Who doesn't love colourful food like pink rice. Rice is one of those versatile foods that can be eaten for breakfast, lunch supper, and everything in between. Whether savoury or sweet, spicy or mild, it is just great. It is a fantastic side for stews, sauces or soups. Plain boiled rice can be pepped up with a whole myriad of ingredients: herbs, curry powder, garlic, caramelised onions, garlic, and the list goes on and on.
In this recipe, plain white rice is transformed into pink rice by using sorghum leaves (Sorghum bicolor) with additional peas, carrots, garlic, onions, and coconut oil for the perfect side dish. Sorghum is a cereal and is also known under different names such as Great millet, Milo, or Indian millet.
Sorghum leaves (sometimes also known as millet leaves) are typically used to make waakye, a tasty Ghanaian dish made from black-eyed peas (cowpeas) and rice. The sorghum leaves give the waakye a beautiful purple colour.
This recipe uses sorghum leaves to give the rice a pink colour and together with garlic, onions, coconut oil, peas, and carrots, this is a great way to switch up plain and sometimes boring-looking rice. This beautiful side is great with this pork and vegetable stew or with this lamb and aubergine stew. Another great rice recipe is this fried rice with pork and biltong.
Pink Rice with Carrots and Peas
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- ½ medium onion sliced
- 1 clove garlic chopped
- 300 grams rice washed
- 1 small carrot chopped
- 2 tbsp peas
Instructions
- Heat the coconut oil in a pan and fry onions and garlic for about 2 minutes.
- Stir in rice and fry for further 2 minutes.
- If you are using a rice cooker, cook rice as you usually would.
- If you are using a pot, add water and salt. Let the water boil until it evaporates then turn down the heat to a minimum. See notes.
- Add the peas and chopped carrots and gently stir into the almost cooked rice. Be careful not to break up the grains. Cover and let cook for about 1 -2 minutes.
- Serve rice with a stew or a sauce.
Video
Notes
- The rice is cooked once the grain does not have an inner white core. You can also press a grain between your fingers to find out if your rice is cooked. If it mushes easily then it is ready, but if you feel a hard core then it isn't ready to be eaten.
- I use one cup of rice to about one and a half cups of water to get the perfect rice, as I do not like mushy rice at all. If you are using 2 cups of rice you should use 2 ½ half cups of water and not 3 cups.
- You can steam the carrots and peas in some salt water ahead of cooking the rice. Once the rice is cooked just add and mix gently. I used canned peas for this recipe but you can use fresh peas.
- The longer you leave the sorghum leaves in the hot water, the darker your water will get. Likewise, the more leaves you use, the quicker you'll get that beautiful pink or purple colour.
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