Rosie Mackean's cucumber rice with fudgy eggs offers a playful yet comforting twist on weeknight cooking by combining hot and cold elements. The dish features hot rice, hot butter, cold cucumber sauce, hot egg, and cold pickles, creating a refreshing contrast that is both delicious and cooling.
A Hot-Cold Combination That Refreshes
When cooking on a weeknight, it's easy to forget that experimenting with temperature is as important as flavour. Hot things combined with very cold things are exceptionally refreshing in the summer, and also make the mundane more exciting and playful. This dish might sound a bit weird, but it promises to be delicious, comforting, and cooling.
Ingredients and Preparation
The recipe serves two and requires 10 minutes of prep and 30 minutes of cooking. Key ingredients include 200g Japanese short-grain rice, two medium eggs, 40g soft salted butter, three spring onions, and for the pickles: 200g baby cucumbers, flaky sea salt, caster sugar, white-wine vinegar, olive oil, fresh dill, and dried mint. The cucumber sauce calls for one large cucumber, creme fraiche, flaky salt, a garlic clove, and an ice cube.
Start with the pickles by slicing the cucumber into rounds, tossing with salt, and pouring a mixture of just-boiled water, sugar, and vinegar over them. Wash the rice until the water runs clear, then cook it in a saucepan with 250ml cold water and a pinch of salt, bringing to a boil, then simmering covered for eight minutes and resting for 10 minutes.
Assembling the Dish
Blend the peeled and deseeded cucumber with creme fraiche, salt, and garlic until smooth, then chill with an ice cube. Cook the eggs in boiling water for seven minutes and cool them before peeling. Dress the pickled cucumbers with olive oil, dill, and dried mint. Serve by piling rice into bowls, dotting with butter, pouring the cucumber sauce around, and topping with pickles, halved eggs, and spring onion, with salt and pepper to taste.
The recipe is from Rosie Mackean's book 'Good Time Cooking: Show-Stopping Menus for Easy Entertaining', published by Pavilion Books at £26, available for £23.40 via guardianbookshop.com.
