I love chargrilling veggies with olive oil on my cast iron griddle. You can get the perfect char marks on your vegetables and nothing beats the taste that is produced. Today I'll share with you a recipe for a Wild Rice with Grilled Vegetables.
Ingredients
1 cup mixed Wild and Red Camargue rice – washed
1 cup puy lentils – washed
375g small Asparagus Spears – washed
3 Courgettes -sliced diagonally into ½ cm pieces
1 Red Pepper – cut in half, then each half slice into three strips
1 Yellow Pepper – cut in half, then each half slice into three strips
1 Orange Pepper – cut in half, then each half slice into three strips
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
40g Shelled Pistachios
30g Coriander – finely chopped
15g Basil – finely chopped
3 Shallots – thinly sliced
Cracked Pepper
Rock Salt
YOGURT DRESSING
3 Tbs Lemon Juice
3 Garlic Cloves – finely chopped
170g Greek Yogurt – 0 fat
1 tsp dried Mint
1 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
½ tsp Sea Salt
Instructions
Fill two saucepans with water, add the rice in one and the puy lentils in the other. Bring to boil, then cook until al Dante – approx. 15min. Strain and put aside to cool.
Heat a cast iron griddle on the highest setting for approx. 5-10min.
Spray some Olive oil over the Asparagus Spears, peppers and courgettes.
Lay one layer of the Asparagus over the cast iron griddle and cook on each side for approx. 5 min or until those lovely black lines appear. Repeat this until all the veg are cooked.
Cover veg with cling film. When they’ve cooled, rub and/or peel off the skin from the pepper.
Meanwhile place the shallots in a med size frying pan with 1 tsp of olive oil and some filtered water, and on med heat cook until caramelized. Make sure you constantly toss using two spoons. This will take approx. 10-15min.
Place the shelled pistachios in a small frying pan and on med heat, toast.
Be careful not to overcook as they will burn, you’ll need to keep on tossing the pistachios until you can start smelling them cooking, then transfer to a small bowl to stop the cooking process.
Place the rice and puy lentils in a very large salad bowl, add the herbs, season and toss, taste, season, toss – repeat if necessary
Add the shallots and toss to combine well.
To make the yogurt dressing, put all the ingredients in a bowl and blend using a hand/stick blender until smooth.
Pour dressing over rice/lentil mixture and using two large spoons combine very well – until all the rice and lentils are coated.
Chop the Asparagus into bite size pieces, probably each spear into 3 pieces.
Chop the Pepper strips into bite size pieces.
Add the veg and pistachios to the rice/lentil mixture and toss lightly.
Enjoy and Serve!