An Incredibly Easy Side Dish

As it turns out, this new Amish cookbook is going to be well-used I think.  This past weekend for Sunday Company Dinner, everyone spent some time leafing through it.  There’s just so many recipes that sound fantastic, and actually very few that are just beyond strange.  Our dinner this past Sunday was some simple Amish-style fare, actually.  Andy grilled up some pork tenderloin, and I gleaned the garden for edibles.  I literally filled the counter with garden bounty in different ways- as you’ve seen this week in the postings.  I thought I needed something starchy to accompany though, and my mind drifted towards rice.  I really contemplated pulling out the ingredients to make a cheesy broccoli rice of sorts, but that just sounded heavy to me, and with all the luscious veggies going on, I just wanted something on the lighter side.

From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens to the rescue.  I turned right to the recipe for Baked Rice and decided this would be my dish.  It cooked rice in a way that was crazy easy- bake it in the oven, so that there’s little hands-on time.  It also sounded like there would be flavor in the minimal ingredients, so I gave it a shot.  I doubled it first of all, to ensure there would be plenty, so for that I used my 9 x 13 pyrex baking dish.  This I sprayed with cooking spray and then dumped the dry rice into.  I used plain old long grain white rice, since that’s what the recipe called for.  Next, I added a drizzle of olive oil to a pan and sauteed up some chopped onion.  The recipe called for butter, but since it was just a few tablespoons, I chose to use the handy olive oil instead.  Once the onion was softened I added some beef broth and water to it.  The recipe called for “rich beef broth”, but since I didn’t have any homemade beef broth on hand, I simply used one of those powdered soup bases.  I debated using all beef broth instead of the broth and water called for in the recipe, but in the end decided to stick with the recipe.  I poured the broth mixture onto the rice, covered the whole dish with foil, and then popped it into the oven to bake.  45 minutes later I pulled it out, fluffed it with a fork, and it was ready to go!

It was very tasty rice!  By using part beef broth and part water, the beef flavor isn’t pronounced at all, but it gave a depth to the rice that certainly isn’t there with traditional boiled rice.  Really, it just was a very nice way to cook rice- I thought it was delicious just the way it was.  No doubt, you could swap out the broth for chicken broth if you prefer or veggie broth if that it your preference.  The method was great too!  I didn’t even need to stir it once or check on it.  I simply popped it in the oven, and then took it out when the timer went off.  I decided to leave off the almonds called for at the end- you could certainly use them to add some crunch and extra flavor, but I really though it was perfect without.   I also think you could play around with the basic recipe quite a bit.  You could saute some mushrooms with the onions, or even some carrots and celery to add even more flavor.  If you wanted to try brown rice, you’d need to play with both the liquid ingredients and the length of time to cook, but I’m sure that could be done too.

Sorry, I didn’t get a picture snapped, but hey… it’s rice!  It looked like rice before it cooked and it looked like rice after it cooked.  Doesn’t make for very exciting photography, that’s for sure.  But check out this recipe.  I daresay this may be how we’ll be making rice from now on.

Baked Rice