Rice | Put some cilantro on it!

Going low sodium for the new year with a stir fry

A while ago, my mother had to take her boyfriend to the emergency room, which turned into a hospital stay.

Turns out, it was congestive heart failure.

The doctors suggested a few lifestyle changes including a change in diet. They asked him to lower the amount of sodium he consumes each day. That mostly comes from salt, but also lots of prepared foods.

The doctors suggested a low-sodium diet because it helps with a lot of things: kidney failure, high blood pressure (also called hypertension), diabetes and lupus. There’s a problem. Going low sodium is hard, especially because salt often adds just that kick to a dish that turns it from ho-hum to fantastic.

After I got the news, I started to pay attention to my own sodium consumption. One of the easiest ways to control sodium intake is to cook at home because the cook controls the amount of salt. According to the Food and Drug Administration, packaged and restaurant foods are responsible for 70% of our sodium intake.

I am not a particularly high risk for congestive heart failure and there is no medical reason for me to reduce my salt intake other than, Americans eat too much salt. According to the Food and Drug Administration, we eat an average of 3,500 mg of sodium a day, but their guidelines cap the daily recommended dose at 2,300 mg, about a teaspoon of salt. Those with high blood pressure should further reduce intake to 1,500 mg a day.

For the new year, I’ve decided I should reduce my salt intake. That means using more herbs and spices, using low-sodium versions of things like soy sauce and using more flavorful oils.

If I needed to cut back my salt to levels acceptable for someone with high blood pressure, it would be a rough couple of months. Dick Louge, in his cookbook “500 Low Sodium Recipes,” wrote it took a month, on a 1,200 mg sodium diet, before he no longer craved salt.

“Today, a ‘normal’ salted potato chip tastes way too salty to me,” he wrote.

I can relate. When I lived in Germany, I found that most restaurant food, but especially Turkish kebabs, were just way too salty for my American taste buds, almost too salty to eat. When visiting Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I had a few kebabs and, to my surprise, they were not too salty at all. I then realized, it wasn’t me. It was the Germans.

I decided that a stir-fry would be a recipe to start thinking about how much salt goes into a dish and how to make something taste better when there is less salt.

The first step was to look at the labels of the basics, including chicken stock and soy sauce. One can of chicken stock contained 750 mg of sodium per one cup, compared to just 250 mg for the low-sodium version. A single tablespoon of an average soy sauce has 879 mg of sodium compared to Kikkoman’s low-sodium version with 575 mg per tablespoon.

The second step was to take stock of the fresh herbs and spices I could use to add flavors to the dish. Those included mint, basil, ginger, lemon and mushrooms. Thai basil and holy basil are also good additions, although have a spicier taste than Italian basil.

One thing to consider about lemon is that the rind of the lemon, when it is still pliable and fresh, a more bright yellow, makes a great addition to sauces and dishes. The rind is delicious, either cut up, sliced or as lemon zest.

The third step was to consider other ingredients in a dish, in this case, the oil, and seeing if there are more flavorful substitutes. That meant moving from canola oil to sesame oil.

This recipe will leave you wishing there was just a little bit more salt, and maybe a little bit more soy sauce, or a little oyster sauce, would be in order, but going low sodium takes a little time.

This low-sodium stir-fry relies on ginger, basic, mint, lemon and chiles to bring out lots of flavor while reducing the amount of sodium.

Print Recipe

Low-sodium chicken stir fry

Cutting down on the amount of sodium in a stir fry requires getting flavor from other ingredients, especially herbs.

Prep Time30

Cook Time15

Total Time45

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: low sodium, stir fry

Servings: 2 people

Author: Wheeler Cowperthwaite

Ingredients

1/4 cup chopped basil fresh
2 tablespoons chopped mint
2 chopped green onions chopped
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
1/2 to 1 lemon de-seeded
1 pound chicken breasts or thighs cut into bite-sized pieces
2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1 small onion, chopped
3-6 green chiles, chopped
1 small eggplant cut into bite-sized pieces
Red, yellow or orange bell pepper, sliced into bite-sized pieces, or (optional)
broccoli or any other vegetables available, sliced into bite-sized pieces (optional)
sliced mushrooms (optional)
3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth/stock

Instructions

In a blender or food processor, mix the basil, mint, 1/4 cup of broth, green onions, garlic, 1 tablespoon chopped ginger and lemon. Blend until minced.
Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces and combine with the soy sauce. Let it briefly marinate.
Chop the onion, chiles, eggplant or other vegetables being used.
In a large pan over high heat, add the sesame seed oil. Once the pan is very hot, add the vegetables and cook until tender, 4-8 minutes. Remove to a bowl.
Add another tablespoon of sesame seed oil and add the basil-lemon-ginger-mint mixture and cook for 1 minute, stirring.
Add the chicken, marinade and 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger to the pan and cook until done, 2-3 minutes.
Add the 1/2 cup of stock, bring to a boil, and re-add the vegetables to the pan. Cook for another 1-3 minutes. Serve with rice or noodles.

