chicken in the steam oven

I wanted to cook it but I didn’t want to use a whole pot full of chicken stock.  Even though you could use the stock again in something else it’s just too much messing around, too many pots and too much washing up.  It is also too fussy with having to put the chicken into the stock, then bringing back to the boil and having to be on call in the kitchen.  So I have converted Tiffany’s recipe to use in the Steam Oven.  It was so much easier!

Take all your ingredients from the SBS Recipe  and make the Chilli Sauce (I used only 4 large chillies which were plenty)

Now make the Ginger and Garlic sauce, the mixture for inside the chicken and the soy, salt and sesame oil for rubbing once its cooked.

I also adjusted the Chicken Rice quantity down to 1½ cups Long Grain Rice, with 2 cups of Chicken Stock and the same quantity of ginger, garlic and pandan leaves.  Remember if you are altering the quantity the general guide is ‘quantity of rice to liquid plus 1/2 cup’.

The chicken I used was 1.2kg Lilydale which I removed from the fridge for about 1/2 hour before I started so it would come to room temperature.

Stuff the ginger, garlic and shallot mixture in the cavity of the chicken.  Now add the Chinese Wine and 1/2 the soy.

Place breast side down into the solid tray with 1 cup chicken stock, about 4 slices of ginger and 1 large shallot (or spring onion) cut roughly.

SAM_0044

Place into the Steam Oven @ 95° for 40 minutes.

Remove, drain from stock and place onto a plate.  Rub with the mixture of Soy, Seseme Oil and Salt that is in the recipe and leave to rest uncovered.  This chicken is served more at room temperature rather than piping hot.

Now put your Chicken Rice into the Steamer as described in the recipe with the cooked ginger and garlic mix and the pandan leaves @ 100° for 17 minutes.  Remove the pandan leaves and fluff up.  Don’t add anymore salt to the rice, the salt level was adequate from the stock.

Serve with all the sauces and your Chicken Rice.

Absolutely fantastic – the chicken and the rice were perfectly cooked!  You can see how tender the chicken is in this photo.  You will never boil a huge pot of stock again….

SAM_0049

This is an adapted recipe from SBS Food, Created by Tiffany Wong

This dish is traditionally served with just the chicken breast so the remainder of the chicken will be turned into something else.  Only Serves 2 like this so if you wanted to cook another chicken at the same time then double your mixture for the cavity to Serve 4.  You can bone and slice the other parts of the chicken if you wish.  They will still be tender and juicy.  Actually some restaurants will serve you the thigh fillet, I guess it depends on how many they have pre-cooked ready to serve.

 

Posted in: Chicken, Main Courses, Rice, Steam Oven