culinary life

One has a House, one has cousins – they are bound to meet. In other words a day is bound to come in which one will have to feed the brutes.

Problem is – even if you keep the invitations to first cousins on your father's side, and only about half of them can come on any given day –, there's lots. In the end, a round dozen answered the call (like the Apostles, only with 3 women in the mix for a slightly less misogynous, more modern balance), plus wives/husbands (and a couple of girls and babies from a different generation who sneaked in, and whom I affected not to see – and since we can sit 28 comfortably to dinner, the sum total of 26 was still all right).

In these belt-tightening times a substancial rice dish was the best value for money the House could come up with as a main course. Apperos, cheeses, salads, drinks and desserts would be brought by the guests, according to a detailed table worked up by Mano Velho (in PowerPoint no less).

So, rice. The first thing you have to do, of course, is to get yourself an electric rice cooker – and no, reader, it's not at all like a Bimby. Rice cookers merely ensure the rice will end up properly cooked and loose, comme il se doit, without one having to be watching it all the time. The cooking proper of the other ingredients is done in pots and pans in the traditional way. (So keep any booing and accusations of lazy cooking to your dear selves, please).


To the recipe, then (I should write "receipt", as the late great Jennifer Patterson would have it, but I fear the larger readership would think it an error, so I'd better keep to the lowest common denominator …):


For 25 adults
About 5 or 6 cups of uncooked long grain rice 
About 2 kilos (4 or 5 lbs) of fresh sausages
About 2 medium bowls of mixed seeds and nuts (I used shelled pumpkin seeds and slivered almonds)
2 large carrots, diced
Red bell pepper, cut into strips (2 large handfuls)
2 large portions of uncooked fresh button mushrooms, sliced
2 handfuls of shredded cabbage leaves (any crisp kind of cabbage)
Garlic to taste

With a 2-litre cooker one needs to do this in two separate batches. The instructions below are for one batch.

• Fry the sausages in a large nonstick frying pan (no need to add fat), pricking them with a sharp knife as they bloat in the heat, to let the fat out, turning occasionally, until they are well browned (with the skin partly charred). Take off the heat, and cut the sausages on a board with a sharp knife into 1 cm (half-inch) pieces. Reserve (and reserve the fat in the pan).
• In another frying pan dry-fry the mushrooms until they become chewy and have shed almost all the liquid. Season lightly, drain (discard the liquid), and reserve.
• Turn on the rice cooker and cover the bottom in a generous quantity of extra virgin olive oil, and about half the sausage fat. Sauté some garlic in the cooker, then add half the pepper strips and half the seeds and nuts, and sauté some more. Finally, add 2 1/2 cups of rice and mix thoroughly, until the rice is well coated and slightly translucent. Add half the cut sausages, half the mushrooms, and 2 1/2 cups of water. Season, mix well, and cover. 
• The electric cooker can now be left to do its own thing unattended. Only be aware that it's very quick – the rice will be cooked in less than 10 minutes – and that perhaps 5 or 6 minutes into the process you need to add 1 of the diced carrots into the mixture. Cover again and let the cooker finish the job (a switch will trip, and the cooker will go from cooking to heating mode). Uncover, add half the shredded cabbage, and cover again. Leave on heating mode for another 10 to 15 minutes before turning off the cooker. This way, both the carrot and the cabbage will be only just tender enough, but still very crisp. Mix the cabbage into the rice before serving.

Repeat with the other half of the ingredients.

You can prepare this a day in advance (indeed there are those who say you should, and certainly rice dishes tend to become better overnight). Turn each batch into a large oven dish, cover in cling film and store in the fridge. About an hour before serving, put the dishes in the oven at 100ºC, covered in foil. Serve hot. 

For an old editor of cookery books, I realise there are lots of "abouts", and "handfuls", and "large portions", and "generous portions" of ingredients, and precious few precise measurements. But that's the joy of the occasional cook, not bound by editorial rules or the dictatorship of the printed page. Besides, one can change the quantities of ingredients (and even the ingredients themselves) to taste (except the ratio of rice-to-water, which is strictly 1/1 and don't let anyone tell you otherwise). The amount of rice is proportionately less than one might imagine for so many people – indeed I made a third batch to be on the safe side, but two proved enough (though bear in mind that there were lots of cheeses, bread, nuts, side salads – and gallons of drink –, to be had beforehand, so that will have taken some of the edge off the cousins' hunger before they actually sat down to eat).

Enjoy.