Citrus-Herb Rice Salad

I Am From Here

We used the Perfect Rice (https://cookwithheather.com/I-Am-From-Here-Perfect-Rice/) we made from this book last time to make this fresh, summery rice salad, filled with citrus, herbs, and bonus vegetables.

I think this would work better if we had not refrigerated the rice first; it should be cooled, but probably not much colder than room temperature when you make this salad. It dries out a bit and gets crunchy in the refrigerator, and it's hard to revive that without a thorough reheating.

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:07]: with Heather today we're going to be
[00:08]: making our second recipe from I am from
[00:11]: here by vishwesh bot
[00:14]: um and
[00:16]: we are going to be making a citrus herb
[00:19]: rice salad
[00:21]: um this seems like it'll be a great sort
[00:23]: of Summer recipe but it was something
[00:26]: that we had almost everything on hand
[00:28]: for
[00:29]: almost and it was something I thought my
[00:32]: family would like I love rice
[00:34]: um so we're going to be using the
[00:37]: perfect rice that we made for our first
[00:39]: recipe I'll link that up here
[00:42]: um
[00:43]: and the first thing we're going to do is
[00:45]: make a vinaigrette dressing a citrus
[00:48]: vinaigrette dressing
[00:51]: I spent most of the time on this recipe
[00:55]: was just prepping the ingredients
[00:59]: so everything is is relatively small
[01:03]: minced chopped
[01:05]: Etc but after that it all just gets
[01:08]: mixed together so
[01:10]: the only cooking involved here is the
[01:13]: rice
[01:14]: and toasting some almonds and that's it
[01:17]: so
[01:19]: I have
[01:22]: um some brown sugar already in here just
[01:24]: a small amount of brown sugar and we're
[01:27]: going to add the rice vinegar that I
[01:31]: just measured
[01:33]: and we need some citrus juices all right
[01:36]: I'm gonna have to keep an eye on this
[01:38]: and make sure I get them all correct we
[01:41]: need some fresh orange juice
[01:48]: there we go we need some fresh lemon
[01:52]: juice
[01:58]: and
[01:59]: some fresh lime juice
[02:06]: my lime was not super juicy today
[02:10]: so there we go
[02:13]: and we're just going to whisk this
[02:16]: together I have a really small bowl and
[02:17]: a really small whisk because it's not a
[02:19]: huge amount of dressing so we're going
[02:21]: to whisk this together until the brown
[02:22]: sugar is dissolved
[02:27]: now we're whisking in it's this is
[02:29]: supposed to be canola oil
[02:31]: um I'm using grapeseed oil because
[02:33]: that's sort of the neutral oil I keep on
[02:35]: hand as I say all the time
[02:38]: you can use shallot oil which there's a
[02:43]: recipe in here for crispy fried shallots
[02:45]: which I haven't made yet
[02:47]: um but the leftover oil from that which
[02:49]: I'm sure would impart a great flavor but
[02:52]: I'm supposed to emulsify this whisk
[02:54]: we've done this before with other
[02:56]: vinaigrettes
[02:58]: um
[02:58]: anyway so I'm going to whisk this a lot
[03:05]: totally expect this to
[03:08]: um separate while we do the rest of this
[03:12]: but we're going to just set that aside
[03:14]: I'm going to clean up a little bit move
[03:16]: some things away that I don't need
[03:18]: anymore
[03:18]: [Music]
[03:29]: let's go
[03:32]: all right so here we have the rice it's
[03:35]: been cooked and cooled mine was in the
[03:38]: refrigerator so it's pretty cool but it
[03:39]: doesn't seem to be too
[03:43]: um I don't know crispy sometimes when
[03:47]: you cool rice it or when you put rice in
[03:50]: the refrigerator it gets kind of
[03:52]: uh dried out this was not like that but
[03:56]: uh so hopefully it'll be all okay
[03:60]: um so I've got
[04:02]: slivered almonds that I just toasted dry
[04:04]: in a pan there's no
[04:07]: directions for that it just says toasted
[04:09]: slivered almonds so mine were not
[04:11]: toasted
[04:12]: before so I toasted them so we're going
[04:15]: to put those in here
[04:18]: we have some grated carrot
[04:22]: just grated on the large holes of a box
[04:26]: grater
[04:29]: um
[04:30]: let's see
[04:31]: we have some
[04:33]: minced red onion
[04:44]: we have
[04:45]: um
[04:46]: peeled seeded and diced cucumber that
[04:51]: was something that I had used all of
[04:53]: that I thought I had and I had to go
[04:55]: back out and get some
[04:58]: um but I just chose a sort of normal
[05:00]: cucumber not a an English cucumber just
[05:03]: a standard
[05:05]: American type cucumber the large ones
[05:07]: and you don't need you don't need very
[05:09]: much of any of these vegetables so
