Salmon and Courgette Rice

Another of our experimental recipes, this was very tasty, and by not over-cooking the vegetables they don't go soggy. The secret is to cook them quickly in very hot oil to retain their crispness and individual flavours.

Salmon and Courgette Rice  Serves up to 4

Ingredients

1 cup (250g) Arborio or Risotto rice
1 medium sized courgette, sliced
1 stick celery, sliced into small pieces
4 round radishes
1 red  Jalapeño or Anaheim pepper, sliced in to rings (discard seeds if you don't like it too hot)
1 cup sliced fresh or frozen green beans
1 small onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 green OXO cube
6 black olives, halved
1 small salmon steak
1 sachet of Oyster and Spring onion sauce (Aldi or Blue Dragon)
Boiling water as needed for stock
A little olive oil for the wok / frying pan to prevent sticking

All in one pan method: 
Put oil into wok and heat quickly, add onion, garlic, pepper and green beans and cook for 2-3 minutes, add olives, cougette, radishes  and celery and cook for further 2 minutes, add rice and sufficient water to cover rice plus the OXO cube, cook for 10 minutes or until the rice has absorbed most of the liquid. Make sure it doesn't start to stick. (Tip: don't over-stir the rice, it tends to start to break down and go very starchy if you do.) Once the rice is cooked mix in the oyster and spring onion sauce (rinse sachet out with a little boiling water) and flake in the salmon steak (Tip: pop the steak into a bowl and break it up with a fork until it makes small pieces.)  Once salmon and sauce is heated through serve in bowls. Enjoy!

Two-pan method:
If you don't have a large enough wok to cook this as we did above you can steam or boil the rice in a separate pan, cook everything else as above, and then combine the rice at the end. Alternatively, you can serve it so the rice forms a bed on which the salmon and courgette mix sits. Whichever suits you best - it's not cast in stone!

Bacon and vegetable rice - all in one recipe!

We recently bought a Paella pan from ALDI, and it is the most useful piece of kit!  It's quite big at 39cm diameter, and makes a meal large enough for 4 people. It's now in regular use, several times a week, and we are loving the results. Despite its size it cooks nicely over one gas ring, but would work just as well on an electric hob.  

Tonight's meal is shown above and was made as follows:

Bacon and vegetable rice

250g of Arborio rice

1 litre of vegetable stock (1 litre water and 2 veg stock cubes and 1 green OXO)

1 200g pack ALDI Smoked Bacon Lardons 

1 onion chopped finely

3 cloves garlic, crushed

3 or 4 sticks of celery, cut small - we used the middle part with the leaves still on

1 courgette, sliced into 4 lengthwise and then each length cut into 1cm pieces

1 small orange pepper, deseeded

1/2 red pointed pepper, deseeded

handful of frozen sweetcorn

small handful of mangetout and fine French beans, chopped into 1cm lengths

1 finely sliced lemon grass stick

a few green olives, halved

1 small green bird's eye chilli, finely sliced

sprinkle of herbs (we used Herbes de Provence) 

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

Put rice into paella pan, add stock, sweetcorn and bacon lardons, and stir using a non-scratching spatula (wood or silicon), heat through until rice is almost cooked, adding more boiling water as the stock is absorbed so the rice does not start to stick to the pan.  Cooking the bacon lardons with the rice and stock gives the rice a lovely bacon flavour too. 

Add the rest of vegetables except tomatoes, mixing well and cook for further 5 minutes until all is hot through. Add the tomatoes and heat for another minute. 

Serve in bowls, enjoy! 

It takes about half an hour to make (including preparation) and makes hardly any washing up too, win! win! :)