Passover dinner and a medley of Roses

I promised you two more recipes on Saturday. I'm a woman of my word, or at least I try. Also, that spring we were talking about is continuing to spin heads around here, and the Roses of Jerusalem are raging in bloom on every street corner and garden, be it well kept or over grown. Here are a few.

As for the recipes. I have a wonderful friend named Jackie. She is a wicked cook, and I've had the pleasure of having a couple of Shabat dinners at her home. On at least two occasions she had an excellent red grain rice, and at least once, a side of asparagus to accompany that. Last time, I found my self scraping the rice-bowl clean, in front of a table full of people I had just met. That good.  So for our passover dinner, I decided to combine both memorable dishes into one, and make a rice dish to remind me of my dear friend. It turned out great, so much so, that it was made again, a week later, for the second Passover dinner. You should try it as well.

Jackies' Dinner Rice

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1 cup long whole grain rice

1 cup red rice

150 gr pine nuts

1 large bunch of Asparagus, tough bottoms removed

3 medium onions, cut into quarters and sliced thinly

salt

pepper

olive oil

* one package Portobello Mushrooms, cut into large bite-sized cubes. The second time I made this, I felt the one and only bunch of Asparagus left at the green grocers', despite being beautiful, was not large enough for a big bowl of rice. So I grabbed a beautiful box of Portobellos to add as well. You can choose how you like this better- both times it cooked up nicely.

Rinse rice well in running water until water runs off clear. If you have time, let rice soak for about 8 hours- this cuts down the preparation time of whole grain rice to the 20 minutes required to cook white rice, and also the amount of water becomes the same as for white rice. In addition, it activates all the nutrients in the grains, just like rains activates a seed to germinate, and makes this an extra healthy food. If you soak your rice, use a 1.5 to 1 ratio of water to rice- in this case 3 cups of water to 2 cups of rice. If you don't soak your rice, the ratio should be 2 to 1- 4 cups of water to 2 cups of rice. Either way, drain the rice well, and warm 2 tbsp of olive oil in a pot, and fry rice, stirring, for a minute or two, with some coarsely ground black pepper. add water ( boiling, hold on to the cooking water of the Asparagus as mentioned below ), and salt in a sufficient amount to make the water pretty salty- you don't want your rice to be bland, and cooking it with sufficient salt ensures that the flavor is absorbed into the grains of rice themselves. Bring to boil, lower flame to the lowest setting, cover and let cook for 20 minutes, if rice was pre-soaked, or 40 minutes, if not. Turn off heat and leave covered for 10 minutes. Remove lid and fluff rice with a fork.

In a large skillet, warm a generous splash of olive oil. Add onions, and cook very slowly, over a low heat, until a deep golden brown. Be careful not to burn them over a high heat! this should take around 10 minutes, maybe even a little more.

Blanch Asparagus in a large pot of boiling salted water, for no more than a minute. Remove, rinse in cold water, and place in a bowl of cold water and ice cubes to chill completely. Keep the water used for the Asparagus to cook the rice in- you will gain both the traces of nutrients left in the water as well as the flavour. Simply set aside and measure out the amount of water needed when you are ready to cook your rice.

Drain Asparagus and cut into pieces about 2-3 cm long. when onions are golden-brown, add pine nuts, salt and pepper and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in asparagus, cook an additional minute, and remove from heat. If you decided to use mushrooms, add them to the onions before the pine nuts, add salt and pepper, and cook for about 4 minutes, stirring. then go ahead with the pine nuts and asparagus.

Combine cooked rice and vegetable mixture while still hot. Check seasoning and serve.

The second recipe is a green bean dish. These can be found fresh in the market now, and are great. Choose dark green, firm, smooth pods with no spots on them. Like most vegetables, these too will be tastiest if you keep cooking to the minimum necessary. Over cooking will result in a sad, soft mess. Plus, the less you cook them, the more nutrients you'll get. Fair deal, if you ask me. As I mentioned in the previous post, this is also the season of fresh garlic. it is intensely flavourful, so you'll need less than when using the dry type. I thoroughly delight in its arrival every year.

Green Beans and Brussels Sprouts with crunchy Almonds, Chili and cilantro

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1/2 kg fresh green beans, tips removed, cut into 3-4 cm long pieces

about 1 cup Brussels sprouts ( I used frozen, but if you live somewhere where fresh are available- hurray)

2 cloves garlic, minced

handful of almonds, coarsely chopped

1/2 tsp chili flakes

small bunch of cilantro, coarsely chopped

coarse salt

blanch green beans for about a minute in boiling salted water, till their green turns brighter, but they are still crisp. strain and rinse in cold water, then place in a bowl with ice water. cook Brussels sprouts in same water, till cooked- but not soft, you know the drill. rinse and place with beans in ice water.

in a large skillet over a high flame heat a generous splash of olive oil. when hot, add garlic, almonds, chili and salt, stir for a few moments till garlic begins giving off its scent, add beans and Brussels and toss around for a minute or two. Stir in cilantro and remove from heat.

This is good quite spicy I think, so I used generous amounts of chili. it is probably best served immediately, but we ate it some time after preparation, after a few spins in the micro ( I know! ), and it was still quite delicious.

And one last tiny one before I go. Last time I mentioned my newly found love for cabbage salads. I forget to mention an equal passion for cauliflower. I often treat them quite the same as a salad base, and in this case small florets of cauliflower were sliced and combined with toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds, then seasoned with lemon, olive oil, salt, pepper and chili, but instead of the parsley used in the cabbage salad, I used chopped fresh oregano leaves. this was exceptionally good, and a nice variation on my much loved parsley-lemon-olive oil combo.

Happy cooking!