Showing posts with label rice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rice. Show all posts

Monday, April 28, 2008

What Smells Good?

So over the last few years as I have delved more and more into the world of smell specifically through fragrance and I have become to realize what I consider to smell "good" changes, at the beginning I was gourmand lover in the sense of only loving sweet candied bakery scents. Yet as time has passed I still remain a gourmand lover but I have gone beyond sweet to love neutral food scents specifically tea and rice. Although, I will admit of late I have come to love the varieties of scent found in rice from the lovely nutty basmati rice to the floral beauty of jasmine rice and simple perfume of store bought indistinct long grain white rice. A wonderful way to enjoy the scent of rice is the Thai dessert Sticky Rice with Mango, the chewy delicate grains of rice mixed with coconut milk and then served with slices of musky astringent sweet mango sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds or as I had it the other day toasted rice kernals, makes for a lovely sweet and slightly savory dish. If you love the scent as i do I highly recommend you get a bar of the Bath and Blooms Mango Rice soap bar http://www.bathandbloom.com/bath-shower/mango-rice-soap.html which sadly I cannot find a distributor for, I got mine originally at Pier 1 Imports.
And for some lovely music that combines sweet and savory in a way, with wonderful nature sounds and incredible symphonic qualities, Bjork's Isobel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQP4UE241_0

Monday, June 19, 2006

Jubilence Soup

Jubilence Soup
aka Nigella Lawson's Happiness Soup's even brighter sister

Ingredients:
18 ounces yellow squash (around two squash) diced
4 cloves of garlic sliced
1 boneless skinless chicken breast chopped
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon Madras Tamarind Hot Curry powder
a dash of cayenne (optional)
zest and juice of one small lemon
1/2 cup basmati rice
1/4 cup red lentils
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
4 cups chicken stock

Directions
1. dice squash and slice garlic
2. Sautee squash and garlic in olive oil for about 2 minutes, add chicken and lemon zest and sautee another 3 minutes, until squash is tender
3. Add stock, lemon juice, curry powder, tumeric, lentils, rice, and dash of cayenne.
4. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes until rice and lentils are tender, make sure to stir so lentils do not burn on bottom.
5. serve.

And a nice creamy topping:

Ingredients:
a quarter of a cucumber, finely diced
a dash of salt and pepper
1/4 a teaspoon toasted cumin seeds
3 tablespoons yogurt
2 teaspoons mint chopped (or go by your taste on mint)

Directions
1. mix all together and a dollop on soup
2. enjoy.

This was absolutely delicious and will be made again. so very yummy.