Date, pistachio & scallion rice

This recipe is inspired by Amy of Word Kitchen. Earlier this month Amy tweeted that she was making Basmati rice with pistachios. I was intrigued and asked for directions.

Amy replied with the following:

lemme see: 1c basmati in 2 c water, fluff. Add 2T chop'd pistachios, 2T chop'd currants, thread of OO, some parsley, s & p...

I added this tweet to the list of my favorites and was looking for the perfect time to make this rice dish. After all, it had pistachios in it: one of my favorite nuts.

This weekend with scare of Hurricane Irene and knowing I will be spending an entire Saturday, if not the entire weekend, at home, I decided I'll try out the recipe.

Of course I did not feel like buying currants, so I thought why not use dates I already had?

Also, I had some scallions and decided to use those instead of the parsley.

And final confession: I'm not a 100% sure that the rice I had was in fact Basmati. But luckily, it all worked out.







Date, pistachio & scallion rice

Ingredients
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup Basmati rice
2 cups water
salt & pepper
1/2 cup shelled pistachios, toasted, chopped
1/3 cup chopped dates
3 scallions, thinly sliced

Directions
1. Heat oil in a small pot. Add rice and mix to coat with oil. Brown for about 3 minutes.
2. Add 2 cups of water, season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes.
3. Fluff the rice with a fork. Add pistachios, dates and scallions. Mix.
4. Taste and add more salt if necessary.

I snacked on this dish as I cooked a leg of lamb and then had it as a side. The combination of sweet dates and salty rice is great. And of course the crunch from pistachios adds yet another dimension to this dish. I think it'd be a great addition to your Thanksgiving table!

Options: you can also add the following to this dish
sauteed mushrooms
lentils (Thanks, Cindy for the suggestion)
water chestnuts

PS forgive the gloomy photos: there was very little light ;(