Cooking Without Salt
Salt is a great taste manipulator. It's a real lazy way of improving bland tastes. If something is by nature bland (like grains that have been sitting around for months) add salt.
Research shows that the use of salt is a mechanical habit. 50% of people just pour it onto, or in, their food without first tasting the food to check if it needs salt. Then there's the rest of us who over-dose on salt because we eat breakfast cereals and convenience food.
Here's a way to do a popular staple without using salt. The coconut and onions give it flavour, as do a few aromatic spices.
You need:
400 grams Basmati rice
6 whole cloves
6 whole cardamom pods
1" stick of cinnamon
1 tsp ground All Spice
1 small onion very finely diced
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 tbs coconut oil or a liquid oil (olive is permissible as this meal cooks quickly)
Boiling water
Wash and soak the rice at least two hours before using. Into a medium sized pan and over a medium to high heat put the cloves, cinnamon, all spice and cardamom and briefly heat, until you can smell the aroma. Add the oil and then the finely diced onion and turn for a couple of minutes. Make sure the onions remain translucent.
Now drain the rice and add it to the pan. Stir quickly keeping the rice from sticking.
Take a small sieve. Put the coconut into the sieve and pour the water through the sieve into the pan. Put in enough water so that the rice is fully covered but only just (maybe a centimeter or two of water above the top of the rice. Put a lid on the pan and turn down the heat. Cook for ten minutes.
When you take the lid off the spices will have risen to the top. Use a slotted spoon to take them out.
| < Eating Naturally | Taking on Junk Food > |