Egyptian rice with onions
Egyptian rice with onions
Egyptian rice with onions is such a tasty dish. The onions and the stock pack in so much flavour that I could quite happily eat this just on its own.
Egyptians only eat Egyptian Rice with onions with fish
However, Egyptian rice with onions is only ever served with fish in Egypt. I once made the mistake of serving it with meat when my husband’s family came round for dinner and I couldn’t understand what all the commotion was all about (my Arabic at the time was extremely limited). It turned out that it was because I had broken with the rules of convention and made this great blunder.
I must say Egyptian are very set in their ways when it comes to their food, they have certain rules about what foods should accompany others and exactly how things should be prepared, otherwise things are considered foreign and strange.
Any way mistake noted, I won’t be doing that again – well at least not when people are coming round. I personally think it’s really tasty and could go with a multitude of dishes.
Ingredients
- Vegetable oil for frying
- 2 mugs Egyptian rice (or long grain rice if you can’t get hold of Egyptian rice)
- 2 onions finely chopped or sliced
- 3 stock cubes – grated
- 3 mugs boiling water
Let’s make Egyptian Rice with Onions
Put 3 tbspns of oil into a large pan and put it over a high flame to heat up.
first brown the rice
When the oil is sizzling add the rice and fry it until it begins to brown – stirring frequently.
add the onions
Then add the onions and stock cubes, and season well with freshly ground black pepper.
For the next stage PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL – I would advise you to wear an oven glove on the hand you are pouring from and keep your face well back – the first lot of liquid you add to the hot rice and oil will shoot hot steam up like a full blown volcano so be warned. The first time I did it I had the scare of my life.
carefully add the hot liquid
So now you need to add the 3 mugs of boiling water to the rice. As I said be careful.
Stir the rice and onions quickley then put the lid firmly on the pan and reduce the heat down to the lowest heat possible and cook for 12 more minutes.
Turn off the heat but keep the lid on the pan and allow the rice to finish cooking in its own steam for a further 5 minutes.
Then fluff up your rice and it is ready to serve.
Traditional accompaniments for fish
As I said Egyptians would only serve this with fish. I would therefore suggest to have it with some delicious grilled fish such as sardines or mackerel. With small plates of salata baladi, hummus, baba ghanough and tahini on the side and plenty of Arabic flat bread for dipping. This makes a very tasty meal and it is the way fish is traditionally served in Egypt.
Try it out and let me know what you think.