hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with confetti rice salad that's
right we're doing a delicious easy and beautiful summer side salad inspired by
everybody's favorite tiny pieces of colored paper and just like actual
confetti falling on people makes any occasion seem more festive this
delicious dish will do the exact same thing for your next cookout or picnic
plus with this stuff there's a much better chance it does not get stuck in
your hair unless of course you're seated next to me but anyway let's go ahead and
get started and if you want to make a perfect rice salad the first thing we
have to do is make some perfect rice and to do that we will add a couple cups of
long grain white rice to this casserole dish and then to that we will add some
salt as well as a couple tablespoons of olive oil or if you want melted butter
for this procedure they will work the same and then what we'll do is get in
there with a freakishly small wooden spoon and stir this until we're sure
every single grain of rice is coated with that oil and by the way in the
business this is referred to as the pilaf method and it is by far the
easiest and most foolproof method of cooking rice there is so if you're one
of these people that cannot make a decent pot of rice this is the method
for you and then what we'll do as soon as our rice has been thoroughly
lubricated is pouring exactly three cups of boiling water or any boiling liquid
by the way or if you wanted to use chicken broth for this or vegetable
broth go ahead and then once that's in will very carefully give it the old
shake a shaker just to make sure all that rice is settled evenly at which
point we will cover this very carefully but very tightly with foil okay so take
your time and make sure you get a nice seal and once we do that is now ready to
transfer into the center of a 350 degree oven for exactly 35 minutes at which
point we can go ahead and pull it out and then do absolutely nothing for 10
minutes all right just let it sit there covered and that residual heat inside is
going to finish cooking the rice perfectly so no peeking please and then
what we'll do after exactly 10 minutes is carefully unwrap it and proceed to
give it the old fork and fluff and the first part of that is simply going
underneath with your fork and basically turning everything over which is going
to release most of the heat and then what we'll do when that's all
sort of been turned over and broken up is switch to working it with the tip of
the fork until pretty much any and all large clumps have disappeared and if
everything goes according to plan once we're done we should have perfectly
fluffy rice where pretty much every grain is separate but there's still
enough starchiness on the surface where if we press some with our fingers that
would stick together in a clump so this really is absolutely perfect and even if
you never make a rye salad in your life you really should remember this
technique the next time you want perfect rice and then all we need to do before
we can use this in our salad is let it cool down to almost room temperature all
right we don't want it hot but just barely warm is fine and while we're
waiting for that to cool of course we can go ahead and prep our vegetables and
almost all of mine are going to be raw except for some green beans which we
will briefly blanch and then slice as well as some carrots which I'm going to
cut into some thin sticks before we cook them and we will start by trimming off
those tops and of course since we're doing a confetti salad we want things
really small and geometrically speaking the smaller we make our sticks the
smaller our dice will be and right here you can see some actual real-life chef
indecision as I was like should I cut those again yeah no maybe yeah now in
case you care actually did go back and cut those in half but anyway we'll go
ahead and prep our raw veggies for blanching which as usual will do in some
boiling water that's been well salted has been very well salted and once that
is boiling we'll go ahead and add our veggies and cook those for just two to
three minutes so really we're not actually cooking these we are just
taking off that slightly bitter Rodge and then what we'll do after about two
and a half minutes is transfer those into some cold water which will slow
down all those molecules and prevent any further cooking and if you're thinking I
would have done this step first and then use this boiling vegetable water for my
rice that is a pretty good thought to have and I probably should have had that
thought too but anyway after we let those veggies sit in the cold water for
a few minutes we'll go ahead and drain those at which point they are ready to
dice up and as I mention because we're calling this confetti salad we want to
slice these nice and small and as I was doing this I was thinking to myself
you know who always complains about how hard and time-consuming it is to diced
vegetables people that don't cook and actually never do this and the people
you never hear complain about this kind of thing are the people that cook a lot
and realize this is way faster and easier than people think and of course
the more often you do it the faster and easier it gets so not only is this a
beautiful and delicious salad it's also a great excuse to practice some of those
knife skills so that hopefully you can understand what I was just talking about
it really is not that hard but anyway once our veggies are prepped and our
rice is cooled down we can transfer that into a large mixing bowl and add the
rest of the ingredients which for me will be some green peas that I freshly
thawed along with our recently diced carrots and beans and then I went with
two different kinds of onions some thinly sliced green onions as well as
some finely diced red onions and then we will finish up with a whole bunch of
sweet red and orange bell pepper although if you wanted somehow pepper
would work as well and that's it we'll go ahead and season this up with a
generous amount of salt as well as a little bit of pepper cayenne to be exact
and then as far as the dressing goes I'm just gonna go with some sherry vinegar
as well as some relatively mild and buttery olive oil and then once that's
in we'll go ahead and give this a very thorough mixing and I should mention
what we just added there's only roughly two-thirds of the
amount of oil and vinegar we're gonna put in okay what I like to do is toss it
with this much now and then let it sit in the fridge soaking all that in and
then we'll go ahead and add the rest of the dressing before we serve it so
that's my system if you want to go ahead and add the entire amount be my guest
I mean you are after all the Lawrence Ferlinghetti of this beautiful rice
confetti but I really think adding some now and some later is the best way to go
and that's it once we have that all mixed up we'll go ahead and cover with
some plastic and then let it sit in the fridge for anywhere between four hours
or an entire day and that's gonna give our rice plenty of time to soak in all
that deliciousness and then four hours to a day later we'll go ahead and pull
it out and pull off the plastic and go in for a taste which we want to do right
in the middle all the way to the bottom and at this point it almost always needs
some more salt so I toss them in as well as we will add the rest of our oil in
vinegar and as I said I'm using sherry vinegar but if you wanted something a
little sweeter rice vinegar is also fantastic in this and then last but not
least I like to finish this off with some fresh herbs in particular some
freshly chopped dill as well as some Italian parsley and that's it we'll go
ahead and mix all this together and then go in from the last official final taste
and do not be afraid to add even a little more salt and or dressing right
the only way to screw this salad up would be to under sult it or under dress
it alright the only thing that should be underdressed at a cookout is you so we
will give that a final check and then transfer it into maybe a little nicer
Bowl and possibly top it with a few sliced green onions and that's it our
confetti rice salad is done and ready to enjoy and for a starch-based salad this
is surprisingly light which reminds me I was pretty generous with the veggies but
you could easily put in twice as much or cut the amount of rice in half and
actually have something that's more of a vegetable salad and if you wanted to
make this even harder you could add things like some fresh
corn kernels or even some drained and rinsed black beans in one tip here don't
be afraid to put this out on the table ahead of time since I think it actually
has a better taste and texture if it warms up a little bit and if you happen
to be wondering why I keep fixing those holes I make when I take a bite that's
in case somebody walks in and we don't want them to know we've been eating out
of the bowl check it out the perfect crime but anyway that's it what we're
calling confetti rice salad don't get me wrong I love potato salad and macaroni
salad in fact if someone handed me a cheeseburger once in a while I could
pretty much live on those but every once in a while I do crave a change of pace
from those typical summer side salads and this is one of my favorites which is
why I really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to food vs. comm for
all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual
and as always enjoy
you