©Ashy Macbean 2002.
Greens with potatoes and rice
Like all my recipes, this is more like a set of guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. The finished dish could just as easily be 'greens and potatoes' or 'greens and rice'. It depends what you've got. I used both when I was trying out this recipe prior to writing it up (yes, I do usually do that) but only because I had some left over cooked rice in the fridge and a few odd potatoes - not enough of either to make a pan-load on its own. I've also used left over pasta for this recipe. And what about the greens? Well, almost any edible leaves will do here. Ones that I'm sure will work because I've tried them are; spinach, nettles, wild garlic leaves, beetroot leaves, radish leaves, mustard leaves and spring green cabbage. Nettles are best from late March until the end of April, wild garlic leaves come about a month later. I would imagine you could use a load of other edible wild leaves too.
The quantities don't have to be exact - more or less of anything won't spoil the final dish - and you could vary the seasonings according to what you've got. If you're using wild garlic, you won't need to put a clove of garlic into the mixture - but then you knew that, didn't you?
Ingredients
1 or 2 cups of cooked rice
A couple of potatoes
A large bunch of greens
1 clove of garlic
A few crushed black pepper-corns or a half tsp. of whole black mustard seeds
Quarter of a tsp. of anise seeds
A little peeled and chopped root ginger
Salt
Oil
Peel the potatoes if they need it and then chop
them into 2 cm cubes. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and throw in the potatoes,
salt and spices (crush the garlic clove). Fry for 3 or 4 minutes then add the
greens (chopped or shredded). Turn the heat down, cover and cook for another
10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid, add the rice and fry for
another 3 or 4 minutes. That's it. If you've got any soy-sauce you could
add a dash at the end.