Tasty exotic rice dishes you've never imagined existed

A Food Fun Travel Guest Post

Undoubtedly, eating is one of the pleasures of life. This not only gives the body all the nutrients for maintaining health, having energy, and feeling good; but it allows a constant social gathering. Almost every family or friend’s celebration centers on preparing delicious meals.

Food represents the best way of connecting with people, knowing traditions, and tasting new flavors. When traveling, eating typical foods gives you the opportunity of getting closer to native flavors and local cooking methods.

Many people who travel abroad just try normal meals, but there are those who don’t dare to be bold and taste totally new flavors even from unknown ingredients.

Learning about exotic dishes around the world

In every country there are typical dishes that identify their flavors and culture. Most of these dishes include well-known ingredients and a relatively easy way of cooking.

On the other hand, some meals test your adventurous side and invite you to try weird ingredients such as 100-year-old eggs, tarantulas, silkworm, chicken feet, and so much more.

In general, these exotic ingredients are cooked with common flavors and side dishes like rice, pasta, or some vegetables to make them more palatable.

It is up to you how far you are willing to go and taste any of these extravagant meals. Depending on your travel destination, some meals can be really weird.

For example, in Asian cuisine it is very common to find meals with a scorpion (China), ants (Thailand), chicken liver (Japan), fermented fish (Japan), and eyes of a goat (China).

If traveling is not part of your plans for the moment, but you still want to be an adventurous foodie, you can prepare some of them without leaving home. A simple way to go to a faraway country and enjoy unique meals.

Trying some Asian exotic dishes

Maybe you will not find all the ingredients you need to prepare some of these meals. But you can search for recipes with ingredients you usually buy at the store, for example, rice and chicken; and adapt them to your preferred travel destination.

You will be amazed by discovering the countless exotic meals prepared with these two staple foods. You can use simple white rice or one of the rice varieties commonly used in Asia.

You can start by cooking a simple recipe as the one in the following link https://minuterice.com/recipes/15-minute-chicken-and-rice-dinner/

Then, move to more exotic dishes like the following ones:

Bubur Ayam (Chicken Congee)

Servings: 4 Prep time 15 minutes Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 cup of Thai rice.
2 Indonesian bay leaves.
12 cups of chicken stock.
2 tablespoons of oil.
1 knotted organic lemongrass.
2 kaffir lime leaves.
1 inch of galangal.
2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts.
1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper.
1/2 teaspoon of sugar.
80 grams of shallots.
4 cloves garlic.
4 toasted candlenuts.
1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander.
1/2 teaspoon of ground turmeric.
Cut Chinese crullers to taste.
Onion Crackers.
Fried shallots to taste.
Sliced scallions and cilantro leaves for garnish.
Salt to taste.

Preparation:

First, make Congee by washing and draining rice. In a saucepan, pour 7 cups of chicken stock, Indonesian bay leaves, and salt.
Bring the mixture to a boil, and cook until rice is tender and has some consistency. Reserve.
In another saucepan, add oil and heat at medium-high heat. Add lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and galangal. Flavor it with shallots, garlic cloves, candlenuts, coriander, and turmeric.
Incorporate chicken breasts, and cook until they are browned. Add the rest of the chicken stock, sugar, salt and ground pepper. Cook until it begins to evaporate, around 30 minutes.
Take out the chicken breasts, reserve.
In a frying pan, add more oil and fry chicken breasts until they are browned. Then shred them.
Serve the entire ingredients by placing in serving bowls: congee, strained chicken broth, shredded chicken and Chinese crullers, onion crackers, fried shallots, sliced scallions, and cilantro leaves.