Rice with vegetables

This dish is perfect for all seasons, as nowadays you can find most of vegetables at any season. It is really easy to prepare. It suits perfectly vegans. Vegetables are also my favorite side-dish to spicy chicken or just a steak. 

I make various variations of it, depending on the season and availability of vegetables. Sometimes I make it with rice, sometimes pure vegetables. Vegetables taste delicious both hot and cold. In other words, this is my favorite side-dish! And one of the fastest and easiest to prepare...10 minutes and is ready! Enjoy!


Rice:

For this dish I use Thai rice. Its exact name is thai hom mali rice. If you are unfamiliar to rice types, just use longish rice, not round, it is great for frying also.

Boil rice in microwave or on stove. For microwave, add 1 and 1/3 cup of cold water to 1 cup of rice.  To make it tasty, cook it in any vegetable broth instead of water for 15 minutes with salt and then add butter or oil mix well, cook for 3 more minutes and it is ready. 


It takes around 20-30 minutes when cooked on stove and you need 2 cups of hot water/broth to 1 cup of rice.

When the rice is ready put it in a round-sided bowl and press a bit. Let it stay there until the serving time. Turn it upside down on the serving plate.


Vegetables:
What vegetables to use depends on a special preference, season, and availability in the fridge. The minimum required vegetables are carrots, peppers, and broccoli. You can add mushrooms, onions, zucchinis, cauliflower, Brussels cabbage, simple cabbage, potatoes, green beans, even cucumber. Actually you can add any non-watery (like tomatoes) vegetables you like.

My favorite mixture is:

To serve 4:
1 medium-sized onions

2 medium-sized carrots
1 of each: red, yellow, green peppers - or just one color, more colors make the dish more colorful - this time i only head green ones.
300 gr. mushrooms
400 gr. broccoli

1 medium-sized zucchini

1 clove of garlic (optional)

You also need:

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (optional)

Red, black, white peppers

Dried coriander seeds

Oregano (optional)
Cumin (optional)
Salt

Any other spices you like with vegetables (I use Bulgarian salt mixture – Шарена сол)

Note: pre-cook broccoli in water with salt for 5 minutes. Use all other ingredients raw.

Cut all vegetables in long stripes, similar in size. If using onions and zucchini, cut them in rounds, do not make them too small in size. When all vegetables are cut, warm some oil and a small clove garlic (I smash it with knife before placing it in oil) in WOK on very high heat.  You can use any other pan, if you don’t have a WOK.

When the oil is heated, start adding vegetables, one at a time. Onion goes first. Fry over high heat for 1 minute and add the next vegetable. Hardest (by texture and to cook) vegetables go first. Add carrots, then peppers, then mushrooms, zucchini, and then broccoli. Fry each batch for 2 minutes before adding the next vegetable. When adding broccoli,  just mix them with other vegetables, do not fry for more than a minute.   

Add salt and all spices. At the very end, add some soy sauce, not much and very little of balsamic vinegar. Please, note, it should not be watery at all. So you really need limited amount of soya and even less (several drops) of balsamic vinegar (optional). Do not use much salt either, soy sauce is salty.

Overall, cooking time is 5-15 minutes, depending on the number of components. Make sure not to overcook vegetables. They test the best when a bit crispy!