Mum Kirkpatrick’s Savoury Rice
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This goes really really well with pork chops, and can easily be converted
into a paella or a jambalaya with requisite addition of herbs, spices,
chilli sauce et al. This is the basic recipe though which goes with the
pork chops properly.

The recipe is largely ‘bucket chemistry’ and is quite hard to quantify,
but for the benefit of lots of folks (including one ex girlfriend who
contacted me again after many years purely for the recipe) here it is.

You need:
A handful of rice per serving
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
A squirt of garlic puree
A squirt of concentrated tomato puree (or a small tin of concentrate)
Oxo (beef stock) cube
Olive oil
A large chopped onion
Chopped/sliced mushrooms
Chopped green pepper
A chopped green chilli
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Cold water
Red wine
Freshly milled pepper
Herbes de Provence
Black olives
Tabasco sauce

1. Gently heat a large pan (a wok is ideal) with a couple of tbsp of olive oil.
Put the rice in the wok with a squirt of garlic puree and stir around until the
rice is coated and has gone translucent. Be careful not to burn the rice!

2. Add the chopped onion and chopped green chilli, then keep stirring until
the onion is soft.

3. Stir in the tin of chopped tomatoes, and re-fill the tin with water.
Add the water to the pan. Do this again so you’ve added 2 tins full of
water. This is not an exact science, don’t be afraid to add more water
if you think it needs it, as you can always reduce it down.

4. Sprinkle on the herbes de provence. If you can’t get that (and it’s
hard in the UK) then add in some dried basil and a bit of dried
rosemary.

5. Add the mushrooms, the green pepper, a splosh (small glassful) of red
wine, tabasco, freshly milled black pepper, and the olives.

6. Crush in the oxo, and add the puree.

7. Stir it a lot from the edges so the cellulose doesn’t break up in the
rice. Add more water if you think it needs it (although at this stage
I’ve used passata which has been equally as yummy).

8. The rice will expand the draw in the tomato juices you’re cooking,
and at the same time it’ll all come together in a gloopy consistency.
Serve when it’s reduced down, which can take about 25 minutes-ish.

Enjoy 🙂