Rice

For a nice change from the typical pasta or potato salad—and a different way to enjoy brown rice—try this Mediterranean side salad with a bit of Mexican heat.

This sweet, fragrant breakfast dish is even more delicious and healthful when topped with slices of banana or strawberries and additional fat-free milk.

This versatile Asian-flavored slaw can be as mild or as spicy as you like. Use it as a salad, or add chicken and serve over rice for a main dish (recipe on page 65).

Brown rice is a must-have staple for healthy eaters. I used to think I wasn’t a fan—and then I was introduced to short-grain brown rice (long- and medium-grain varieties are much more commonly found but not nearly as tasty, if you ask me). The short-grain has a nuttier taste that I’ve truly come to crave. If you haven’t tried it, it’s definitely time to do so. One of the best things about brown rice is that you can make a pot on Sunday and it keeps all workweek if refrigerated in an airtight plastic container or resealable plastic bag.

Make a big batch of brown rice at the beginning of the week and have it ready for reheating in your refrigerator, or buy precooked brown rice in the freezer section of the grocery store. Though this likely sounds odd, we much preferred the Laughing Cow Light Gourmet Cheese Bites over the Light Original Swiss Cheese wedges in this recipe. When you compare the packages, you’ll see they are similar, but everyone in my test kitchen agreed the squares taste better. So trust us when we say it’s worth opening the ten squares instead of using a smaller number of wedges.

Years ago, I started making batches of short-grain brown rice over the weekend to use during the week. I always had it on hand to add to or accompany whatever I was cooking. This dish emerged as one of my regulars. It’s easy and filling and an all-round great way to start any day. If you don’t want to make the rice in advance, don’t worry. Fortunately, it’s now easy to buy prepared brown rice either in the freezer section (you reheat it in the microwave) or even in the rice aisle. Just be sure to read the label—you don’t want to buy a variety that contains added fats.

Pat: In Memphis, barbecued meats are ordered either “dry” or “wet. “Dry” meats are coated with a dry spice rub before they’re cooked, and often sprinkled with those seasonings when they come off the grill. “Wet” meats are slathered with barbecue sauce. Folks who crave a double dose of flavor, like me, order foods “wet and dry,” meaning that the meat is sprinkled with dry rub before being cooked, then slathered with sauce afterward. This Memphis pit tradition has found its way into the repertoire of home cooks as well. The application of a dry rub works for meats cooked on the grill or, as our mothers are fond of doing, in the oven. In this recipe, we douse our chicken with a dry rub and then bake it in barbecue sauce. The result is moist, flavorful, falling-off-the-bone tender chicken. We serve this saucy chicken with steamed rice or hot buttered rolls to soak up all the tomatoey goodness, and the accompanying vegetables on the side. It’s no wonder the Neely boys became so good with the grill when Momma was feeding us dishes like this from her kitchen oven.

Gina: In the South, rice is an essential partner for roast pork or chicken, or anything with a tomatoey sauce or gravy, but even down here, folks sometimes find themselves a little intimidated by the process of making it. If you are the least bit nervous about cooking rice, look no further than our recipe. It delivers foolproof results every time, cooking up fragrant, fluffy rice infused with aromatics (shallots, garlic, and a few fresh herbs).

I love the flavors of spinach and chives in these timbales when served with the Scampi on page 287. Vary the herbs and greens, or include other members of the onion family—sautéed leeks or onions, for example—if you are serving the timbales alongside other dishes. You can make the timbales up to a couple of hours in advance and leave them at room temperature, but try to avoid refrigerating them. That will change the flavor, and not for the better.

Even though I call these “stuffed” tomatoes, don’t actually stuff the rice filling into the tomatoes. Fill them loosely or they will be dense and dry after baking. You can put the tops back on the tomatoes flat or prop them up at an angle. Rice cooked this way—with a little olive oil and bay leaves—is a good dish on its own. We used to feed it to children or adults when they were recovering from an upset stomach, but don’t limit it to that. In addition to stirring the fresh basil into the filling, shred as much as you like and scatter it over the tomatoes after you put them on a plate. Basil and tomato is a union made in heaven, and who am I to question heaven?

Peppers with a slight kick to them, like the cubanellas or banana peppers suggested at left, are wonderful for this dish. If you can’t find those, choose the long, thin-skinned peppers often sold as “Italian frying peppers” in supermarkets. You can serve the peppers alone or with a side of rigatoni, dressed with some of the sauce from the stuffed-pepper baking dish, grated Pecorino Romano cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil. This is a favorite dish at Becco, our restaurant in New York’s Theater District.

Stock will make a much more flavorful soup, but if you do not have any handy, use canned broth or even water—the soup will still be quite good. When using canned stock for this soup, I always dilute it by half with water. In most cases, the flavor of canned broth is too pronounced when taken straight and masks the fresh vegetal flavor of the other ingredients.

Rice salad can be made with long- or short-grain rice. I prefer short-grain rice, like Arborio, because it cooks up fluffier and absorbs more of the flavors of the other ingredients in the salad. Long-grain rice, like Carolina and Uncle Ben’s, stays firmer and has a more “staccato” effect—that is, it’ll stand more separately and distinctly from the other ingredients. The one good thing I can say about pasta salads is that people feel comfortable improvising with them. Feel free to treat rice salads the same way. Although there are some traditional combinations, like seafood rice salad or shrimp-and-asparagus rice salad, you can really be creative and make any combination. And they are a great way to use leftovers. For this dish, I took the classic salad of mozzarella, tomato, and basil from Capri, added rice, and dressed it with virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Some of my other favorite combinations are shredded grilled chicken, tomatoes, and arugula; cubes of grilled fresh tuna, Gaeta olives, Cerignola olives, cherry tomatoes, sliced red onion, and basil; grilled vegetables like peppers, zucchini, eggplant, and mushrooms with shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano; thinly sliced raw baby artichokes, diced celery, and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano; rice-salad “antipasto” with cubed prosciutto, mortadella, cacciatorino, provola, Pecorino, Gaeta olives, roasted peppers, pickled mushrooms, and pickled artichokes.

Traditional rice pudding contains cream, eggs, and sugar. You’ll find none of that here. You will find healthful whole-grain brown rice, raisins, creamy Greek yogurt, and lovely flavor from real vanilla bean and cinnamon. Eat any leftovers for breakfast.

This brown-rice version of the national dish of Spain may raise some eyebrows in Barcelona, but at less than half the calories of the original, this combination of fragrant saffron, garlic, chorizo, and shrimp is a beautiful thing.

This Cajun dish is so associated with good times that Hank Williams named a song after it. The original isn’t so good for you, though. I made a few changes to the classic to make it easier to prepare—and much healthier. White rice has been replaced with brown, and much less fat is used to cook the vegetables and meat. Feel free to improvise by adding chicken, fish, or vegetables.

This is salmon with some soul. It’s groovy.

This one is for Howard Stern. Howard loves the ground turkey. Here ya go, baby!