Today I present to you a colorful, light, tasty, and completely vegetarian single course. It’s a poke with basmati rice and vegetables. I chose pumpkin, peas, and beets, accompanied by pilaf basmati rice. It’s an extremely easy preparation, containing no animal protein, gluten nor lactose or eggs, making it perfect for those with intolerances or following a specific dietary regime. The quantity of ingredients can be personalized, just as our poke can be customized by adding fish, shellfish, white meat, and so on. The seasoning can also be personalized, flavoring with curry, turmeric, coriander, and so on. Pokes are very practical because they can be prepared well in advance (depending, of course, on the ingredients used and the ambient temperature) and consumed at home, at work, or during leisure time.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup Basmati rice
- 1 cup water
- 7 oz thinly sliced pumpkin
- 7 oz pre-cooked red beets
- 7 oz peas
- as needed extra virgin olive oil
- as needed fine salt
- as needed lemon juice or vinegar
- as needed chopped parsley or coriander
Steps
This is not exactly a recipe but an idea for a light, protein-rich, and completely vegetarian poke. For example, in this poke, I used pre-cooked beets and peas that were leftover from a previous preparation. You can also use canned peas, properly rinsed of their preserving liquid and added to the other ingredients; or we can sauté them in a pan with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and thinly sliced onion, letting them cook with half a glass of water for about ten minutes over low heat with a lid.
As for the pumpkin, instead of slicing it, we can cut it into cubes and sauté it in a pan.
To make our poke, we start by rinsing the basmati rice under running water until the water is clear.
We heat the water (for cooking basmati rice, the ratio between rice and water is 1:1.5; that is, for every 100 grams of rice, we will add 150 milliliters of water) in a small saucepan on the smallest burner; when it comes to a boil, we salt and pour the basmati rice, without stirring.
Cover immediately and let it cook over high heat for 3 minutes; then, lower the heat to the minimum and let the basmati rice cook by absorption for 10 minutes, never stirring or uncovering the pot.
After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and check that the rice has completely absorbed all the water. Let it cool and then fluff it with the prongs of a fork and season it with the spices we like best.
Now let’s focus on the vegetables. If we use fresh vegetables, wash them and remove all waste and inedible parts.
In my case, the pumpkin was sliced very thinly with a manual slicer and then passed for a few moments on a very hot griddle. We can then decide whether and how to season it: with lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, fine salt, and extra virgin olive oil.
Cut the already cooked beetroot into thin slices or cubes (as I did) and season them to taste, without exaggerating.
Let’s assemble the poke, by pouring the rice into the bowl and adding the peas, beetroot, and pumpkin, arranging them in a pleasant way to make it appealing and appetizing even to children, who usually don’t like vegetables.
Bon appetit
