Jalapeño Cilantro Lime Rice - Even Better When Serving Together With Grilled Meat

Potatoes or salad both work great with grilled meat, but I'm all for the rice. Especially when enjoying grilled or roasted meat, let it be steak or kebab, together with rice can be so satisfying. In the case of any meat juice escaping, the rice can also catch all that and turn into even more flavorful grains.

Plain rice on its own is good enough, but this time let's spice it up with some Mexican flair. Adding jalapeño, onion, and tomatoes when cooking the rice. Lastly finish it up with a bright refreshing lime juice. Definitely a wonderful choice when serving chunky grilled meat.

Jalapeño cilantro lime rice - 

Ingredients (about 5 portions)?

• 2 cups basmati rice
• 2 tablespoons light tasting oil
• 1/2 lime
• Some chopped cilantro leaves
• 1 cup chicken stock or some chicken bouillon
• 2 cups hot water
• Some salt (optional)
• Some black pepper (optional)

Sauce:

• 2 tomatoes 
• 1 garlic clove 
• 1/4 red onion 
• 2 jalapeño pepper 
• 1 small bundle cilantro stem part
• 1 lime (juice)

How?

Start with the sauce first. Destem and roughly chop the tomatoes. Peel the garlic clove. Peel and roughly chop the red onion. Destem the jalapeño peppers. 

Roughly chop the stem section of the cilantro. We will need about 1 loosely packed cup of chopped cilantro. If not enough, of course the leafy section is more than welcomed. 

Add all these ingredients to a food processor. Also squeeze in juice of one lime. Blend till smooth.

Use a big pan or a pot, drizzle 2 tablespoons of preferred cooking oil and switch to medium heat. Wait till the oil gets warm then pour in the basmati rice. Use regular measuring cup to measure the rice, not the Asian rice cups.

Start stir-frying the rice till most of the grains turn slightly golden color. It'll take a few minutes.

Pour the blended sauce to the rice. Mix and cook for couple minutes.

Pour in 1 cup of chicken stock plus 2 cups of hot water. If you don't have chicken stock, use 3 cups of hot water instead plus some help from the chicken bouillon. 

Mix and adjust the heat. Put the lid on and let it cook under low heat for 20 minutes. No peeking nor stirring during this time frame. Also don't open the lid.

Once 20 minutes has passed, open the lid and you'll see a circle of tomato pulp on the side. That's a good sign, all the yummy bits are there.

Check the rice and see if it needs to cook longer, otherwise squeeze in half of the lime juice and add some chopped cilantro leaves. Fluffy the rice and give it a quick taste.

I didn't use any, but do add some salt and black pepper if preferred.

The rice is a wee bit spicy, but just the right amount of kick per my taste. If you can't handle too much heat, use one jalapeño instead of two, but you have to use jalapeño no matter what. It'll give a grassy herbal aroma to the grains, which is the key to this recipe.

Other Mexican recipes:

• Caldo de albóndigas (Mexican meatball soup)
• Sopa de estrellitas