Another vegetarian rice dish

A few months ago, I published a recipient for a rice dish with as main ingredients asparagus and oyster mushrooms. It was very nice but a little dry and thus now I publish another rice dish, this time for people who prefer vegetables in a sauce. Let's start ...

Ingredients I used.

The majority of the ingredients are dried black eye beans and lentils (in my case Eston lentils), I think about 100 grams of each although I didn't weighted them.
The other ingredients are rice, cheese, cornflour, water, olive oil, 1/2 red pepper, 1/2 courgette (small), two potatoes, 2 onions, 1/2 tomato, peanuts and almond, 1/2 vegetarian bouillon cube, one large garlic clove, a little ginger, herbs (such as Italian mix, chili, curry, nutmeg and red pepper powders and basil) and a little salt and pepper.

Let's start preparing the vegetables

Beans and lentils need cooking for quite some time before they become soft, therefore I started with them. I did them together in a pot with quite a lot of water as I want a sauce at the end. I added some curry and nutmeg powder, salt and black pepper and a little oil and started boiling them while they were covered with a lid. Ones the water started boiling I continued boiling them on a gentle fire while I also added half a cube of vegetarian bouillon. This can now boil for quite some time while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Then I washed two potatoes and removed the "eyes" as I don't like food staring at me when I eat (). After cutting the potatoes in small pieces, I added them to the beans and lentils so they can cook together as also potatoes take some time.

Next I cut some almonds into half and continue cutting the onions, red pepper and courgette into small although not tiny pieces. Ones I started smelling the beans and lentil (a sign they are becoming soft and thus are almost ready), I did olive oil into a hot baking pan and added first the peanuts so they can harden a little before adding the pieces of almond, red pepper and courgette. I also added herbs (depending on the flavour you prefer you can vary the amount of herbs you use, e.g. add more chili powder (or real chili's) and pepper when you like it hot). Often I turned the vegetables to prevent them from burning although they needed some colour. Just before adding the vegetables to the beans, lentils and potatoes that were still boiling on a small fire, I baked briefly garlic pieces with the vegetables. I also added small pieces of ginger to the beans to increase the flavour.

I fried the onions for a short time in olive oil so they were still a little hard and then added them to the other vegetables. If your pan is large enough, you can bake the onions with the other vegetables before adding all vegetables to the beans and lentils.

Finally, as I don't like a watery sauce, I thickened the sauce by adding a little cornflour, first mixed with water to dissolve the cornflour as otherwise the cornflour will not mix properly in the hot sauce.

The dish, almost ready to serve.

The rice

As the above picture shows, I served the vegetables with rice (I know, one should not eat rice and potatoes together but I do). The rice is yellow because I added some curry to it. I prepared the rice as follow: first I heated some olive oil in a pot and adding small pieces of garlic that I fry a little before adding rice and mixing it with the oil. Then I added curry powder and basil herbs to the rice and continue frying the rice a little before adding water to the pot (about twice the amount of rice and be careful because steam is produced as the pot is very hot) and two cloves for extra taste. After less than half an hour, all water is gone and I have sticky rice.

Serving

Finally, I cut half a tomato into small pieces and place them on my plate. On top of these pieces I add the rice so the tomato pieces warm a little without becoming too soft (you can leave the tomato on the side if you prefer cold tomato). On top of the rice I added the vegetables and the finishing touch were pieces of cheese as can be seen on the second picture. I enjoyed it and as there are leftovers, I don't have to cook tomorrow. Hope you too will enjoy the meal if you want to try it.

My dinner, with some cheese and tomatoes.

Tip

You can add more or less ingredients according to your taste. E.g. mushrooms would also be very nice in this dish. Or carrots. Or a little of spinach, added at the end, just before serving.
If you make a spicy dish, you can also use some yogurt to soften the burning feeling and maybe mix pieces of boiled egg under the yogurt.

Let your imagination work. And think in colours as that is nicer for the eyes and makes it easier to combine vegetables.