Whole Tomato One Pot Meal

This is a one pot rice recipe that you can customize to your heart’s desire, the only exception is that you must always start with a few basic ingredients. This recipe works, it’s really delicious and a time saver. You basically throw everything in the rice cooker, or pot if you cook rice in pot, and your meal is ready when your rice is cooked. I have tried this recipe three times now and each time with a different slant of ingredients and it always comes out beautifully. It’s sort of like a stone soup, if you’ve heard of that story. Except it’s with a tomato. Except it’s tasty even with just a tomato.

When I decided to give this recipe a try, I was tired and hungry after work, there wasn’t much groceries left in the fridge and I didn’t have the energy to get groceries or cook P and I proper dinner. Desperation leads to openness in trying new things I guess, so I eyed that lovely organic red tomato sitting on my kitchen island. Boy am I glad I gave this recipe a whirl.

My only regret? Not taking more pictures.

Whole Tomato One Pot Meal

The basics:

• 2 cups rice
• Enough water for 2 cups of rice, I just follow the line on my rice cooker.
• 1 largish red and ripened tomato, make sure you pick the ripest and remove the stem
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1-2 teaspoon salt

Optional but delicious additions – this is what I added for this recipe:

• 4 (vegetarian) bacon slices, fried till crisp and crushed or Chinese bbq/roasted pork
• 2 mushrooms of any kind or more, diced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 small carrot, sliced
• 1 stick of celery, sliced
• Chinese preserved vegetables or kimchi, for flavour and crunch
• Wood ear mushrooms, rehydrated and cut into large even chunks for texture
• Chili oil for topping
• 1 red radish, julienned for garnish and crunch
• Parsley for garnish

Note: You can pretty much add anything you want but I would stay away from greens or vegetables that will turn brown if not cooked quickly. Otherwise, all is fair game.

Method:

1. Put rice in rice cooker or pot, stick the tomato stem side down into the rice and then everything else in the rice cooker. Seriously. It’s all you need to do.
2. Wait for it to cook.
3. Once cooked start stirring the tomato into the rice first and incorporate everything well.
4. Add some chili oil and garnish with radish and parsley.
5. Eat.

Trust me on this, guys.

This recipe can be completely vegetarian/vegan or it can be a carnivore’s dream – it’s up to you, but always start with a ripe red tomato.