5 Easy Rice Dishes That Give New Life to Leftovers

I'm Chris Morocco

here in the BA Test Kitchen,

and today we're talking about rice -

the kind of leftover rice

you probably have in your fridge right now.

Cooked cooled rice -

every dish's best friend.

It is untapped potential.

You can take it anywhere.

Whatever you do, don't throw it out.

[energetic music]

[percussive music]

So, making rotisserie chicken congee.

Congee goes by other names,

you know, depending on the cuisine.

It's sometimes known as juk, etc.

Just a rice-based porridge.

In the theme of starting with the leftover rice,

let's use a rotisserie chicken

to its fullest potential.

So first things first,

a little aromatic base

just to get this broth on its way.

Scallion, just nice sections.

We don't need perfectly even fine bits.

Slicing our ginger

and then garlic.

Alright, last thing to do

before we can start cooking

is take apart this chicken.

I love rotisserie chicken.

It's overcooked chicken in, like, the best possible way.

This is very firm,

but that meat is tender.

It comes right off the bone.

We're gonna throw the meat

into the porridge itself.

The skin,

like, that's not stuff that's really gonna come back,

but for the broth,

it's really, really good.

Little neutral oil,

just so we can sweat down these aromatics.

Moderate heat.

By softening them slightly in oil,

I'm extracting some of their flavor.

And I really want a very modest amount of water.

I want the chicken to fit below the surface

but I don't want to have to reduce this stock down later.

It's been about 20 minutes.

As you can see,

we were able to extract a lot

from those chicken bones and skin.

It's heavily seasoned to begin with.

This broth is pretty much seasoned and ready to go.

So I'm just straining all those solids out of the broth.

So we can bring this right back over to the stove

with our rice

and we can get this congee cooking.

So by starting with cooked rice,

probably take 15, maybe 20 minutes

to get it to a nice porridge-y consistency.

Oh, yeah.

We're kind of starting to stick to the bottom of the pot,

which tells me it's getting nice and thick.

Oh, it's so good.

It's just kind of the ultimate comfort food.

It's like a warm hug for your mouth.

I don't even know that I need all of this.

Stir it in there.

Just let it warm through.

As it's sitting,

it's kind of setting up,

and I just want a little bit more fluidity to it.

Beautiful.

So I'm putting my scallion and my cilantro on.

Just doing a drizzle of toasted sesame oil.

I like putting it on raw.

It really preserves the aromatics of the sesame.

I've got chili crisp.

Just adds a little pop of texture.

Adds a pop of heat.

And then a little finishing dose of soy.

The soy is obviously giving you

an additional layer of seasoning.

Some toasted sesame seed.

There it is.

Oh my god.

Rotisserie chicken congee.

It's looking good.

Oh my god.

I mean,

it's really good.

It's really good.

Here.

Eat that.

Oh.

I just love the degree

to which we are able to transform a rotisserie chicken,

leftover rice,

into something that feels like it should have taken hours.

[percussive music]

So I'm gonna be making golden fried rice.

This version is gonna be influenced

by Lucas Sin's golden fried rice,

which I had the pleasure of testing a few years ago

when it ran in BA.

It takes the rice

and coats it completely

with just egg yolk,

so you get literally golden fried rice.

I'm kind of looking in the direction of South Asia

and sort of incorporating a tadka aromatic spice base

with the golden fried rice technique

to arrive at something that,

I don't know, it's gonna be an adventure,

but it made sense at the time that, you know, I pitched it.

So here we go.

Garlic, ginger, scallion.

It's relatively fast to prep

and then you are able to cook it in seconds.

About half that scallion for the aromatic mixture.

Some of it I'm just holding on the side

for serving.

We're incorporating the egg yolk

into the rice mixture

and the egg whites are being cooked separately.

So I'm just seasoning the white

and I'm throwing a little bit of oil in there

just so that it cooks up just a little bit softer.

There's no substitute here

for just working this mixture around by hand.

Break those clumps up.

Coat every single grain

in egg yolk.

I just want this pan to be pretty damn hot

before I scramble the whites.

Set them aside.

Just wanna get it in and get it out.

So next step is toasting the spices in ghee.

I don't want quite such insane heat,

because I wanna be mindful

of toasting the spices

but not burning them.

I am going to make a tadka base

which is this blend of spices

that are bloomed in a hot fat.

You can see the mustard seeds popping.

That's a good sign.

Now I'm gonna do chili flake,

a little bit of turmeric.

Turn the heat up

and in we go.

[food sizzling]

We wanna bring the rice back to a place

of being crispy on the outside

but still kind of chewy

and a little bit soft on the inside.

So now that the tadka is all mixed into the rice,

I'll just take a little bit extra ghee,

run it around the outer edge

just so it drips down to the bottom

and forms that nice layer of fat

in between the rice and the skillet.

The rice is gonna start to crisp.

It's heating through.

You wanna just give it a head start

towards that end

by not tossing it all the time,

just letting it develop a little bit of a crust

before you start moving it again.

I'm gonna make a little well,

drop a little more ghee in it,

and I'm gonna fry out my aromatics.

Just wanna soften them.

Don't want them to be straight up raw.

I think we can toss this through now.

Egg white can go back in.

I didn't wanna overcook the egg white.

You saw how fast it cooked,

and I don't want it to get all rubbery.

I'm gonna do a little bit of soy

just for a final seasoning

and also just completing the thought

about the the different influences at work in this dish.

Nice.

Final topper is some more scallion.

And that's it -

golden fried rice.

Mm.

Yeah, I'm into it.

Fried rice is one of the default uses we think of

when it comes to leftover rice.

But a couple key differences here.

Couple tweaks in how this dish came together.

And it's really kind of unexpected

how transformed it is.

[percussive music]

So this use of leftover rice

is turning it into this crunchy, savory element

that's then gonna be used in a salad.

It's gonna be a range of colors, textures, flavors,

but using that crispy savory rice

as this base element.

Crispy tofu rice salad,

like, with all the other dishes,

I could see it,

cook them in my mind,

you know, no problem.

This one is a sort of a hybrid

of crispy rice salad developed by Shilpa.

Hers uses ground chicken.

We're using crispy tofu instead.

Gonna start by cutting up our aromatics.

So we're not gonna be cooking any of them here.

This is gonna be showcasing raw ginger.

I'm gonna do a very thin shred here.

Really helps make sure you get ginger

that's not overly powerful.

I'm gonna slice up the red onion.

Again, this is gonna go in raw.

Thin slices of serrano chili.

We're gonna put our fish sauce

and our sugar in with our chili.

It's gonna be part of our dressing.

And again, we're just tasting

and we're adjusting on the fly.

This is food that you can just sort of feel your way through

when you're cooking.

I like the idea of keeping this vegetarian.

Some people like to press their tofu.

I like just lightly squeezing out

a little bit of the water.

I'm gonna do slightly smaller pieces

because I want them to incorporate into the salad well.

I'm gonna season and toss it with salt

and cornstarch as well.

Cornstarch loves getting crispy,

so it's just gonna give a little bit of texture

to this outer kind of shell of the tofu.

I like this technique of Shilpa's.

She's taking the rice

and she's coating it in the curry paste.

Coating the rice in this mixture

means it's gonna, you know,

be on every single grain

and make sure it suffuses all of the rice.

I wanna go moderately hot.

The tofu just has a lot of moisture in it.

You want an active crispy sear.

I'd say we're somewhere

in the five- to eight-minute range.

The hardest part is not messing with it,

letting it get crispy,

doing its thing.

Alright, so you see we're getting

some really nice lacy crispiness on the outside.

I'm gonna hit it with some of that curry paste

and see if I can get them nice and coated.

And I'm just gonna go ahead

and pull it to the side here.

Now some more oil and rice can go in.

[food sizzling]

So the goal here is crispiness, right?

And to warm the rice through.

You know, we've been at this

maybe getting close to five minutes.

I'd say two to three more minutes

and we should be there.

We're starting to get some nice crispiness.

Color is deepening and intensifying.

So now this is kind of what we're going for -

nice big jagged clumps.

In the theme of,

you know,

make sure all the flavors are kind of dialed up,

you can almost treat the herbs like lettuce.

I've got the cooked rice.

I've got the tofu.

I'm gonna throw in a handful of the red onion,

ginger batons,

peanuts,

a good splash of dressing.

Toss it all together in a bowl

just as a way to easily adjust seasoning.

The rice becomes so dense

with texture and flavor,

and tofu kind of provides a little bit of negative space

and something a little bit soft,

a little bit yielding in there.

So I like serving this,

like, a good handful of lettuce leaves

and you just have a riot of flavor and color.

I just love that.

Shilpa, this is really your dish.

I mean, I just kind of like cooked it

and put tofu in it instead.

It looks really good.

You can kind of fill the lettuce

with this mixture

as you eat it.

I like that you

Yeah? caramelized everything.

I think it would've been too bland otherwise.

You get some crispiness from the rice as well.

There's a lot of texture.

The onions.

There's a lot going on.

The ginger.

To me, the ginger was

the eye-opening. I didn't soak it.

Oh my god.

I was like, Just wait 'til Shilpa hears.

Cancel the show.

Cancel the episode.

That I didn't soak the onion and the ginger.

[Shilpa] No, it's actually really good.

Okay. It's good.

Good job, Christopher.

Yeah? 10/10.

Can cook. [both laugh]

[percussive music]

Chorizo and rice stuffed peppers.

So rice, it kind of does it all.

Rice can almost be breading.

And by breading,

I mean, you know,

the thing you put into your meatballs

or your meatloaf

that isn't meat

and it just kind of breaks up that space.

And often, you know,

in a meatball or in a meatloaf,

you've got breadcrumb,

you've got egg.

You've got these elements that serve to bind

and to lighten the meat mixture.

Rice does very much a similar thing.

Today, for my peppers,

I'm using poblanos and Cubanelles.

Bell pepper would work.

It's a little bit meatier,

a little bit less watery.

The flavor's just a little bit more complex.

Also, I feel like it doesn't collapse

quite as readily as a bell pepper does.

Bell pepper just kind of like,

just kind of wants to, like, loaf on your sofa.

Not today.

Okay, so we're gonna do a little spice mixture here.

Oregano, cumin, coriander,

and then a little bit of smoked paprika -

a savory, smoky backnote.

But if all you did was use chili powder,

a lot of these flavors, already in there.

Spice mix is done.

I'm moving on

to onion and garlic.

Because it's just gonna go into that meat mixture raw,

I wanna dice it fairly fine.

This is fresh chorizo, not cured chorizo,

which means it's got the texture of raw sausage.

It's been seasoned aggressively with chili powder

of one sort or another.

So you could use just any old ground meat in here,

but I'm looking for something that's got some fat,

some richness, some flavor and seasoning of its own.

I'm gonna start out with a moderate amount of rice.

It's gonna help that mixture kind of set in place.

All the spices are going in there.

Just gonna throw in a little bit of oil, too.

I really wanna work this mixture together.

'Cause the sausage is already seasoned,

I don't need to season it

as though it was straight up ground meat,

but we still need a little bit of salt

for all the other ingredients.

Last thing, I'm gonna do a little bit of cilantro,

just for a little fresh balance.

So I'm gonna stuff some of this mixture in

and I really wanna pack it in there.

You can really get quite a bit in there -

as opposed to if you take the top off

and kind of stuff it down in there.

Especially with these longer chilies,

it would be miserable

trying to pack that mixture down in there.

I'm gonna throw it into a 400-degree oven.

Check this in about 25 minutes.

