Rice

Feel free to make this dish in all four seasons. I just call it “Spring Chicken” because it tastes light and crisp, like spring air, and because “Spring Chicken” sounds more appetizing than “Leeky Chicken,” which was what I called an earlier version of this recipe.

Gloria Estefan taught me how to cook plantains in the microwave and her husband, Emilio, gave me the urban, updated idea of lightening up some Cuban-influenced dishes. The result is this menu, my interpretation of Metro-Retro Cuban cooking. This dinner is also delicious made with seasoned grilled thin-cut chicken breast, seasoned in the same manner as the steak.

The wonderful actress Ming Na taught me this recipe. It was handed down to her from her parents, who owned a successful Chinese restaurant for twenty-five years. It’s not fair! Ming Na is gorgeous and talented and she can cook, too! But, we can console ourselves with these Chinese meatballs. The chopped cabbage is served in a pile, the meatballs in the middle: a head surrounded by a mane . . . a lion’s head. Ming uses mushroom-flavored thick soy sauce. I cannot find that product where I live, so I use finely chopped shiitakes and aged soy sauce.

This is comfort food at its finest. It blends Italian risotto with the idea of American macaroni and cheese to create a dish that is more than the sum of its parts. And because we love the crisp juicy flavor of apples with our Cheddar cheese, we decided to take things a little further and use cider to deepen the flavors of our risotto. That hint of tartness balances out the richness of the dish. If you happen to have them around, fresh chives are a wonderful finishing garnish.

This is an excellent technique for a dinner party or any occasion when you want to spend time with your guests instead of standing over the stove. The risotto will be firm and toothsome, but you can treat this as traditional risotto and finish it with a dollop of extra virgin olive oil or butter and some freshly grated cheese for added creaminess. It’s a nice change of pace served with sautéed chicken with a quick pan sauce of white wine and fresh herbs, crispy skate in brown butter with capers, or a garlicky stir-fry of seasonal vegetables.

When I was visiting the Luberon, we wound our way up to the top of the hillop village of Bonnieux and stopped at the Musée de la Boulangerie. There, in an ancient house, the history of bread and baking is traced. Among the ancient pots and pans were shallow unglazed earthenware bowls called at the museum “tians,” which were and are used much like Dutch ovens for cooking vegetables in the embers of a fire. In the south of France, there are many recipes for tians, layered casseroles of vegetables sometimes mixed with eggs and sometimes with rice and served in the Jewish way as a main course for a dairy meal. In this recipe, a nice substitute for the spinach would be Swiss chard, also a vegetable used since antiquity.

This risotto recipe from Natan Holchaker, a retired dentist and food hobbyist in Bordeaux, includes smoked goose breast. If you cannot find a kosher version, substitute smoked turkey breast.

This old Alsatian dish of rice and fruit sautéed in veal fat is typical of so many simple, seasonal recipes. It is adapted from La Cuisine Juive en Alsace by Freddy Raphaël. The dried fruit, mixed with an onion and sautéed in a little veal fat with prunes and raisins, transforms the rice into a magnificent dish. I have substituted vegetable oil for the suggested veal fat, and I usually serve this rice dish alongside a meat dish.

In Southern Morocco, this Sabbath stew was cooked first over a wood fire and then kept warm in a pot tucked under the hot sand. In Spain and northern Morocco, it was cooked in communal ovens in the Jewish quarter of cities. Called by the Jewish youth of France today “daf marocaine,” this flavorful stew, also known as skeena—meaning “hot” in northern Morocco—is preferred by many young people to ordinary cholent (see page 213) for Sabbath lunch. Today in France the meat is usually beef rather than the lamb or mutton more commonly used in North Africa. For this one-pot meal, the rice and/or wheat berries or white beans must be kept apart for cooking, so that they can be served separately. Carène Moos encloses the seasoned rice and wheat berries in pieces of gauze or cheesecloth, knotting the cloth to make two individual bundles.

This rice pudding is known as kheer in North India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and eaten under different names throughout South Asia. It consists, in its basic version, of nothing more than milk, cardamom for flavor and aroma, rice, and sugar. In villages and towns, rice harvests are generally celebrated with a kheer. In some communities, new husbands and wives feed each other a spoonful of kheer during the final part of the wedding ritual. It may be served lukewarm, at room temperature, or cold. Because it is associated with celebration, expensive ingredients are often added, such as saffron, nuts, and dried fruit. Here is the basic version, the one I love the most; you may scatter a tablespoon of chopped pistachios over the top before serving.

This pudding is cooked just like the preceding one but with a few additions.

This South Indian–style dish may also be made with shredded cabbage. Dried rice sticks are sold by East Asian grocers. You will notice that a little raw rice is used here as a seasoning. It provides a nutty texture. Serve with a lamb or beef curry or grilled meats.

South Asians do not really eat brown rice, but many people in South India, western coastal India, and Sri Lanka enjoy a very nutritious red rice. The grains have a red hull that is only partially milled. This is eaten plain and also ground into flour to make pancakes and noodles. This recipe works for all the brown rices available in the West, and may be served with all South Asian meals.

Here is a recipe I have devised for the brown rices (and mixtures that combine brown rice with wild rice) usually found in Western markets. Served with vegetables and a yogurt relish, it makes a fine vegetarian meal. You may also serve this with meat and fish curries.

There are hundreds of versions of this salad-like dish that are eaten throughout South India and parts of western India as well. At its base is rice, the local starch and staple. (Think of the bread soups of Italy and the bread salads of the Middle East.) The rice is cooked so it is quite soft. Then yogurt, and sometimes a little milk as well, is added as well as any fruit (apple, grapes, pomegranate), raw vegetables (diced tomatoes, cucumbers), or lightly blanched vegetables (green beans, zucchini, peas) that one likes. The final step is what makes the salad completely Indian. A tiny amount of oil is heated and spices such as mustard seeds, curry leaves, and red chilies are thrown into it. Then the seasoned oil is poured over the rice salad to give it its pungency and reason for being. This cooling, soothing dish, somewhat like a risotto, makes a wonderful lunch. It is best served at room temperature, without being refrigerated. Other salads may be added to the meal.

This is such a soothing rice dish—slightly sweet and salty, with just a hint of black pepper. (Do not eat the peppercorns. Push them to the side of your plate. They are just for flavoring.) As the dish is South Indian, I have made it with jasmine rice, which is closer in texture to the shorter-grained rices commonly found in that region. I love to serve this with northern lamb and chicken curries, thus breaking tradition and combining north and south in an exciting new way.

A refreshing rice dish that may be served with vegetables, bean and split-pea dishes, and chutneys. Sometimes, I just eat it all by itself with a large green salad.