Notes

Adapted from the Mayo Clinic’s chicken stir-fry with eggplant, basil and ginger. At a serving size of two cups, the sodium level should be 395 mg.

One-pan baked yellow curry chicken thighs

I’ve been a fan of curry pastes for a long time, as well as a fan of buying ingredients in bulk for cost savings.

I don’t just buy curry pastes in bulk. Potatoes, too, as well as chicken thighs when there’s a big sale.

Somehow, and I don’t know how, I alighted on the idea to combine all three of these things. It may have started with pan-fried potatoes, or maybe with oven baked chicken thighs (skin on, bone in). It may have its genesis in yellow curry fried rice, where I first learned that the (Thai) curry paste works incredibly well as a seasoning.

Before I go any further, I need to mention that this dish goes really well with at least tzatziki, and probably zhug as well.

Yellow curry paste!

Irregardless of how it happened, I then used yellow curry paste (the mildest of the pastes) as a seasoning for pan fried potatoes. All of this is being done in a cast-iron skillet, of course.

Finally, I decided that the best of all worlds is to put the chicken thighs on top of the potatoes, and maybe a few other vegetables and then bake to allow the juices and fat to seep into the potatoes, mingling the flavors.

The problem with chicken thighs is they take a long time to cook at a high temperature. It’s not so much a problem as something you need to be aware of going into the cooking process.

(Continued after the jump)

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Spam, eggs and rice

Having made rice bowls the night before, I had lots of leftover rice. (Part and parcel of making rice bowls is leftover rice, to either be used in future bowls or in other dishes).

Finished spam, rice and (scrambled) eggs. Furikake is on the top of the sushi, or vinegared, rice.

That meant, this morning, it was time to fry up some spam, cook some eggs in the spam fat and heat up that leftover rice to make a (modern) Hawaiian classic, spam, eggs and rice.

Now, a close relative of this is the spam musubi. I wrote about it for the Rio Grande SUN (no link since the columns don’t make it to the website) but I did post the recipe here.

Many people, including the people I work with, cast aspersions on the very idea of spam, or scoff, or express their pure disgust at the idea. Then again, lots of people are scared of lots of things, and if you weren’t put off by the article title, I hope you will keep reading.

Spam, rice and eggs is so ubiquitous in Hawaii that it’s even sold at McDonald’s, part of their breakfast menu. That also indicates what kind of a breakfast it’s going to be. But, never fear. Much like the rice bowl, you can easily add veggies to the top of your rice to make it a more balanced meal.

Spam, rice and eggs is so simple, almost dead simple. Simply cut a couple of pieces off of the spam log, fry them up in a pan, heat up some leftover sushi or vinegared rice (you can also use normal steamed rice, fresh or leftover) and cook a couple of eggs in that same pan, either fried or scrambled. Put some furikake (Japanese seasoning made with seaweed, among other things) on the rice, maybe cut up a few veggies to put over the rice and there, you have it.

Spam, rice and eggs. Simple, wasn’t it?

Next up, according to my thinking? Spam, (sushi) rice and eggs in a burrito. New Mexican and Hawaiian fusion, all the way.

See the full set of photos (see below) on Flickr.

All the photos are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Only (2.0) license.

Print Recipe

Spam, rice and eggs

Spam makes a great breakfast food when paired with some rice and eggs.

Prep Time15

Cook Time15

Total Time30

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American, Hawaiian

Keyword: spam

Servings: 2 people

Author: Wheeler Cowperthwaite

Cost: $5

Ingredients

1 can of spam
2-5 eggs
Vegetables as desired
Rice leftover or fresh
Milk if making scrambled eggs
1 tablespoon oil
Butter (optional)

Instructions

If using fresh rice, make it now. I suggest making sushi/vinegared rice, either fresh or left over.
Heat a large pan over medium-high heat.
Take the spam out of its package and slice into 1/4 inch slices.
Fry the spam until lightly brown on each side
Cut up any vegetables desired to be used on the rice
Prepare eggs for scrambling, if cooking that way, including mixing and adding milk.
Cook the eggs as desired.
Serve the spam with the rice and eggs.

Notes

Please see the sushi/vinegar rice recipe here.

