The everyday staple of rice in our diets can easily become boring. Sometimes it’s a what-to-cook situation, and, simply being fed-up (no pun intended) with plain rice. Well, in keeping with my weekday vegetarian approach to eating, I have been making several Indian-style rice dishes to accompany our Guyanese-style fried vegetables. I am not talking about Biryani(s) or Pulao(s). These rice dishes would be more considered as a type of “fried” rice because they are flavoured and reheated with rice – cooked fresh or leftover from the day before.
You may recall me saying in my first column of 2019 that my eating habit has changed – whereby I am not really hungry, and my eating has been fickle. As a result of this, I have not been eating rice as often as I used to, not for any reason other than I don’t feel to. However, in order to make my food more interesting, I have been making these Indian-style rice dishes which has me eating less and more rice. Let me explain.
The quartet of Jeera (cumin) rice, Tamarind rice, Lemon rice, and Coconut rice are fried-up with their title-ingredients as well as spices such as mustard seeds, jeera, and nuts along with dried or hot peppers and curry leaves. The result is an appealing pot of flavourful rice. The finished rice is so delicious that eating just a little satiates the taste buds, hence I find myself eating less rice but making more of these types of rice dishes.
