Rice Fritters

Yesterday was another stormy day in St Louis – I do love those thunder storms, the lightning is AMAZING.  It meant that I missed going to the farmer’s market in the morning to stock up the fridge, so there was a dearth of vegetable options for lunch.  Then I realised that I had a bowl of cooked short grain brown paella rice in the fridge that needed using up.  I was inspired earlier in the summer by Rose Elliott’s New Vegetarian Cooking to consider doing more varied things with rice and grains.

One nice easy option was to mix the rice with some shoyu, chop up some green onion and garlic and bind it all together with peanut butter, then make up little fritters that I shallow fried in a little oil.  I had a little salad leftover from dinner last night… starting to look a little wilty I’m afraid… that I drizzled (well, dripped really) some balsamic vinegar over, and that was lunch.  The rice I had made about 10 fritters, so some in the freezer for later in the month when Akira is away for a week presenting at a Neuroscience conference in Chicago.

Quantities are all estimated here, I am really just going on the spirit of Rose Elliot’s suggestion, as I think it is more fun to just freefall with something this easy and tasty!

Rice/Grain Fritters

2 C cooked rice or some other grain (try bulghur, kibbled wheat, quinoa)

1-2 T Shoyu

3-4 T Peanut Butter

2-3 Green Onions, chopped

2 cloves Garlic, chopped fine

Mix all together and form into medium sized patties.  Shallow fry in a little oil until the patties acquire a little colour.  If you want to firm them up a little, then bake for 10mins after frying.  But these are pretty tasty straight out of the pan.  Taste great with some Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce, go well with a green salad.

My food photography is about as basic and homegrown as my cooking and as limited as my resources and my camera… apologies that this is not stunningly shot, but I hope it gives you the general idea.  I was hungry, and had four of these patties, but 2-3 will be sufficient!  Hope you enjoy messing about with grains.