A “Latin-American mixed rice salad” will usually have a lot more ingredients in it to hint towards a Central American feel. That being said, this “Latin-American” mixed rice salad is a rather loose term for it. The salad incorporates some Central American spices and flavours, but it essentially cobbled together from my brain, and I like it, so well. The salad has a lot of vegetables, and a fresh bite to it that adds a lovely pizzaz to any meal.
I made this as a side dish for some roasted chicken thighs that I had made. You can swap out the oil from roasting the 6 chicken thighs for Olive oil heated with a chicken bouillon cube, or butter with a bouillon cube. If you want this dish to be vegetarian / vegan, swap it all out, and use sesame oil. You want to have just enough to reduce the dryness of the rice, and help bind it together.
Servings and Storage
Plate up the mixture and plantains, and you should be good to go! Like I mentioned earlier, it goes lovely with roasted chicken thighs.
Everything stores well, except the plantains. They are not happy campers to be cooked and then left cold. If you are looking to have leftovers (which, this salad does taste lovely cold), only make enough plantains for the night that you are eating them, then refry more plantains when you want to eat the 2nd helping.
The salad will keep in fridge for about 5 days in an air-tight plastic container.
Servings: 3
Calories per serving: 280
Latin American mixed rice salad with plantains
A flavoursome side dish to any main, this dish has plenty of vegetables and starch to keep everyone happy!
Ingredients
- 250g Tilda black and red lucky rice
- 7 cloves garlic
- 2 cups fresh parsley
- 100g fresh coriander
- 300g Waitrose frozen mixed vegetables
- 6 birdseye chilis
- 1 Lemon (juice and zest)
- 2 Spring onions
- 1 Plantain
- 1 tsp Olive Oil
- Oil from roasting 6 Chicken thighs
Directions
- Step 1 Chop your spring onions, parsley, and coriander. Place them into a bowl large enough to hold your salad and set aside. Cut and juice your lemon and add it to the mixture.
- Step 2 Chop your chilis, plantains, and garlic. Be especially sure to remove all seeds from the inside of the chilis, this is the spiciest part and can really throw out the amount of chilis required if you need to have it in. Add the chilis and garlic to a pan with your olive oil. Have the pan rather warm as you want to be able to crisp up all of the yumminess. Put your plantains to the side, you will use it later.
- Step 3 Once you are happy with the colour of the chilis and the garlic, add the frozen vegetable mix. While that thaws in the pan, microwave your rice. Once the rice is cooked, remove from the bag and add to the pan until it heats up. Once the mixture is hot, add it and your oil to your salad bowl. Mix thoroughly and add a plate to the top to keep the heat in.
- Step 4 In your still warm pan, add your plantains and crank up the heat. You want to have enough oil in the bottom (i.e. add more if you need to) to be able to fry them. You need to ensure that they are able to get a nice brown on the outside. Try to leave them longer than about 5 minutes. Once the underside is brown, they will be much easier to flip. The trick is to flip them as little as possible. However, you can test if they are sticking by sliding them around the pan.
Enjoy.