[05:11]: you'll have to figure out something to
[05:14]: do with the rest of it
[05:17]: um I have some small diced red or yellow
[05:20]: bell pepper this is red because that's
[05:22]: what I had
[05:25]: um
[05:27]: some chopped fresh okay this is mint and
[05:32]: Dill
[05:34]: so I've got those here
[05:41]: and then this is basil
[05:47]: so like I said this is definitely
[05:50]: something that would be great in the
[05:52]: summer when you have those fresh herbs
[05:54]: more readily available but I got I was
[05:56]: able to get those at the grocery store
[05:58]: so that's not a big deal
[05:60]: um
[06:03]: and then
[06:04]: we have
[06:06]: Citrus zest so all of those juices that
[06:11]: we used for the vinaigrette lemon lime
[06:14]: and
[06:15]: orange we have zest from those
[06:20]: and then we have to put in some salt and
[06:22]: pepper I have a little bit of salt
[06:26]: I use kosher salt
[06:29]: and I've got this
[06:31]: new pepper grinder I'm not going to
[06:34]: measure the pepper I'm just going to
[06:35]: grind until I think it's about enough
[06:38]: [Music]
[06:48]: there we go
[06:50]: and we're going to toss this together
[06:52]: first
[06:54]: before we add the dressing we're going
[06:56]: to get this sort of mixed up
[07:24]: all right
[07:26]: and now we're going to just toss it with
[07:30]: the dressing I'm going to whisk it up a
[07:31]: little bit before I put it in there
[07:37]: [Music]
[07:43]: and toss it up again
[08:04]: there we go
[08:06]: and that is as easy as this salad is
[08:10]: you're supposed to serve this at room
[08:12]: temperature my rice was a little cold
[08:14]: but everything else had been out of the
[08:17]: refrigerator for a long time so should
[08:19]: have been at room temperature
[08:21]: but uh
[08:24]: I think you can let this sit
[08:26]: try and get up get
[08:28]: any big clumps of plain rice or whatever
[08:32]: except anyway uh I'm pretty sure you can
[08:36]: let this sit for a while and it'll be
[08:38]: fine because it's got that
[08:41]: vinaigrette on it so
[08:45]: that is it we will show you what it
[08:47]: looks like when we plate it all up and
[08:49]: tell you what we think in just a minute
[08:52]: [Music]
[09:00]: on this episode of cooking the books
[09:01]: with Heather you watched me make Citrus
[09:03]: herb rice salad from vishwesh Bots I am
[09:07]: from here cookbook
[09:10]: this is really the second recipe we made
[09:12]: although the first recipe was just the
[09:14]: rice which I will link up here we used
[09:16]: his method to cook rice
[09:19]: and I think that it was
[09:22]: not our kind of
[09:26]: salad I don't think we've I've ever had
[09:29]: really a rice salad before and
[09:32]: um
[09:34]: rice when it's cold is a little crunchy
[09:37]: and it was hard to sort of
[09:40]: bring this up to more room temperature
[09:43]: where I'm sure it would be great because
[09:45]: we made it
[09:47]: before
[09:49]: we made we made the rice the day before
[09:51]: and so it was chilled overnight and then
[09:53]: I tried to let it come up to room
[09:54]: temperature before I made everything and
[09:56]: so I think if you're going to make this
[09:58]: you probably want to make the rice and
[09:59]: just let it cool and then make the salad
[10:02]: and then eat it it just doesn't
[10:06]: doesn't do very well from cold because
[10:09]: right cold rice is just
[10:12]: not nice
[10:14]: to eat in my opinion there may be
[10:16]: cultures where they eat it and it's fine
[10:18]: in fact my dad would eat it like cereal
[10:20]: with milk and sugar
[10:24]: and that's okay I've had that before but
[10:27]: in this I didn't I didn't prefer it like
[10:29]: this
[10:30]: um
[10:31]: it was it was not very hard to make it
[10:34]: was uh it had a lot of chopping a lot of
[10:37]: vegetables in it and I think it could be
[10:40]: great I I think I would prefer it with
[10:43]: maybe an orzo sort of more of a pasta
[10:45]: salad a rice shaped pasta salad that
[10:48]: might be a little bit better
[10:51]: for us
[10:53]: um
[10:54]: but
[10:55]: it was good to try just not our thing
[10:58]: but if you try it and you like it or if
[10:60]: you've had something like this please
[11:01]: let me know in the comments down below
[11:03]: I'd love to uh to hear what other people
[11:05]: think of rice salad it's just not a
[11:08]: thing that we do very often around here
[11:11]: so if you enjoyed watching me make this
[11:14]: please give me a thumbs up hit the
[11:16]: Subscribe button share this video with
[11:18]: your friends if you liked it and come
[11:20]: back and watch me make something else
[11:22]: next week foreign