Vegetarian Food for Friends

Black rice is something I have rarely bought, so this was an intriguing recipe. North Americans tend to eat white, brown and maybe basmati rice, but rice options are much more plentiful – thousands of varieties exist. http://www.ricegourmet.com/About_RiceVarieties Though most of these are likely not available it’s nice to know that rice is so diverse! I discovered by trial and error that black rice takes significantly longer to cook than the package states (an hour as opposed to 40 minutes).

Quite a bit of lead time is required for the recipe, although most of that time is for cooking the rice and baking the tofu. I spent that time relaxing and playing with the cat so it wasn’t too onerous. Had I been super-organized I could have done all the other prep early on, but I’m not in a hurry. The category “Formal Dinners” probably should’ve been a signal about the level of complexity.

The carrots were to be chopped matchstick style, which is pretty much the most labour-intensive preparation possible. My carrots turned out extremely uniform since I had bought baby carrots due to a lack of space in my backpack while picking up groceries on the way on my bike.

Frying the black rice patties called for a significant amount of oil – I reduced that quite a bit, which perhaps impacted the time to cook them. Eventually they started to firm up into a crispy patty, though by that time I was a bit concerned about the amount of oil they had soaked up! Also, they were starting to burn because ironically, there wasn’t enough oil left. I think the trick with eating fried foods is to let someone else do the frying – out of sight, out of mind. But tasty…

Served on a bed of steamed bok choy, the rice cakes had a wonderful chewy consistency, a great contrast to the slightly crisp carrots. The tofu and mushrooms were elegantly soaked in a hoisin-based sauce which sponged nicely into the rice cakes. Although time-consuming and a great way to dirty your kitchen, this meal was definitely worth it.