Viva Vegan hasn't had much attention at home for a while so it was about time to dust it off and give some more of these tasty Latin food recipes a whirl. This time I decided to stick with a tried, tested and loved seitan recipe and delve into a new side dish and rice recipe.
Latin shredded seitan (with the chipotle adobo variation) was an instant winner the first time it was brought to the table. You do need to be organised for this meal as the seitan has to be prepared the day before. Other times I have served this with the pan-grilled vegetables in chile-lime beer which has also been a wonderful complimentary partner. A different side dish that had been on my mind to try for some time was the Peruvian potatoes with spicy "cheezy" sauce. A lack of aji amarillo (yellow chilli) paste meant that this was out of the question until a jar was tracked down in a trip to Casa Iberica.
There are a few rice dishes I have tried from Viva Vegan and none have been particularly successful with my crew so it was with trepidation that I settled upon the Cilantro-Lime rice for tonight. Coriander or cilantro is one of those things at home that either doesn't get noticed or there can be a stark contrasting whining remark - "Is there coriander in this?" Apparently coriander is good in some things but not everything. I'll be damned if I can figure out when it's right to add it in or leave it out, however I had a faint memory of serving a rice side with coriander that wasn't popular, so this time I decided to mix a bit through my serve only.
The whole meal was sensational as they always seem to be on a Viva Vegan night. The seitan was just as tasty as last time, the peruvian potatoes were another delicious differently spiced vegie side which I would make again. The cilantro-lime rice had a lovely tangy flavour, definitely the best rice side that I have tried out of Viva Vegan and highly likely to be repeated. I'll leave you with the rice recipe as the ingredients are easy to source as oppose to the other recipes and I think this rice could be an easy way to jazz up a standard rice and beans type of meal like this one.
Cilantro-lime rice (from Viva Vegan)
1 cup uncooked long-grain rice
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock or water
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 teaspoons grated lime zest
1/2 teaspoon salt (only if using water)
Freshly cracked pepper
1/4 cup chopped cilantro, lightly packed
1 green onion, green part only, sliced very thinly
In a heavy pot, combine the rice, vegetable stock or water, olive oil, lime juice, zest, salt (if using) and pepper to taste. Bring the mixture to the boil, lower the heat to a simmer, and cover the pot. Cook for 20 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice grains are tender.
Remove from the heat and sprinkle the rice with cilantro and green onion. Fluff the rice, working in the chopped herbs. Serve immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment