Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Cilantro Lemon Rice

Hope our friends in U.S enjoyed the long weekend. I did. We visited friends and even hit the malls to check the Memorial Day sale. By the crowd in the malls, I could see most people were making good use of the discount sales. I did not find anything I wanted so came back empty handed but had fun nevertheless being out and about.

Lemon-Cilantro Rice

I made some cilantro rice on Friday and had it with chicken curry. I always enjoy the Chipotle burrito, especially the rice they pack in it. To have a change from the usual white rice, I decided to try my hand at cilantro rice and what do you know, it was pretty good! When you have guests over and have too many things to cook, this rice will make be easy enough to put together, and yet keep the festivity alive because this rice has the zing of lemon and a burst of cilantro flavor.


Lemon Cilantro Rice

I have seen recipes which calls for lemon zest and I say go ahead and do that if you like. I have not used it in the recipe below but I can see it will be fun to add some lemon zest to add more punch. You can play with the amount of lemon juice to make it suite your palette. Lemon and cilantro cannot go wrong in the coming summer months. Don't you agree?

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The possibility of mixing this rice in your salads and wraps is endless. It's also great with chicken or any other curry.


Ingredients:
Basmati Rice – 2 C
Tejpatta/Indian Bay Leaf – 1
Salt – to taste
Lemon juice – 2 Tbspn
Soya sauce - 1 Tbspn (optional)
Cilantro - 1/2 C
Canola Oil - 1 Tbspn

Method:
1. Wash and soak rice for about ½ hour
2. Bring about 10 cups of water to a boil. Strain the water from the soaked rice and slip it into the boiling water along with bay leaves, and enough salt. Taste the water to make sure there is enough salt. Cook the rice al dente.
3.Chop the cilantro fine and mix it with lemon juice, soya sauce, and oil in a serving bowl which will hold all the cooked rice. Add a couple of spoons of rice and mix with the cilantro-lemon mix. Add the remaining rice on top and using a fork fluff the rice until well mixed with cilantro and lemon.

Notes:

1. If the cooked rice is not salted well enough, add more along with the lemon juice - preferably, dissolved in the lemon juice to have it evenly mix in the rice.
2. If you like the rice to be white in color avoid the soya sauce and replace it with lemon juice.

32 comments:

  1. i have recently been hooked on to variety rice (as they call it in chennai) and cilantro rice is a fav...im not a big lime rice fan, but then yeah both together could hit it off im sure

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  2. Cilantro n lime combo sounds so good ~ loved the pretty bowls :)
    US Masala

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  3. Meal looks temptg...am sure it tasted gr8

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  4. Dear Sunitha
    How are you? Nice to hear that you didn't buy any thing as you did not find any thing that you wanted to buy...My wife would have bought few things which she did not need.ha ha
    I like this recipe and will try . I take note of using a bit of soya sauce too.
    Have a nice day

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  5. I'm a huge fan of citrusy flavors and I can just imagine how good the rice must have tasted with the lemon and cilantro seasoning.

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  6. Beautiful bowl of rice..looks tangy and appetizing!!

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  7. Oh super combo...and this rice looks super too!!

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  8. delicious flavourful rice looks wonderful

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  9. I think I can just eat this rice on its own. I love flavored rice as they are so tasty.

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  10. Next time I must cook this when I cook the Indian curry, simply yummy!

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  11. Lovely combination, rice looks delicious.

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  12. you are right cilantro and lemon combination can never go wrong specially for rice dishes. Sounds tangy and tasty

    Deepa
    Hamaree Rasoi

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  13. This is such a new combination to me...Looks flavourful n yummy

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  14. I do the same but never added soya sauce ...with tht curry looks fab

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  15. Sunitha...the rice looks delicious and flavorful! And how one can stop themselves from buying something they don't really want but looks great...is something I'll never understand! ;) Renee!

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  16. Lemon rice looks delicious.The flavour of bayleaf and soya sauce makes it special.

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  17. As Shyama is in College and cook food for her on sunday so she can take with her when she goes to her place and i am looking for making new variety of rice too. This loooks so so good.
    We didnt had holiday but we are having long weekend fro; tomorrow so;e religious day, but alas not doing anything special as Shyama is home for 2 weeks for study holiday and she is busy learning from morning to night and i will feel giulty if ileave here and do something fum like shopping ;-(

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  18. thats a very nice way of making lemon rice. adding bay leaf and soy sauce is a nice twist

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  19. wow nice combo ... looks delicious ....

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  20. Wonderful, I usually add cilantro to my lemon rice, so this sounds superb just like that :)

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  21. It is really hard to find good stuffs during such sale.. I have returned empty hand umpteen times.
    Cilantro lemon rice is always my fav..

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  22. Tempting and flavorful meal..absolutely delicious.

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  23. Looks awesome,mouthwatering here..

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  24. Lemon rice is my fav for sure, i enjoy it most during travel and picnic and this combo is even more amazing!! and like pic with stack of two bowl!

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  25. That sounds delicious. And it would go nicely with a burrito or Indian curries - very flexible recipe too. Delicious!

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  26. The combo sounds delicious. Beautiful clicks

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  27. Sounds yummy and tempting.. thanks for the recipe :)
    Indian Cuisine

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