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Hello!
It’s been a wild couple of weeks here, with two car accidents and two lost pets (one during one of the accidents, which was terrifying all around). Now that the crises are over I’m overjoyed to report all humans and pets are accounted for and miraculously relatively unharmed. My nerves may never recover, but I have received a dose of restored faith in humanity after many, many strangers went out of their way to help my family, in a traumatic situation that really might have ended differently. Hug your loved ones and remember that even though the news may say otherwise, people are almost always good and caring.
After all of that, and although I already had today’s recipe planned to share, it seems very fitting to be talking about a comfort-food, soul-nourishing kind of dish. It’s the kind of meal that soothes and calms rather than packing a punch.
Many of you will be familiar with Yotam Ottolenghi, the Israeli-British chef and cookbook author whose recipes are famous around the world. A lot of his dishes veer off the conventional path and mix ingredients and techniques from multiple cuisines, but today I’m sharing an adaptation of a very traditional lentil and rice recipe that I first spied several years ago in his Jerusalem cookbook.
Elsewhere you’ve got lentils and chicken from the archives, and a little discussion about making frozen desserts. All sorts of good things!
Happy steam oven cooking, take care of yourselves and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.
Emily x
New to Cook
Yotam Ottolenghi’s Lentil Rice with Fried Onions (Mejadra)
In our house we call this dish lentil-rice, but its proper (much more beautiful sounding) name is mejadra. I’ve been making it for years and long ago turned it into something that gets started on the stove and finished in my steam oven, both for ease and ‘maximum fluff’ of the rice.
You can serve mejadra as a meal in itself, topped with unsweetened yoghurt mixed with sliced cucumber, mint, garlic and lemon juice. That’s my preferred way to eat it. If you’re of the ‘it’s not a meal without meat’ persuasion, make it a substantial side dish instead, served with chicken or red meat.
From the Archives
Lovely Lentils! If you’d like to steam your own lentils for today’s rice recipe (or for anything else – they’re very versatile!), this is the article you need.
If you want to add a meaty protein so the lentil rice becomes a side instead of the main event, miso-maple roasted chicken is a great companion. No, it’s not traditional, and yes, maybe it seems like an odd pairing. But trust me, the salty sweet chicken and the earthy spiced rice are great friends.
A Thing I'm Loving
Have we ever talked about the Ninja Creami here? I feel like perhaps I missed sharing it when I first bought one, but I wondered for ages whether to make the investment in a gadget that really only does one (admittedly unnecessary) job before I finally took the plunge. Perhaps some of you have seen the Creami and are the same!
In that spirit, perhaps you’d like to know that I really enjoy using mine and it’s become a regular for making kids dessert in my house. We don’t often go in for the actual ice cream recipes, but I now keep a couple of tubs of fancy fruit-loaded Greek yoghurt in my freezer at all times, ready to make what is actually a very delicious and very creamy frozen dessert that isn’t loaded with excess sugar or unnatural food additives.
If you have a Ninja Creami as well, tell me what you make with it?! If it’s going to clutter up my kitchen I definitely want a few more ideas for what to do with it so I’ll take all your suggestions.
*A Thing I’m Loving occasionally uses affiliate links, from which I make a small commission if you choose to purchase a linked item. This commission is at no additional cost to you.
Ask Me Anything (AMA)
Here’s your opportunity to ask me anything you like related to combi steam cooking!
I really encourage you to submit questions, and I do my best to answer as many as possible. Sometimes I’ll answer you directly in an email and other times, if it’s a question that’s relevant to others as well, I’ll post the answer here, in an Insiders journal email. We all learn from each other, and I often learn new things based on questions from all of you!
If you have an AMA question, please email it to [email protected]. Make sure you include the phrase INSIDERS AMA in the subject line so I can collate and read all your submissions.
From Esther
Q: I’ve searched through your ‘How Tos’, and recipes on the Anova web site and didn’t find what I was looking for.
I’d like to know how to reheat rice in the APO (v1).
Specifically, I’m making Mexican Rice a day ahead, for a dinner party.
The recipe serves 6-8 and uses 2 C long grain rice.
A: With any cooked rice, the best way I’ve found to reheat it is simply to steam it again until it’s hot. So you can set your Anova (or any other steam oven) to 212°F/100°C, 100% steam, and heat the rice, uncovered, until it’s hot through. My preference is to do this in a shallow pan so you can spread the rice out in an even layer, as it’ll take much less time to heat up and you don’t run the risk of the rice at the edges getting a little mushy by the time the center is warmed.
If you want to hold the rice after it’s been heated, turn your temperature down to 150°F/65°C and it’ll sit there happily for up to an hour.