Spam cut into slices before it goes into the skillet for some light browning.

The spam has pan fried up nicely. Just a little brown. I cook on the grill because it doesn’t make the house smell.

Flippin’ the spam slices.

One-handed egg crackin’.

Pouring milk into the eggs before everything is mixed. Scrambled eggs, this time.

Finished spam, rice and (scrambled) eggs. Furikake is on the top of the sushi, or vinegared, rice.

Rice bowl

So, what’s for dinner?

That’s always a problem, right? Pasta, or . . . What else is in the kitchen? Refrigerator? And the time factor? Do I need to go to the store?

In my house, there are a few things always on hand: vegetables, maybe some meat (leftover, marinated or unprepared), always uncooked rice (and often times, leftover sushi/vinegared rice, plain recipe).

For me, the easiest meal is often times the humble rice bowl. I cook up some rice in my rice cooker, I turn it into sushi/vinegared rice (blog post). Then, do I want to make sushi? Or a rice bowl? Or maybe onigiri? Or maybe, a few sushi rolls now and rice bowls for lunch tomorrow, and some onigiri (rice balls) for later? The options are endless.

Peppers, grilled chicken, cucumbers and seaweed, at the very bottom, sit on top of rice in this rice bowl.

So, what is the rice bowl?

Well, it’s simple. You make some vinegared/sushi rice, put it in a bowl, cut up some veggies into bite-sized pieces, maybe cook up some meat and cut it up too, then throw it all on the rice.

Which veggies? Well, cucumbers are always nice, as are avocadoes. If you thinly slice, then deseed lemons, they are delicious. Being in New Mexico, I always add green chile peppers (unroasted) as well as jalepenos. Nori (seaweed) adds much needed taste. Green onions are also a good addition.

What else do you have? Throw it in there! Leftover steak? Cut it up, throw it in. Same goes for chicken, pork, or other meats.

Add some soy sauce, maybe some spicy/Sriracha mayonnaise, maybe some eel sauce, (Link to Amazon; once I make my own, I will post the recipe and update the link. Your local Asian store should have it for cheap.)

Bam! You’ve got a simple, relatively healthy dinner. Veggies, a little meat. Sure, the rice isn’t particularly healthy, but it’s frugal. Very, very frugal.

Avocados! Taste delicious in rice bowls, as do lemons. Seaweed is also a must.

(I buy sushi rice, Kokuho Rose variety, in 40 pound bags to be as frugal as possible. I store them in five-gallon buckets with lids, a carry over from my days as a homebrewer.)

There you go. Rice bowls. Simple. Delicious. Easy.

Seaweed (nori) is the first thing to go on top of the rice.

See all the photos on Flickr, in high quality.

Realized you don’t know how to make sushi rice? Here’s the recipe.

Want just the rice bowls recipe? Right here.

Simple rice bowls

Makes: as many as you have rice for

Ingredients

Sushi/vinegared rice
1/2 to 1/4 cucumber
1-3 green peppers
1 jalapeno (if you like it spicy)
1 piece of cooked meat (heated up if desired)
1/2 sheet of nori (seaweed sheets)
1 avocado
1 lemon, thinly sliced
All other vegetables, cooked or raw, as you see fit
Other ingredients as you see fit, or have seen in a sushi roll
Condiments such as eel sauce, Sriracha mayonnaise and eel sauce or cream cheese

Directions

1. Cut up the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Cut the lemon slices into quarters.
2. Put enough rice into the bottom of a bowl.
3. Tear up the nori and place on top of the rice.
4. Put the cut up vegetables and meat, if using, on top of the nori, which is on top of the rice.
5. Heat up in the microwave for 30 second to 1 minute if working with leftovers or desire it hotter
6. Add condiments over the top and enjoy.

Sushi rice

Making sushi rice

There are two subjects here: the rice used in sushi and how to prepare that rice, once cooked, into sushi rice.

Pouring the rice into the rice cooker.

The first deals with brands and varieties, that is, what type of rice to use. The second is purely recipe and technique, that is, how to make the sushi, or vinegared, rice.

By no means do I claim, proclaim, profane or otherwise pretend to be some kind of expert on rice, sushi, or the rice used in sushi. However, the topic has been written about multiple times. My takeaway was Kokuho Rose. I’ve grown so fond of it that I had to take a more cost-effective solution to buying it, mainly, 40 pound bags. It’s become my favorite white rice.

My default brown (long grain) rice is whichever five pound bag of (brown) jasmine rice I’m currently working through.

The great thing about making vinegared, or sushi, rice is it goes fantastic in rice bowls or really, anything. Then again, I like vinegar.

