Let’s start from the top …

The basmati rice

Put some good olive oil on the pan where you will cook the rice. Enough to coat the bottom and leave some extra. Put some real butter, aalso. Heat it up a bit, so that the butter melts.

Add some Cumin, Fennugreek, and Fennel seeds. Not too many, just a sprinkling. If you have Jwano and Mungrelo you can add them also. (NOTE: Ok, if you don’t have any of these seeds, use some cumin seeds, peppercorns, maybe coriander seeds — you can substitute as you please, but make sure you know what you are using, or that you are up for experimenting).

Chop up some onions and add them to the pan. Add salt and pepper.

Let those sit for a minute until it gets pretty aromatic, and add the rice. Please get good quality Basmati. Nothing worse than bad rice. Stir the rice around plenty until it gets coated with the oil and it turns yellowy (not quite golden)

Add water and proceed with cooking the rice (folks cook rice in various ways, so I won’t tell you how, but one easy way is to wait until the water has been plenty reduced, bring the heat down to low, and cover it tightly.)

Once the rice is done, add some more butter, salt to taste, and if you have it, get some annatto (achiote) seeds and sautee them in some good quality olive oil (you can also add a bit of turmeric to the rice, just tiny bits, for coloring). The oil will be infused with the red/orange color of the seeds. When done, take the annatto seeds out, and with a teaspoon pout a little bit of the oil over selected parts of the rice. Here’s the plan:

Put some more of the toasted seeds on the bottom of the serving pan, put come rice on top of that. Sprinkle Turmeric on the rice, and put some more rice on top of that. Put some of the annatto infused olive oil on the rice, then put some more Basmati on top. The last layer should have some butter, and if you have sautéed onions put them on top, also. Cover it for a bit.

Rice is done. Set aside.

Red quinoa

Make your Quinoa. Don’t overcook it. It doesn’t have to boil forever. You can put some butter in the water, or a bit of olive oil. When the Quinoa is done, drain it, let it cool a bit, sprinkle your golden raisins, bits of onion, fresh Thyme, garlic butter, and blue cheese.

Mix!

When both things are done … combine them (Red Quinoa goes well here). Stir, add more blue cheese. Add tangerine bits and/or slices all over it (blood orange is particularly good here).

Serve on top of lettuce leaf, garnish with parsley, and enjoy.

Editor’s note: This recipe was first published at WoodMoor Village under the title, “Owner of a lonely heart recipe (Basmati Rice and Quinoa Salad with Blue Cheese, Raisins and Orange Bits),” and appears in its original form here. Picture credit: Wikipedia.

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