pilaf… sort of.

over the years as a student & regular broke person rice has been life saver. I've done everything with it including, in my more poverty stricken days, pairing plain basmati with baked beans, mushy peas and a battered fish steak (the cupboard was really really bare that day). Scarily enough i actually enjoyed it and it became a cheap regular meal as i kidded myself that the beans & mushy peas counted towards my 5 a day.
Lucky for you that is not what I'm writing about today. What I'm talking about is a yummy vegetable pilaf that I've made a few times which, although its been different every time due to it consisting of whatever been left in my fridge, is always delicious.
Pilaf is slightly different and much lighter than risotto which with the butter and cream can be quite heavy. its also cooked differently with instead of the constant stirring and gradual addition of stock you just bung it all in turn it on a low heat and allow it to bubble quietly.
one of my favourite variations included sweet potato, frozen peas & sweet onion paired with the slightly salty Bouillon vegetable stock cooked rice. Bouillon is by far my favourite stock to use and great to add into any recipe if like me you don’t like using salt as you get the intense veg flavour as well as seasoning.
I’m not going to write a recipe down for this. because I don’t have one. It literally is something that I just throw together with whatever veg i have and if the meaty mood takes me I'll either chuck in some chicken or cook off a pork chop. just follow the basic rules below and you can’t really go wrong.
1. vegetables – What Grows Together, Goes Together. seasonal veg will always mix well and similar tastes will compliment each other.
2. Unlike risotto don’t stir too much. Over stirring releases the starch and creates a stodginess you don’t want. Just keep it at a gentle heat and let it be.
3. Keep it simple. too many different flavours just kill off any clean tastes you’re looking for. less is more.
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Molegnese

Now you really have to bare with me on this one. I started out wanting to make a a simple Bolognese or a chilli con carne. on browsing my cupboard I realised I didn't have the ingredients to create a full version of either of these but I could with a bit of creativity get a bit of fusion going and see what I came up with. The finished product turned out to be a sort of chilli/mole (pronounced mole-ay) ragu.
Very early on I realised that with neither tinned tomatoes or cannellini beans in the cupboard I'd have to make a substitution. Baked Beans seemed the logical alternative. yes ok they're two very different tomato tastes, but I usually end up adding a bit of sugar anyway when I use tinned tomatoes and I always buy low salt/sugar baked beans so that's my justification. and to replace some of the lost tomato tang I added quite a bit of tomato & garlic puree.
I was saved from my Baked Beany mince (the huge amount of paprika I had added just wasn’t providing a kick) by Ali who rang me from M&S asking was there anything I needed. A quick order for chilli’s & salad and I was suddenly inspired. I grabbed some Cocoa power from the cupboard and my ‘molegnese’ was on its way.
Ingredients:
500g Mince
1 large Onion
Stock Cube
1 tbsp tomato & garlic puree (you can add separate garlic if you want, i didn’t have any)
1tbsp dried Thyme
1 tbsp dried Rosemary
1 tin low salt Baked Beans
2 heaped tbsp Paprika
a good glug of Worcester Sauce (I used Tamari Soy as I don’t have any but Worcester would probably work better)
1 tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened, as pure as you can get)
2 red chillis
Fry off the onions until soft (I’m trying to use as little extra fat as I can so have been adding a bit of boiling water to semi stew the onions until they’re soft). Add the mince and fry till completely brown. add the stock cube and continue to fry until there is no excess liquid. stir in the tomato puree, herbs & paprika. Add the beans and top up with water (about the same as the tin)
Alternatively at this point you could substitute some of the water with some red wine this would add extra depth to the sauce)
Simmer the whole thing gently until is become a deep ragu-like mixture. Add in the finely chopped chilli ( i de-seeded one of them but chopped the second whole. leave for a about 10 minutes whilst your rice or pasta cooks and then serve.
You could serve this with either rice or pasta due to the fusion nature of the sauce. we chose farfalle (pasta bows) as we were also having salad and parmesan shavings and rice just felt wrong with that. another serving possibility would be to embrace the Mexican heritage of the mole and serve with tacos or in fajitas. this would also make a great burrito filling (trust me i will be trying that one out for my home-made boojums)
I’m going to make a note of the Rosemary & Thyme. I don’t know how much they added to the dish. I’ll probably try both adding more to see what that does and going completely without. With dishes like this where I’ve just thrown it together its all about trial & error and the fun part is perfecting the process.
I relish the fact that you've mustard the strength to ketchup to me.