Princess Rice Recipe

This recipe came about as a happy accident. Both of my girls are in love with our family’s traditional-style Lebanese grape leaves stuffed with meat and rice. But stuffing and rolling all of those grape leaves takes time, something I don’t normally have on a busy weeknight. So instead, I created this simplified version to deliver the same flavor and goodness without all of the work. My girls first dubbed it grape-leaf rice, but I noticed they cleaned their plates a bit more when I started calling it princess rice. Round this out with a Greek salad containing hunky chunks of feta and olives and you’ve got a healthy weeknight meal in no time.

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Serves 4

Total time: 1 hour (25 minutes active time)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 pound frozen 80/20 ground beef, or fresh ground beef
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh-cracked black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1½ cups basmati rice
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 lemon, juiced
• ¼ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
• ¼ cup toasted pine nuts

Directions

Courtesy: Harper Collins Publishers

Heat a large stainless-steel skillet over medium-high heat. Add the butter and cook until it foams, about 30 seconds. Next, add the block of beef and allow to sear for a few minutes. Flip the block over and, using a wooden spoon, scrape the cooked portions of beef off of the block to reveal the frozen interior. Continue flipping, searing, and scraping in this method until all of the meat is browned and cooked through, 12 to 15 minutes. Note: If using fresh ground beef, simply brown the beef in the skillet, breaking up and stirring the beef on occasion, for 6 to 8 minutes.

Add the salt, black pepper, cinnamon, allspice, red pepper, and garlic to the beef and stir to incorporate. Next, add the rice, and toast the rice for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring in the beef mixture to coat the rice in the drippings. Add the stock and lemon juice, stir to incorporate, and allow the mixture to come to a medium simmer. Cover the skillet, reduce the heat to low, and gently cook the rice for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, keeping the skillet covered, and set aside for 10 minutes. Remove the cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Transfer the rice to a serving platter and sprinkle with the parsley and pine nuts. Serve.

Copyright 2023 by Matt Moore. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers