Elliterate – Tasty like a raindrop.

Hey rice. Meet cheese.

November 5, 2010 at 3:51 pm (Recipes) (Cheese, Kitchen Fun, Recipe, Rice)

Since I started my cooking adventures all the way back in early 2001 when I was trying to impress a boy called Louis Thomas into asking me out on a date I’ve appreciated the intricacies of cheese. (For all those curious enough to ask, yes Louis and I did date for about 3 heartbeats. I’m pretty sure we even held hands on the school bus one day. How sweet @_@)

Cheese is probably one of my favourite of all ingredients. There are so many different types of cheese, it can add such a distinctive flavour to a dish.

Over the years I’ve developed my own blue cheese sauce, a cream cheese sauce. More than one type of lasagna, multiple types of baked pasta (I actually just acquired a wonderful recipe for baked Ziti from my good friend Joe!), pizza’s… if it needs cheese, then I’ve made it and experimented with it.

Well today, after eating pasta for about 6 weeks straight (alright, I’m exaggerating. But it certainly feels that way!) I wanted to branch out.

In my freezer I had, among other things, roughly 1.1 pounds or 500 grams of beef mince. (Ground beef for all you Americans). In my cupboard I had pasta. Pasta and… rice?

I took a chance! I would create a rice bake! It would be amazing! This was what I promised myself when I set out on this mornings cooking adventure! Here’s what I did.

ASSEMBLED INGREDIENTS

1 large brown onion
3 cloves of garlic
Afore mentioned mince
1 tbsp of butter (unsalted)
1 and 3/4 cups of long grain rice
1 can of college inn chicken stock (roughly 2 and a half cups of chicken stock)
1 large can of diced tomatoes
2 large carrots
4 slices of provolone cheese
1 and a half cups of grated cheese (preferably a Mozarella mix)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 tbsp of Paprika
and
1 tsp of Ground Mustard

BEGIN METHOD

I do everything backwards, but I’ll stay true to my cooking practices and tell you exactly how everything went this afternoon.

1st I diced the onion, and threw it and some olive oil into a large heavy based saucepan. Once that was sizzling I peeled my 3 fat cloves of garlic and crushed them into the pan. (Mmmm. The smell of cooking garlic and onions! Nothing compares! It’s how I know I am Italian!)

Once they were nice and fragrant I browned my mince. Adding it in large handfuls and stirring it viciously until I was happy it was cooked entirely. I then removed my garlic, onion mince and put it on a cooking tray which I need to return to my friend Kieran. (Thanks for the chicken btw Kier! We need to talk seasonings!)

The meat aside I started with my rice. My plan. I wasn’t entirely sure. The back of the packet of rice I have talks about butter. So I got myself a tablespoon of the unsalted variety and threw it in the saucepan I’d just cooked the mince with. Then I threw in 1 and 3/4 cups of long grain rice and stirred it all up. (LIQUID!? Who needs liquid when I have butter!?) Once I had my sweet Carolina rice well and coated in that golden brown melted butter. I called my kitchen assistant, the wonderfully handsome Rocco, and told him to open the cans of stock and tomatoes for me, because I had forgotten to and the rice was already in the pan. I needed to keep stirring it.

A minute later he handed me a can of stock. I added it gradually to the rice, as if I was cooking risotto. Just a little at a time, always stirring to ensure it absorbed all that flavourful stock into every tiny white grain. This process must have taken me around 20 minutes. I then turned it down to very low heat and proceeded to curse the fact that I didn’t dice my carrots when I’d been chopping the onion.

I clumsily diced two large carrots. There was no uniform order to their size and many of their brethren fell to the floor to become snacks for my alarmingly stupid but adorable dog. Once diced, I threw them in, turned the heat back up and dumped the can of diced tomatoes and all the juice into the pot.

I stirred twice. I always stir widdershinks, (that is anti-clockwise), but you can stir however you like.

Now to add liberal amounts of salt and pepper. I never hold back with these two. They are the centerpiece of all good cooking! Add as much as you feel you can tolerate. Then I added some paprika. I’ve suggested a tbsp or so for you guys, but the truth is I probably put in a bit more. Then a dash of ground mustard powder. Stir it all together and turn the heat down low to simmer.

Turned the oven on to 350 degrees F. (About 170 C)

I had a few minutes now to slice the brownies I made yesterday that were waiting for my attention in the fridge. A few of them broke. Such is the casualties of a busy kitchen.

Once the rice had absorbed pretty much all the tomatoes liquid I turned it off. Got a pan, dumped it into the pan, discovered the pan I had chosen was too large, called Rocco again, had him hold the ‘too large’ pan above a ‘just right’ pan and scooped all the rice into that. I then made him wash the pan I had just dirtied for no reason.

With great care so as not to spill any rice, I mixed the mince mixture in with it in the pan, making sure it was evenly distributed. Broke up my four slices of provolone and assembled them on parts of the rice bake I thought looked the most provolone friendly and then sprinkled a nice thick layer of grated italian mix cheese over the top. Put it in my preheated oven and then sat down and had a cup of Orange Juice and watched some Auto Tune The News.

I’d say about 15 or 20 minutes later the cheese layer was golden brown and crisp at the edges. It was ready!

I pulled it out.

I served a bowl to Rocco. His comments “This is good. I can’t even taste the carrots!”

A moment later Chris Rios arrived at the door. I encouraged him to sample it. His comments “Delicious. I want to have seconds!”

This prompted me to declare the Cheesy Tomato Beef Rice Bake a success! And to share this success story with all of you, potential cheese lovers out there!

Go, partake in the blissful matrimony of cheese and rice! It’s like a honeymoon for your taste buds!

Cheesy Tomato Beef Rice Bake