Rice is a staple in our home. I have no less than four varieties of rice (basmati-white, basmati-brown, sushi-white and wild) sitting in beautiful, air-tight glass jars on my counter top at any given moment. Like most parents we introduced our daughter to solid food by adding rice cereal to her bottle. Once she mastered purees, she graduated to "regular" plain rice. Now she's two and we always have a tub of some sort of rice concoction sitting in the fridge ready to be reheated and tossed with something to make a quick meal. For example, if you have frozen peas and steamed chopped carrots, just toss them into 1-2 cups of cooked rice and snap, you have festive "carnival" rice as a base that can be eaten as-is or mixed into a scrambled egg. I make "instant soup" with 1/4-1/2 cup of vegetable or chicken broth, a 1/4 cup of carnival rice and a few spoonfuls of shredded silken tofu. You wouldn't believe something so easy could be so satisfying.
A sassy lass I know in New Hampshire recently shared with me that her 15 month-old was literally licking her plate clean after a coconut rice lunch. Since I'm always on the look-out for a delicious rice, I asked her to share her secret. Ms. Sassy adapted the original recipe from Coastal Living magazine, then I tweaked it and vetted it through Bettina RD for nutritional input. Of course, you may adapt this yourself and eliminate mango or pistachios, but keep in mind that these ingredients add nutritional benefits like mango's vitamin C, beta carotene, and potassium and pistachios' lutein, zeaxanthin, B vitamins, fiber, copper and magnesium.
Coconut milk puts the coconut in coconut rice. You may be surprised to learn that a 14 oz can of coconut milk contains about 84g of fat. Recommended total fat intake for a 1-3 year olds is 30-40g/day (25-35g/day for a 4-8 yo). However, research is inconclusive right now on what the appropriate saturated fat intake levels are for babies, so use your own judgement here and if in doubt (or if you plan to snarf some of this up yourself and find the fat content over the top), substitute with low-fat coconut milk. If you decide to go full-on full-fat, don't panic, this recipe yields seven cups of rice, which translates into 14 servings for baby, assuming that you dole our a 1/2 cup per serving, which means each serving contains about 6g of fat.
If baby (or anyone in your family for that matter) has a tummy troubles, coconut rice may help as it fits into the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apple sauce, toast). On top of that, coconut fat is often used to help resolve digestive issues since it has some easy-to-digest medium chain fatty acids. Let's go back to that can of coconut milk again. Of the 84g of fat in the entire can of full-fat coconut milk, 75g of that is saturated fat, and of that saturated fat, 50% of it is lauric acid (12:0), a medium chain fatty acid (MCFA) which is easily digested. Lauric acid may also have a positive impact on immune function.
Equipment
- Sauce pan with tight-fitting lid
- Wooden spoon
- Coffee grinder or blender (to crush the pistachios)
- OXO mango slicer -- you don't have to have one, but it sure makes cutting mango away from the seed a lot easier and I'm convinced that you end up with more mango too.
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 14 oz. can of coconut milk
- 2 cups of brown basmati rice (of course you can use white rice instead. Jasmine rice works great too.)
- 1 cup diced mango
- 1/2 cup chopped and toasted pistachios
- 1/4 shredded coconut (just a bonus if you have it)
Instructions
- Stir all broth and coconut milk together in the saucepan while the burner is on med/high.
- Stir 2 cups of rice into the liquid.
- Cover wait until you see steam escaping from the pot, then turn the heat down to simmer or melt.
- Leave pot covered and allow to cook on the lowest temperature for 45-50 minutes. All of the liquid should be absorbed and the rice should be tender.
- Remove from heat and allow to stand for 10-15 minutes.
- Remove the lid, fluff with fork and mix in mangoes, pistachios and shredded coconut.
- Spoon out 1/2 cup servings and get ready for clean plates!
It is so easy to make rice but it takes time which is why I keep a covered tub of prepared rice in the fridge at all times. If seven cups of rice seems like too much rice to store, you can freeze it (I learned this nifty trick from that clever little minx Nigella Lawson). Just be sure to freeze your rice in small portions so that it is easy to thaw and use when you are ready.
Posted via email from citybaby
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