The rice question

The basics are, the rice used in sushi is either medium or short grain. If you look on the internet, you will find that the answers go either way. Koda Farms, who grows Kokuho Rose (a variety only grown by them) claims that short grain is should never be used. The Kitchn proclaims short grain is sushi rice.

So, this is all confusing. Japanese style medium-grain or short grain rice seems to be the answer. (Japan, for the most part, does not export its rice).

Try out different varieties/brands and find what you like. I know what I like. (I buy the stuff in the red/pink packaging).

Making sushi rice

When it comes to making the rice, I suggest using a rice cooker, especially because they are both so cheap and because they make cooking rice so easy, and perfect.

But what makes vinegared, or sushi, rice, special? The vinegar! And sugar. And salt.

(Use a rice cooker. Seriously. So much easier.)

So, you get your rice cooking (for what I use, the ratio is 1 and 1/4 cups water to 1 cup rice, meaning, for two cups of uncooked rice, you need 1 and 1/2 cups water in the rice cooker) and then move on to making the vinegar solution.

For the purposes of this post, as well as the recipe, the quantity will be two cups of uncooked rice.

I’ve found that heating the vinegar up in the microwave is the easiest way of getting the sugar (1/4 cup) and the salt to dissolve. It should be noted, however, that I just wing it with the salt and sugar. I literally just pour some of both in and call it good.

Another point of confusion is the washing of the rice. Many claim this is essential. I notice no difference with the rice I buy.

All that being written, here’s how to make sushi (vinegared) rice.

For just the recipe, it’s housed on the main website, here.

Ingredients

2 cups uncooked rice

2 1/2 cups water

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1 tablespoon salt

Directions

In a measuring cup, mete out 2 cups of uncooked rice

Wash the rice if desired, until water runs clear.

Pour uncooked rice into rice cooker.

In a measuring cup, Measure out 2 and 1/2 cups water. Pout into rice cooker.

Close rice cooker and turn on.

While the rice cooks, measure out 1/2 a cup of rice vinegar in a microwave-proof container, if possible.

Add the sugar and salt to the vinegar. Mix to combine.

Heat the vinegar up in the microwave, while mixing periodically, until all the sugar and salt is dissolved. Once dissolved, move it to the freezer while waiting for the rice to finish cooking.

Once the rice cooker either turns off or turns to warm, allow it to sit undisturbed for 5-15 minutes.

Open the rice cooker and quickly mix the rice one or twice. Replace the lid and wait another 5 minutes.

Remove rice from cooker into a large non-reactive bowl.

Pour the vinegar mixture over the rice and, with your rice spoon/mixer (oversized, flat spoon), lightly mix with a forward-pushing motion.

If making sushi, cover bowl with a wet towel and allow to cool further. If consuming rice bowls, consume!

See, or download, all the full-quality photos on Flickr.

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(Yellow) Curry fried rice

Since I’ve been unfortunately bereft of cash, I’ve moved much of my diet over to the produce that’s on sale for the week and brown rice. Brown jasmine rice, to be exact. The other part of my diet is using up whatever I have in the refrigerator. Recently it has been small dill pickles.

Eating so much rice quickly (soon I will move on the quinoa and the bulgur wheat I have stored) means I have to mix up what I’m doing with the rice. Early in the month, I made a conglomeration of black beans (I had cooked in the slower cooker,) chorizo and brown rice with ample amounts of onions, (home-made) salsa and Taptio (not home made.)

Curry rice with a wee bit of cilantro on top.

I then moved on to the stir-fry route with a failed General Tso’s chicken, made with broccoli. The sauce (made with apricot preserves) did not come out at all. (The point of the dish, to me, is the sauce, not the meat.) I considered it a failure. That left me with extra rice and no eggs. I didn’t want to just fry the rice — no eggs. Instead, I dug through the quickly-emptying refrigerator for my big container of yellow curry paste. Two pounds, to be exact, of spicy goodness. I poured some oil into the cast-iron skillet, put the curry in, let it disintegrate some and then threw in the rice.

Curry paste!

Had I other vegetables, or had I remembered the just-bought sack of onions sitting with the potatoes, I would have thrown them in. Good contenders range from potatoes to eggplant to broccoli and sprouts, peppers and tomatoes and squash. I then made a hole in the center of the rice, cracked for eggs, cooked and mixed them into the rice. I cut up cilantro I had bought for the purpose and threw it in, leaving a little extra to be used as a un-cooked garnish.

It serves its purpose. Now only, if I had vegetables left.

If you’re looking for a little extra somethin’-somethin’, then consider making some dill-heavy tzatziki to go with the curried rice.