Nigella Lawson's rice bowl with ginger, radish, and avocado

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Serves

2

Nigella Lawson's rice bowl with ginger, radish, and avocado

Keiko Oikawa.

A rice bowl is a wondrous thing, but often – despite the simplicity of its title – a rather cluttered and complicated one. Here, I have pared it back, to make a gorgeously seasoned rice bowl, with nothing more than a few seeds, herbs, and radishes stirred through it, and an avocado to top it. It’s a simple take on an inspiringly expansive idea. So please use this as a starting point only. It’s very much a non-recipe recipe, and every time I make it, I add something different, depending on what’s at hand. -Nigella

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup short grain brown rice
  • 1 cup cold water
  • 2-inch piece fresh ginger , peeled
  • 4-6 radishes
  • 1 1/2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
  • 1 tsp organic raw apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 cup mixed seeds, such as pumpkin seeds , sunflower seeds, or sesame seeds)
  • 3-4 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1 small ripe avocado

Instructions

 

  • Put the rice and water in a heavy-based saucepan that comes with a tight-fitting lid, and bring to a boil. Once it’s bubbling, clamp on the lid, turn the heat down very low, and simmer for 25 minutes. Then turn off the heat, leaving the lid on, and let it stand for a further 5 minutes, by which time the rice will be cooked – but still nutty –
    and the water absorbed.
  • While the rice is cooking, use a vegetable peeler to shave the ginger into very thin strips. Cut the radishes into quarters or eighths lengthways, depending on their size.
  • When the rice is cooked, spoon into a mixing bowl. Add the tamari or soy sauce and the apple cider vinegar to the bowl and toss with a fork to combine, and then do the same with the ginger shavings, radishes, and seeds. Stir all but a little of the chopped cilantro into the rice, still using a fork.
  • Divide between 2 smallish bowls and top with avocado, cut either into gondola shaped slices or chunks, as wished. Sprinkle each with the remaining cilantro, and eat serenely.

 

Nigella Lawson takes our Egg Timer Quiz

The only constant is the rice. I cannot get enough of short grain brown rice – so much more nubbly and delicious than regular whole grain rice or white rice – but I find it doesn’t cook quite like rice does normally. That’s to say, usually the unswerving rule when cooking rice is 1 part rice to 2 parts water. I have found that with short grain brown rice it is 1 part rice to 1½ parts water (despite what it says on the package). And even though I’ve given a measurement for the ginger, in reality, I just shave off slices with the vegetable peeler until I feel I have enough.

Raw radishes are my usual go-to, but I had some cold leftover roasted radishes, so that’s what you see in the picture. If you want to have them hot, just roast halved radishes, cut-side down, with a little oil in a hot oven (about 425°F) for 10 minutes.

Excerpted from Simply Nigella by Nigella Lawson. Recipes copyright © 2015 Nigella Lawson, Photography copyright © 2015 Keiko Oikawa. Published by Appetite by Random House, a division of Random House of Canada Ltd., a Penguin Random House Company. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

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