An huge array of sparkling distinctive vegetables and culmination is something I've end up acquainted with seeing inside the huge metropolis supermarkets and ethnic grocery shops, but it is something that might have astonished me as a girl developing up in a small northern Ontario city where dinner produce consisted broadly speaking of potatoes, onions, carrots, corn and peas with Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower on occasion making their look at the supper plate.
I like to take benefit of the abundance to be found in my urban center and check produce this is completely new to me. I've determined the delights of bottle gourds, bitter melons, mustard vegetables and plantains this manner, and the exercising adds journey to the kitchen and the eating revel in.
This time round I've added a chayote to the basket and give you a gently spiced white rice dish to serve as a backdrop for it. Pronounced "chi-YOH-tee", the chayote or custard marrow is the fruit of a squash plant local to important America that looks like a inexperienced apple with a large wrinkled pleat tucked in at one quit, with a firm white crispy and juicy flesh like an apple and a slight and slightly sweet taste that resembles the tastes of apples, cucumber and summer time squash. The chayote is widely utilized in Latin America and inside the American South, wherein it's far referred to as a mirliton or merleton. It's extensively utilized once in a while in India wherein it goes under the charming call of "chow chow" and in which it is slight taste makes it an ideal automobile for the feature assertive spicing of Indian food.
Although paired here with cumin, coriander, cloves and cayenne, this chayote rice is in reality pretty moderate and serves as a delicious and palate-soothing accompaniment to a hot and zesty curry. Tender portions of gently cooked chayote upload splendid bursts of crisp, juicy and fresh mild sweetness that make a exquisite assessment in flavor and texture to the soft buttery rice and astringent spices. This is in reality a cute dish to add to any Indian meal, and I quite plan to apply chayote once more quickly ? In all likelihood simply simmered in a little milk or cream with cinnamon and nutmeg for a simple palate-cleaning dessert.
The recipe below includes instructions for starting a chayote and doing away with its single seed. I have to observe that it is considered by means of some people desirable to peel a chayote with kitchen gloves or under walking water to keep away from an traumatic stickiness from the uncooked vegetable (a stickiness that disappears while cooked), but I become no longer stricken myself. When shopping for a chayote, search for one this is firm but now not too tough and with an unblemished skin.
Other Indian side rice dishes you will enjoy:
Yellow Lemon Rice with Fried Cashews
Tamarind and Coconut Pulao Rice
Sweet and Spicy Rice
Green Tea & Curry Rice