Recipe: The Rice Dish!

Rice is life! Saba of @sabablacksheep whips up gluten-free crispy curry rice balls!

For me and just about every other person of South East Asian descent. Rice is life!  I know there wouldn’t be too many days where I don’t eat something that contains rice in it. From rice noodles to rice crepes even rice sweets and more. It is such a diverse ingredient and the most important staple in my house. I never run out of rice!

So in today’s post we are going to focus on that little white grain.   Let’s make something that really makes rice shine!

Ok, how about we make some rice balls?   What rice balls?  We have all seen boring rice balls before. I hear you say…..

Don’t worry, these little bad boys are going to be super crispy on the outside and soft in the middle and explode with Thai red curry flavour goodness!

Now I got you interested yes?

Not only are these going to be super delicious and crispy, they take hardly any time to make.

Ok let’s get cooking yes?  Let’s

 

​First off we are going to cook some rice. I made just one cup of rice for this recipe but you can cook as much as you need.
​We will use two types of rice grains for this and the ratio is 60/40.

Jasmine rice 60% and Glutinous rice 40%
Water 1/1.  So one cup of rice to one cup of water.
First off you need to rinse and clean the rice.

 

Then add to the rice cooker along with water. Make sure all rice grains are evenly spread out and are submerged in the water.
Turn the cooker to ‘cook’ mode. Done!

(For those of you who don’t have a rice cooker here is a link on how to cook rice on a stove top)

Whilst the rice is cooking, let’s get a pork and curry sauce happening to partner with it. Now I generally am a cook from scratch sort of guy. But I know in the real world we don’t always have the time to make everything from scratch, so today we will keep this as quick and simple as possible. I’m going to use a store-bought curry paste. I’m using Maesri curry paste which I find to be great and packs heaps of flavour. I’m also going to add some fresh stuff in there, just because that’s the way I roll.

A few other things you will need is a 250g of minced pork, a stalk of lemongrass, a small onion, two kaffir lime leaves and some chilli. Normally I would use two or three but today I’m only using one as this guys is blow your head off hot. But you put as many as you like in there. I also got a tablespoon of regular white sugar, fish sauce, and half a can of coconut cream.

So first off roughly chop up all the fresh stuff (just to help the food processor) then
chuck it all in the processor and give it a good whizz. Try to get it as fine as you can, this will just make it easier to roll the balls later.

Now add all your freshly whizzed ingredients into a frypan along with some oil and fry off until fragrant.

 

Next we are going to add the pork and fry it off until lightly browned and all the fresh stuff is incorporated.

Now take a tablespoon of the coconut cream from the top of the can (the thick stuff) and a tablespoon of the curry paste and cook it off to the side for about 30 seconds.

Incorporate the paste and cream into the meat

Now stir up the remainder of the coconut cream can and add about half of it to the pan.

Next add the sugar and about a teaspoon of fish sauce, stir everything together and let simmer for about 5 minutes.

By now your rice should be cooked.

Pour your curry over the rice whilst it’s still hot and mix it all together really well.

Once it’s all mixed together, compress it down as tightly as you can as this will help you with the ball

rolling process later on. Let sit and cool.

So once we roll the rice into balls, we are going to crumb & fry them so they get crispy on the outside.
I bet your thinking he is going to bread crumb them, or maybe crumb them in panko right?
Sorry peoples, wrong!
Remember at the start of the post I told you we were going to make the rice shine?
Well I’m going to crumb the rice balls in rice.
What!!!!
That’s right, Im going to crumb the rice in rice. Well rice paper to be exact. Why would we want to crumb them in rice, well first off this post is all about the rice, second is its super easy to do and third it’s a great gluten-free alternative to bread crumbs!

This is how we do it.

First off grab about 10 sheets of rice paper, cut or break them up into small enough bits so they fit in your food processor and wizz it up to you get small little rice paper crumbs.

OMG how easy is that!

Now it’s time to roll and crumb these rice balls.

You can roll these balls any size you like, to tell you don’t even have to make them balls, make them

any shape you like. There is just one rule, make sure they are tight and well pressed together.

Anyway I made mine the size of golf balls, for those of you who don’t know I love golf!

Now once you have made all your balls, it’s time to crumb them.

So you know how it goes: flour, egg then crumbs..

For the flour I’m using corn starch

*(A good gluten-free alternative again, corn is naturally gluten-free but always check if the brand you are using is actually gluten-free)

For the egg mix 1 used one egg and 1 tablespoon of milk

For the bread crumbs we are using our rice paper crumbs of course

Step 1, roll the ball in the flour and shake off any excess flour

Step 2, using the same hand dip the ball in egg mix and drain off any excess egg

Step 3, firmly roll the ball in the rice paper crumbs until completely covered, transfer to a plate and lay out in a single layer.

Once you have finished crumbing all your rice balls it’s time to fry those bad boys.

As everything is already cooked we are only frying them to they are golden brown and crispy.
(About 2 minutes)

Now just in case you thought I wasn’t serious about making this a rice dish.

Now we are going to make a rice dish.

Ok you just told us that.

Oh I think I got you all confused now.

I mean let’s make an actual dish from rice!

Ok still confused?

I mean let’s make an edible plate from rice

Oh I get you now, why didn’t you just say that in the first place.

You’re not going to believe how easy this is!

Take 1 large rice paper sheep and fry it in the same oil you fried your rice balls in and watch it puff up and become all crispy!!!

It only take about 5 to 10 seconds to do.

There you go people a crispy edible rice plate.

I told you it was easy

Now plate them yummy crunchy little rice balls up and enjoy!