Food Recipes: How to prepare Turmeric Rice (Yellow Rice)

Turmeric Rice is one of the most basic yet delicious rice recipes to prepare in your kitchen. There's no tomato stew to make in this recipe so what is stopping you from preparing this rice dish?

Ingredients
•    Long grain parboiled rice
•    2 teaspoons turmeric powder
•    1 teaspoon Nigerian curry powder
•    1 teaspoon black pepper powder
•    1 small red onion
•    2-3 cups chicken stock
•    A small quantity of red pepper
•    A handful green peas
•    Salt (to taste)


Use enough turmeric powder to colour the rice. Please note that the rice may not look so yellow when you add the parboiled rice to the turmeric mix in the pot but when the rice is done, it will become very yellow.
Turmeric is known as yellow ginger in Nigeria. It is known as ajo or ata ile pupa in Yoruba and kurkum in Hausa. You can buy turmeric powder in big supermarkets eg Shoprite in Nigeria.

If you want to prepare this with Fried Chicken or Grilled Chicken, cook the chicken with thyme, onions, stock cubes and whatever else you use to season your chicken. Then add the water from cooking that chicken (chicken stock) to the rice during Step 1 in the cooking directions.
 If you are in Nigeria, red bell peppers are available in big foreign supermarkets. Use tatashe as alternative to the red pepper. The quantity of red pepper you need is so small

Tips Before cooking Turmeric Rice or Yellow Rice
1.    Rinse and cut the red onions into small pieces.
2.    Rinse, remove the seeds and cut the red pepper into small pieces.
3.    Prepare the chicken you will serve it with. You can serve with Peppered Chicken or Onion Baked Chicken.
4.    Parboil the long grain rice. For the quantity of rice stated above, add to boiling water, stir, cover the pot and once it boils again, leave to boil for 10 minutes or till you can easily cut the grain of rice with your finger nails.

How to Prepare
1.    Pour the chicken stock into a sizeable pot.
2.    Add the turmeric powder, Nigerian curry powder and black pepper.
3.    Cover and cook till it boils.
4.    Add the parboiled rice, stir and make sure that the liquid in the pot is at the same level as the rice. If not, top it up.
5.    Taste for salt and add some if necessary. Stir, cover again and start cooking on medium heat.
6.    If you parboiled the rice correctly as described above, the rice should be done by the time the water dries up. Taste to confirm. If not, you will need to add more water and reduce the heat to prevent burning. Continue cooking.
7.    When you can no longer see the water in the rice, add the diced red pepper, onions and green peas. Stir only the top of the rice, cover and continue cooking.
8.    The rice is done when all the water dries up.
9.    Stir with a spatula till the vegetables and the rice are well combined.
10.    That's it!

For meal, serve with Peppered Chicken or Onion Baked Chicken. For side dishes, serve with Fried Plantain, Nigerian Moi Moi, Nigerian Salad or Coleslaw.

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