Brown Rice Salad
This is a recipe from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course.
A very unassuming name for a lovely salad. It’s a mix of brown rice, cucumber, tomato, red pepper, spring onion, apple, currants and chopped walnuts mixed together with vinaigrette and seasoned with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
It’s filling, nutritious and simple to make. Also with the cold weather we’re having you can quickly cool the rice, within 5 – 10 minutes, just by leaving it out in the open air and fluffing it up with a fork every couple of minutes.
Because there’s fruit in the salad I didn’t add any garlic to the vinaigrette. To be honest I never add garlic to a vinaigrette. It tastes great when other people make it or when it’s in some shop bought vinaigrette, but for some reason whenever I add it to a vinaigrette it tastes way too sharp. But because brown rice and garlic go so well together I added a couple of whole garlic cloves, peeled and gently bruised, to the pot and then removed them when the rice was cooked.
Ingredients
- Brown rice measured to 275ml in a glass measuring jug
- 1 pint of boiling water (570ml)
- 2 whole garlic cloves, peeled and bruised (optional)
- 1 dessertspoon oil
- 4 - 6 tablespoons vinaigrette (cider vinegar, oil, mustard powder, salt & pepper)
- 3 spring onions, chopped finely
- 2 inches cucumber, finely chopped
- 2 large tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped
- 1/2 red or green bell pepper, seeded and finely choped
- 1 dessert red apple, cored and chopped with the skin left on
- 25g currants
- 25g walnuts, chopped
- salt & freshly milled black pepper
- parley for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Rinse the rice thoroughly in a sieve. Heat some oil in a saucepan, stir in the rice, pour in the boiling water, a good pinch of salt and the garlic cloves (if using). Bring to the boil, leave it boil for a couple of minutes, then cover the pan, reduce the heat to a low setting and leave to cook until done - the water will all be gone.
- To make the vinaigrette add 1 level teaspoon of salt, 1 rounded teaspoon of mustard powder, 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar, 6 tablespoons of regular olive oil or sunflower oil, and a sprinkling of pepper to a jar, seal it and shake it till it's emulsified.
- When the rice is cooked remove from the heat put in a suitable container. Pour in the dressing and mix around with a fork. Let the rice cool - fluffing it up every so often helps the heat escape.
- When the rice is cool, taste and add more vinaigrette if necessary. Then combine with the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper according to taste.
- You can serve immediately or place in the fridge until ready to serve. If you like parsley, sprinkle a little over when serving.
