Insalata di riso (rice salad)

You don’t find rice salad often enough. It’s a great way to use up left over cooked rice too. Once again this is not much of a recipe and more like another chop and assemble job. Very simple. Very delicious. It’s great for a barbecue or served with grilled chicken or fish. Try it with my Chicken with store cupboard marinade or Lemon, garlic and herb chicken thighs.

In Italy you can actually buy already prepared veg for a rice salad (see picture below). This is obviously not essential and you can also just use your own variety of veg depending on your taste and what you may have in your fridge.

Ingredients:

1 cup of rice
1 small red onion, chopped (or you could use a bunch of spring onion)
Quarter cucumber, core removed and chopped into small pieces
A handful of sliced olives of your choice
A few pieces of marinated artichoke, cut into bite sized chunks

Half a red or yellow pepper, chopped into pieces the same size as your cucumber
1 small carrot, chopped into pieces the same size as your cucumber

1 or 2 gem lettuce, 1 inch slices

100g of feta cheese

1 teaspoon of capers

1 tablespoon of mushroom antipasti

1 teaspoon of wholegrain mustard
1 tablespoon of good mayo
2 tablespoons of vinaigrette
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Cook the rice according to the instructions and rice through with cold water to cool down
Chop all of the veg into relatively small pieces, remember to scoop or chop out the core of the cucumber or the salad will be too watery
Slice your gem lettuce up, you can use one or 2 depending on how much rice you have and how crunchy you prefer your salad
Add the feta and capers
Mix the mustard, mayo and vinaigrette and them mix through with the rest of salad
Season to taste.

Chop all the ingredients like so: