November 10, 2010

One Ingredient Wednesday: Dill Rice

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

Welcome to a new weekly feature we'll be trying out here at the MWK: One Ingredient Wonder. It's pretty self explanatory; I'll be taking a simple recipe or idea and showing you how you can spruce it up with just one ingredient (maybe two, but let's not tell anyone that part yet!). We'll keep it to Wednesdays for now because, well, because it was originally going to be "One Ingredient Wonder Wednesday" but then I thought that'd be too much cheesiness for the site, so we're just gonna keep it to a three word title ;)

Sometimes all you need to take a dish from good to great is just one ingredient, and in this case, that's dill. Fresh is always better when you're talking about herbs but I've never had luck with finding good quality fresh dill and have been using the dried kind for years. But one word of advice y'all, spend a little and go for quality on this one. I'll admit to buying some dollar store garlic powder when I'm in a pinch but don't do that with the dill weed. Trust me, it's worth the extra few dollars for it.

My mom adds dried dill to some daal (lentil) dishes but when it comes to dill rice, I give credit to my aunt who first introduced us to this very fragnant and easy dish. She's a fan (and Masha'allah, a great cook of) persian food where she first tried dill rice and then introduced it to the rest of us. I can't make it as good as hers but even if you botch up the recipe, it's still going to be much better than just plain white rice.

Dill rice pairs perfectly with lamb or roasted veggies. Try it out this coming Eid for a nice change to your usual rice dish! (sorry there's no 'after' picture...we were hungry and hunger trumps taking pictures!)



Dill Rice
1 cup long grain rice (Basmati)
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 tblsp oil of choice
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tblsp dried dill weed
2 cups water

1. Saute onions in oil until translucent. Add rice, garlic poweder and salt. Mix around until rice is coated with oil and cook until grains start to become slightly translucent, 3 - 4 minutes.

2. Add dill and mix to combine. Pour in water and allow rice to come to a boil. Then turn down to a low simmer and cook for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender and water is gone. Fluff with fork and enjoy hot!

6 comments:

  1. Ooh I always wanted to try these!
    A lil tip on the fresh dill: if u have like 5 in of space in ur garden or anywhere with soil, then just sprinkle some dried dill seeds and water, and soon inshallah u'll have fresh dill!! Try it!

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  2. Thanks for the tip Samar :) Now if only I had a garden....

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  3. I tried this dish from an iranian colleague and it taste delicious! Love it! I bought dried dill and am going to try your recipe.

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  4. Happy to hear it, Anon! Hope it works well for you (by the way, for a stronger dill flavor, if you like that, double the amount of dried dill weed).

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Tell me what you think! As always, feedback and reviews are appreciated...happy cooking!