Look at the transformation.

Mixture is cooked.

Rice on top is a little bit crispy.

I thought we'd go a little crazy

and we'd maybe just scatter

a little bit of cheese on top

and then broil it to finish.

So this is a mild cheddar,

a slightly softer,

higher moisture form of cheddar,

because it's got good flavor

with a little bit of sharpness

but it wants to melt

and it wants to take on color.

Broiling is gonna melt this cheese very quickly

and hopefully get a little bit of color on it.

It's like I'm doing this

because the last thing you want to do

is wander off and let all your hard work get screwed up,

you know?

The parchment is starting to burn,

which I probably should have thought of.

But we're just gonna take it a little further

and assume it's not gonna ignite.

The hardest part about playing chicken

is knowing when to flinch.

Alright, that's it. I can't take it.

It smells like a jalapeno popper.

Alright, let's see how we did.

Mm.

The softness of the pepper

to the crispy rice kind of interacting,

it's really good.

Also, just like the subtle heat from the pepper.

There's this unforeseen benefit of the rice,

which is that it can get so crispy.

Breadcrumbs would never quite get that crispy.

The cheese on top, too,

it gives it just that final blast of richness

and savoriness,

just like a little enchilada sauce.

Boom.

So good.

[percussive music]

Mango sticky rice is a really iconic dish.

This kind of gets you to a similar place

in terms of the world of those flavors.

Coconut and mango love each other.

Coconut and rice love each other.

All those things together

just brightened up with a little pop of salt

and a little bit of lime and vanilla,

they're all just great flavors

that mesh really seamlessly.

I'm gonna start off

by setting up one of these mangoes.

Love mango.

I mean, I frigging love mango.

It makes a ripe honeydew

look like frigging open mic night,

you know what I mean?

Just like, Why'd you even show up?

I want the flavor of brown sugar,

but I don't want little bits of undissolved sugar in there.

So I'm just gonna be a little bit extra

and just throw a little water in there

and just dissolve it.

We're just nuking it.

And you see we have this nice brown syrup.

So a little salt in there.

Then I'm gonna throw a little vanilla in there.

A little extract would be totally fine,

but bean is just so nice.

Ah.

It really kind of lifts other flavors up.

A little bit of lime zest.

This is gonna give us

a little bit of brightness of flavor,

but without overt acidity.

So I can just throw the zest right in there.

That's gonna look so good.

Toss this together

and then move on to the rice.

So this dish is very forgiving

of whatever proportions you use.

I'm gonna start with one can of coconut milk

and then I'll do a couple cups of rice.

I can always add a little bit more rice

and I can always add more coconut milk, too.

So I'm gonna do a little bit of vanilla,

scrape these seeds out

so they can infuse fully into the pudding.

Just gonna put in

maybe 1/4 cup of sugar.

Even though it's a sweet dish,

I want a pinch of salt,

just to bring out all the flavors we've got here.

Heat is gonna extract a little bit more of the flavors.

It's gonna allow that sort of starchy consistency

of the rice

to meld a little bit with the coconut milk.

Alright, so it's really just been five minutes,

but you can tell how much the rice has now melded

with the coconut milk.

Its consistency,

it's starting to set up even as it cools.

You want that creaminess.

The mango's been macerating.

It's exuded a little bit extra liquid.

And there you go -

coconut rice pudding with mango.

Alright.

Hmm.

It's got that sweet, savory aspect

and yet it still comes off reading as dessert.

The lightness is also what's so interesting, too,

'cause the rice,

as far as pudding-like consistencies goes,

it's relatively light.

It's there and then it disappears

and you just want another bite.

So there it is -

five simple dishes,

all star leftover rice,

and just incorporating so many different fun elements,

from sweet to savory,

taking it to this bold, beautiful, flavor-filled place.

[Crew member 1] Great. We forgot the rice!

[Crew member 2] We forgot the rice!

Oh, no.

[Bleeping]