Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Baked Rice and Frozen Chinese Food

I have made a lot of bad rice in my time.  But baking brown rice is foolproof, there are a number of recipes that use enough butter to make Julia Child proud.  I have taken a bit of a few different recipes and made my own (Cook's Illustraighted and Alton Brown are the two that I remember).

1 1/2 cups long-, medium- or short-grain brown rice
2 1/3 cups chicken stock
2 teaspoons unsalted butter or vegetable oil

1. Adjust the oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 375 degrees. Spread rice in 8-inch square baking dish.
2. Bring stock and butter or oil to boil, covered, in medium saucepan over high heat; once boiling, immediately pour stock over rice. Cover baking dish tightly with doubled layer of foil. Bake rice 1 hour, until tender.
3. Remove baking dish from oven and uncover. Fluff rice with  fork, then cover dish with  kitchen towel; let rice stand 5 minutes. Uncover and let rice stand 5 minutes longer; serve immediately.


Now, I had one of those coupon explosions not that long ago.  I am not a huge fan of frozen dinners that I don't make, but this was too good to pass up.  PF Chang has new frozen dinners.  I had a coupon for $2.00 off and a coupon to double the other coupon, so for $2.00 I was ready to try it out.  First, I had the orange chicken with some baked brown rice (cost for the meal less than $1.00).  PF Chang is on to something with how they have frozen the meal.  The sauce is in little cubes, so the parts are separate until you cook it.  This keeps the veggies crisp and the protein from falling apart.  I wonder if I can create this at home.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Susan. Good stuff. Haven't tried baking rice, but will now! Happy Holidays from the Cheyenne McIlwaines.

Tiernan

eSusan said...

Happy Holidays to Cheyenne McIlwaines! I'm sure you had a great spread at J&J for the holidays.