Creamy Vegetarian Spanish style Rice

Over this week, I felt very bored of cooking the usual Indian meals and wanted to try something different. So I decided to make Mexican rice and stared looking for some veggie recipes. I found this simple veggie recipe and I started picking out bell peppers, corn, green peas and onion/tomatoes, for the dish. That is when my eyes fell on the little leftover cream, from the other day, that I had stashed away in the fridge after making butter. Now I almost felt an urgent need to put that to use before it went bad.

So change of plans… no more Mexican rice but what then? Back to some creamy Indian dish? Humm no, I wanted to make something new but what kind of rice could I make with cream other than Indian. So I started cutting the veggies aimlessly hoping for that eureka moment.

I heated the pan and started adding oil and butter. Then started to look for my spices and I found the chilli lime seasoning & some garlic powder. I added these and some turmeric to the hot oil and it smelled awesome. Then went the onion followed by potatoes, capsicum, peas and corn. I also added some smoked paprika to this mix along with salt. The aroma was just getting better and better. Now the color of the veggie mix reminded me of Spanish rice also known as paella.

I went ahead and added the cream to the vegetable mix and let it all cook well, took about 7-8 minutes. I added a little water as the cream is thick and the veggies needed some more water to cook down. Once it was well done I added the cooked rice and mixed it till all of the rice was coated with the mixture, then garnished with some dry oregano leaves and fresh coriander leaves. There it was… After all I ended up making the close cousin of Mexican Rice. Small world it is 😁.

I had read somewhere that Mexican and Spanish rice are mistaken to be the same but actually they are slightly different in how they are made. Spanish rice is more yellow due to the addition of saffron or sometimes turmeric where as the Mexican rice is more heavy on tomato and cumin flavors. So now this dish got a name to it LOL….I decided to call it a Creamy Spanish style Rice.

This is in no way authentic Spanish rice, but has the soul of one. This Spanish style rice is packed with delicious spices and vegetables. Traditional paellas come in many forms, but what is created in your kitchen to your liking, it tastes the best.

Hubby and Kids just loved the version so much that they wanted the same meal the next day. I was super thrilled and promised to make it again next week. Change of ingredients and flavors and good old rice was completely transformed. Now that was lunch done right don’t you think?

Does the dish require cooked rice and cream ?

No. I had some leftover rice so I decided to use it this way. If you are cooking everything from scratch, you can simply add the rice to the sautéed vegetable mix and pressure cook or cook over the stove top. Add 1:1 – rice:water or based on the rice you are using. It is ok for the rice to be a bit mushy.

Also Cream is not a must. Substitute with your preferred type of dairy – almond milk or whole milk or you can choose to completely skip it.

What other Veggies can be used?

Any veggies of choice like asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and even kidney beans or garbanzo beans can be used in the dish. I would pre cook the beans and use more spices if I use the lentils so it flavors the beans well.

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