Cook Me! - Forbidden Rice w/ yogurt, lime, mango & banana.

We post a lot of food pics to Facebook. Yeah, it probably annoys some of you, and we should probably tone it down. But your tears of jealousy feed us too!

A few weekends ago, I had the pleasure of cooking for Ann, her mother, and our friend Karin. I decided to whip up a smoked salmon potato hash with horseradish sauce & fried egg (not pictured). I needed to add some citrus & sweetness to offset the savoriness of horseradish sauce & potato hash. So I riffed off a favorite breakfast dish of mine from Revel: Forbidden Rice with yogurt, mango banana relish & lime zest.

Now, Revel does theirs with puffed rice and kaffir lime yogurt, and it's totally awesome. But puffed rice is actually very hard to do if you don't have the proper equipment. And kaffir limes are fairly difficult to find, even in Seattle. So I did the best I could with what's available.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Forbidden Rice (black rice is super-nutritious, and has a really nice mild nutty flavor; can be found at Whole Foods, etc)
• 1 banana, diced
• 2 mangoes, diced
• 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste (also found in Whole Foods)
• 1 pint of yogurt (vanilla bean or plain are peferable; blend with lime juice and zest for super limey flavor)
• sugar, to taste
• 1 lime, zested (reserve juice if you need more sour to offset the sweetness of banana and mango)
• Serves 4
  

Boil water for rice. 2/1 ratio, per usual. Dump in rice, bring to a boil, and then set to low and let simmer. Here's a little cooking tip from Aragorn: DONT DISTURB THE RICE!Now, I'm pretty sure a giant octopus won't emerge from your boiling rice. But, you'll notice your rice will possess a better quality if you leave it undisturbed.

While your rice cooks, in a small sauce pan, combine your diced bananas, mangoes, sugar, vanilla bean paste and a small amount of water. Cook over medium heat until you get a nice simmer, then lower heat and let the fruit sauce reduce as well. Add more vanilla bean paste until you get the desired vanilla flavor. The natural sugars should be enough, but also feel free to add more sugar if you need to thicken it up.

Once both elements are thoroughly cooked, bowl a half cup of rice, then top with yogurt, and then banana mango relish. Zest lime for flavor and color. Serve.

It's a moderately healthy and ridiculously easy breakfast dish that will impress significant others, in-laws, friends, or late night acquaintances that are mysteriously still at your place in the morning.