Rice cooker pilaf

Tam West

There's more you can do with a rice cooker than simply steaming white rice, as this easy but flavoursome pilaf shows. Warren cooks up a tasty oatmeal porridge and cooks with lentils and polenta in his rice cooker too. See how he does it.

Ingredients

1	Onion, chopped
1	Celery stalk, chopped
1	Red pepper, chopped
1 drizzle	Olive oil, to sweat vegetables
3 cm	Ginger, finely grated, more of less according to taste
2 cloves	Garlic, crushed
1 cup	Long grain brown jasmine rice, rinsed (Main)
1 Tbsp	Sesame oil
2	Kaffir lime leaves, or bayleaves
1 small	Red chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp	Salt
2 cups	Chicken stock, large ones, or use water
1	Chorizo sausage, 2 if you like, sliced, or use smoked or cooked sausage or 1 thinly sliced chicken breast (Main)
1 cup	Edamame beans, or use peas (Main)
1	Lemon, zest and juice

Directions

1. Sweat onion, celery stalk and red pepper in a little olive oil with some fresh grated ginger and crushed garlic until tender. Set aside.
2. In the rice cooker, stir rinsed brown jasmine rice, sesame oil, kaffir lime (or bay) leaves, chilli, salt and some freshly ground black pepper, and the first large cup chicken stock or water. Set to Cook and leave it to cycle over to Warm, about 15 minutes.
3. Stir the rice, add the onion mixture, chorizo (smoked or cooked sausages or thinly sliced chicken breast), edamame beans (or peas), lemon zest and juice, the remaining cup of stock or water and stir well. Set to Cook again, and when it switches to Warm rest for 5-10 minutes or until ready to serve.

Make a change

The general rule for white rice is 1 part rice to 1 part water. Tender brown (or even wild) rice can also be achieved with a little trial and error, by adding more water upfront, running the Cook cycle more than once, and leaving them to rest in the Warm cycle until they’re soft and puffed.