Alphabetic Recipes Y — Yellow Rice with Raisins

Today we have a classic Southern African recipe for a traditional accompaniment of rice coloured with turmeric, slightly sweetened with sugar and mixed with raisins that is mainly associated with South African cuisine, but which is made throughout southern Africa.

Today's is the twenty-eighth entry of my new series of Alphabetic recipes. Each day for the next month and more, I will be adding a new recipe linked to a different letter of the alphabet. As I collect recipes from all over the globe, and have lots of Welsh recipes, I am going to use a blend of the Welsh and English alphabets:

A | B | C | D | E | F | Ff | G | H | I | J | K | L | Ll | M | N | O | P | Q | R | Rh | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

so there will be 30 entries in total. As today is the twenty-eighth day in this series I am providing a recipe starting with the letter 'Y'. This is a traditional recipe from Southern Africa for a classic accompaniment of rice coloured with turmeric and blended with raisins before serving.

Yellow Rice with Raisins Recipe

This is a traditional Southern African recipe for a classic dish of rice cooked with raisins in a turmeric sauce sweetened with yellow sugar.

Ingredients:


250ml (1 cup) rice
1l (4 cups) boiling water
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp turmeric
125g (1/4 lb) seedless raisins
2 tbsp yellow sugar
1 tbsp butter

Method:

Wash the rice thoroughly (until the water is no longer clouded with starch) then set aside to drain in a colander. Bring the water to a boil in a large pan, stir in the rice along with the salt and turmeric.

Cook for 20 minutes at a brisk boil then drain the rice and mix with the raisins and cinnamon. Add to a steamer and steam over a pan of boiling water for 60 minutes. At this time remove the cinnamon stick.

Stir in the butter and sugar then turn into a warmed serving dish.

Traditionally this is served with bobotie.

The recipe presented here is based, with permission, on the Celtnet Yellow Rice with Raisins recipe.

This recipe is brought to you in conjunction with the Celtnet Guide to Recipes Beginning with 'Y'.

For more African Recipes, see the Celtnet Recipes Blog African Recipes page.