Swamp Rice | Swamp Soup-Inspired Rice | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with swamp rice. That's right. This was inspired by a fairly famous green soup recipe. And besides being beautiful, delicious, and nutritious, this is perfect for people who feel like the regular rice side dishes just do not contain enough polyphenols. And if you're not sure what those are, you should definitely ask somebody. And to get started, we will transfer a diced onion into some olive oil in a pan set over medium heat. And we will toss in a nice big pinch of salt. And then we'll cook these onions, stirring for about 5 minutes or so, or until they start to soften up and turn translucent. And while these are cooking, and we're giving them the occasional stir, we can go ahead and multitask. And we can put together what I call our swamp rice smoothie, which starts by transferring two pack cups of baby spinach into a blender. And when I say packed, I mean really, really packed. In fact, I packed mine so tight, I could barely get it out of this measuring cup. And then besides the spinach, we'll also do three or four nice big jalapenos, which have been seated. And then we'll also want to add an entire bunch of parsley. And you can trim and toss away the big stems, but don't waste time picking out the little stems. Those are fine in this. And we'll finish up with a couple cloves of garlic, plus one freshly sliced bunch of green onions. And then last but not least, we'll pour in some nice fresh cold water, which could also be chicken broth or vegetable stock or even a seafood broth if you're going to serve this with fish. But no matter what you use, we will blend this on high speed, very smooth. And once that has been liquefied, we will grab it and head back to the stove. And we'll check our onions, which by now should be nice and soft and sweet. And once they are, we'll transfer in some long grain rice. And I'm using basmati, which I think works best for this. And we'll toss in our salt. And we'll take a spoon and give that a stir in the hopes of coating every single one of those grains in a little bit of our oil. And while this step is optional, I think by coating the grains with a fat, we end up with a better texture, which is sometimes a challenge with these rice dishes where we're boiling the rice in something that's not just water. And that's it. Once we have given that a nice thorough stirring, we will raise our heat to high and we'll transfer in our swamp rice smoothie and we'll give that a quick initial stirring. And then we'll simply stand back and wait for this to start to boil. And yes, that is an incredible green color. And it would be nice if it stayed that way. But while it will fade a little, as you'll see, we're still going to end up with a beautiful green. But anyway, like I said, once we give this a stir, we'll wait for it to start to boil, at which point we'll give it one last stir before we cover it. And for a little extra move at the end, I like to give the pan the old shakea shaker and maybe a little swirl, which is going to help us make sure that rice is in a nice even layer. And then we'll wait about 30 seconds while this comes back to a boil, at which point we're going to cover it tightly and reduce our heat to medium low. And we'll set our timer for exactly 20 minutes. And normally when we cook basmati, it only cooks for 15 minutes. But because our cooking liquid is much more viscous than plain water, it's always going to take a little extra time. And yes, I said medium low and not low. Okay. So many people cook their rice on too low of a heat, which I don't think gives you the best results. So, if you're using a glass lid, it should be simmering like this. And that's it. 20 minutes later, once our timer rings, we will turn off the heat and we'll set our timer for 10 minutes. And I know you want to take off the lid and try it, but you can't. This needs to sit and rest so it can finish cooking. So, no peeking, no stirring, no tasting. I mean, you are, after all, the Meredith Hayden of patiently waiting. And yes, Meredith is the chef responsible for the viral swamp soup. And then once those 10 minutes have slowly passed, we will uncover this. But before we fluff it, we'll give it a quick test and we'll dig down and have a little taste. And the rice should be tender. And mine was. And if it is, we can take our fork and give this a thorough and proper fluffing. And besides hopefully breaking up all the grains, we're also releasing a tremendous amount of heat, which if we didn't release would continue cooking the rice, and it might get overcooked and a little bit sticky. So, a proper fluffing here is key. And while it might seem a little bit too wet and sticky when you first start, you'll see, much to your amazement, as you continue to stir and toss and fluff and break up those grains, they should all separate and everything eventually will look like this. And that's it. We'll give it a taste or two for seasoning. Okay, if you're going to eat this as is, you're probably going to need some more salt and maybe some butter or a squeeze of lemon. But since I'm going to pair this with some chili, I decided it was perfect as is. And then in real life, you could just serve out of this pan. But if you're a world famous video recipe producer, you have to transfer it into a serving dish and then spend 15 minutes getting the surface perfect before garnishing with some sliced jalapeno rings, followed by a pinch of freshly sliced green onions. And that's it. What we're calling swamp rice was ready to enjoy. And I'll get to the taste in a second. But man, we nailed the texture here. Okay, the grains of rice were perfectly plump and tender with just the perfect amount of starchy stickiness on the surface. And yet, they were all beautifully separated and not clumping together. And again, I think it's that coating the rice with a hot olive oil that really helps us get such a nice final result. And then as far as the flavor goes, if you've ever had spinach rice, that's sort of the closest thing this would compare to. But we're also getting that little bit of heat and acidity from the jalapeno as well as that extra herbaceiousness from the parsley and savoriness from the onions and garlic. So, as far as a basic all-purpose rice side dish goes, this is very tasty and quite nice. But, so we're all clear, it's meant to be served with something. Okay, if we were going to serve this as a main course, as I hinted at earlier, we'd probably want to add a little more seasoning and maybe some vinegar or citrus to liven things up. And of course, you could do a version with shredded chicken in this with maybe some seasonal vegetables. So, like most rice dishes, there's a lot of different directions you can go, but the direction I went was to serve this with a Mississippi chicken chili, which is a video we just recently posted. So, if you haven't seen that, make sure you check it out because it really was an amazing combination. But no matter what you serve this with, as I promised in the intro, it's delicious, nutritious, and very beautiful. And I really do hope you give it a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. and is always enjoy.