Recipe: Rice with Tomatoes, Avocado & Black Olive

Rice
with Tomatoes, Avocado & Black Olive

Serves 4

Rice with Tomatoes, Avocado & Black Olive Serve this pretty mixture of white rice studded with vibrant green, pale green, black and red either hot or cold. It goes very well with seafood; here it has been served with fresh sardines and lemon wedges.

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 plump garlic cloves, crushed
1-1/8 cups basmati rice
2 cups vegetable stock
1 well-flavored tomato, seeded and diced
2 large green onions,
including some green, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup black olives, pitted
1 small avocado, pitted, peeled and diced

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the rice and stir for 2 minutes, then add the stock and bring to a boil. Stir the rice, then cover the pan and simmer very gently, without lifting the lid, for about 12 minutes, or until the rice is just tender.

2. Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a frying pan. Add the tomato, green onions, parsley and salt and pepper and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the olives and avocado.

3. Fluff up the rice with a fork and carefully stir in the tomato mixture.

The Moroccan Collection:
Traditional Flavors from Northern Africa
By Hilaire Walden
Soma Books, 1998
Hardback, $25.00
144 pages with color photos
ISBN: 1-57979-017-9
Recipe Reprinted by permission.