Mixed Wild Rice Pilaf

Tonight, I fancied rice for dinner.

In the cupboard, I had an open packet of mixed wild rice and an open packet of camargue (red rice), so I put them together and went looking in the fridge for something to go with them.  After opening a bottle of champagne and pouring myself a glass, (well, why not?), I put together the following ingredients:

1 small chunk of butter.
1 x white onion.
1 x stick of celery.
2 x cups mixed wild rice.
Sherry.
4 x cups chicken stock.
1 x packet smoked salmon.
4 x spring onions.
Cherry tomatoes.
Capers.
Fresh coriander.

This is how I cooked it:

After chopping the onion and slicing the celery, I melted the butter in a large pan and then stirred in the onion and celery pieces, cooking them until the onion was tender.

Next, I added the rice and stirred it well until all the grains were well coated.  At this stage, I also added a drop of sherry because the bottle was almost finished anyway!

I then poured in 4 cups of stock.  (Usually I use home-made stock from a good organic, previously roasted chicken, but we didn't have any left, so I used organic chicken stock cubes instead.)

Next, I covered the pan with a lid and left the rice to cook for about 30 minutes, and took my glass of champagne to my laptop, where I started typing up this recipe! :)  It's a good idea to check it at around 20 minutes though, just to make sure that the rice hasn't boiled dry.  Once the rice has absorbed all the liquid, but isn't too soft, it is ready.

When the rice was ready, I thinly sliced the smoked salmon, sliced the spring onions and halved the tomatoes, then added these to the rice with about 3 big spoonfuls of capers.  After, stirring it all together, I plated it up and added a touch of fresh coriander from my pot on the windowsill.  Well, a good little sprinkling of fresh coriander adds to just about any meal, don't you think? :)

This meal really did taste delicious and was so easy.  I especially loved the extra zing from the capers.

Let me know if you try it and what you think.

Cheers and clink clink (sound of my champagne glass hitting yours),

Caryl ♥