Seriously, it’s not (and never) easy to prepare dinner for the family after a day of work ( + rushing home and picking up the kids) – who can agree this with me?
I am in quite a fortunate situation already because my employer has a flexible hour scheme which allows me to start my day early and end half an hour earlier than the official end time. In addition, my hubby and parents-in-law will help to pick up the children from the childcare / student-care most of the days. And yet, I still feel the stress and difficulty as much as most working mothers who want to prepare a proper dinner for the family.
This Tomato Rice is definitely a saver for a working mother like me, and cooking this allows my family to have our dinner by 6.45pm. The “Tomato Rice Craze” started in October 2014 in Singapore after Ochikeron posted a video in her You Tube channel. The video is embedded in the end of this post.
- 2 cups uncooked rice (I used Korean rice)
- 2 medium size tomatoes - choose the really orange/red ones
- ¾ TSP salt
- ¼ TSP pepper
- 4 slices of salted butter
- Handful of corn nibbles (I used frozen ones)
- 2 slices of ham or hot dogs
- Half a carrot
- Spring onion (for garnishing)
- Wash rice as per usual and add water you normally use for 2 cups of rice.
- Remove 8 TPSP of water from the rice pot (as the tomato and ingredients will emit water during the cooking process)
- Add salt and pepper, mix well.
- Remove the top and bottom of the tomato by slicing them off. I cut the tomatoes to quarters.
- Place the tomatoes in the centre of the rice pot.
- Wash and drain the frozen corn nibbles
- Remove the carrot skin and dice it.
- Cut the ham to small pieces or dice the hotdog
- Place the corn nibbles, carrot, ham/hotdog & butter slices in the rice pot, at the side surrounding the tomatoes.
- Place the pot into the rice cooker and start cooking it.
- When it's ready to serve, toss the rice lightly to mix the items together.
Little Extra notes from my personal observation / experience / preference:
- Instead of putting the tomatoes as a whole in the rice pot, I cut them into quarters. The reason? The juice from the hot tomato splatted on me when I tried to mix the rice on my first try with whole tomato. Yah, I am THAT careless. 🙁 So by cutting them into quarters, there’s no “tomato-explosion” anymore!
- I took out 8 TBSP of water instead of 6 because I like rice to be “harder” then to be mushy. However, the rice is still a little mushy if we eat it once the rice is cooked. If the intent is to leave the rice warm in the cooker for sometime (1-2 hours) before eating, 6 TBSP of water removed should be just right.
- I used salted butter instead of olive oil because we like the fragrance. Let’s not think too much for this because tomato rice already sound like a very healthy dinner! :p
- The cook time very much depends on your rice cooker. My rice cooker is Zojirushi and it usually takes 45 minutes to cook the rice. I can finish a lot of other chores while waiting for the rice to cook and hence I said that this is a saver for working moms.
This one-pot rice is versatile and you can add different ingredients to make different type of tomato rice. Some other suggested ingredients are capsicums, crab-stick, bacon, peas, fresh pieces of chicken and many others! You can also add sides to this rice such as teriyaki salmon, cod fish or even baked chicken karaage – which I have done in the photo shown above.
Kudos to easy and one-pot meals!