Easy & Quick Meal – Tomato Rice

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.

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Tomato Rice
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Ingredients
  • 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)
Instructions
  1. Wash rice as per usual and add water you normally use for 2 cups of rice.
  2. Remove 8 TPSP of water from the rice pot (as the tomato and ingredients will emit water during the cooking process)
  3. Add salt and pepper, mix well.
  4. Remove the top and bottom of the tomato by slicing them off. I cut the tomatoes to quarters.
  5. Place the tomatoes in the centre of the rice pot.
  6. Wash and drain the frozen corn nibbles
  7. Remove the carrot skin and dice it.
  8. Cut the ham to small pieces or dice the hotdog
  9. Place the corn nibbles, carrot, ham/hotdog & butter slices in the rice pot, at the side surrounding the tomatoes.
  10. Place the pot into the rice cooker and start cooking it.
  11. When it's ready to serve, toss the rice lightly to mix the items together.

Little Extra notes from my personal observation / experience / preference:

  1. 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!
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. 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!

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