Rich in flavor, this buttered, lemony rice and beef, peppered with parsley, is an old family favorite. I love that it only takes me about 30 minutes to make, so it’s a great easy dinner. Serve with cucumbers and lettuce for lettuce wraps, or a Greek Salad. (like the one from my cookbook, Fresh!).
My mother in law showed me how to make this recipe, and we’ve been enjoying it since! It’s based on a filling for dolmas (Greek Stuffed Grape Leaves). Sometimes we just enjoy it as a type of rice bowl, but lately we’ve been topping romaine leaves with the mixture and loving it that way as well!
In this recipe, I like to use homemade chicken broth to cook the rice in, butter from pastured cows for the rice and grassfed beef. It makes it a nourishing meal following many of the principles from Dr. Price that can be made up quickly! You will notice that I use white rice in this recipe. Some who consider themselves paleo use white rice as a “safe starch”. Personally, I switched when I learned about the arsenic issues with rice in general, and the fact that white rice was lower in arsenic.
Much of the time, we’ve simply eye-balled the ratio of rice to beef to lemon to butter. But I finally got the ratios worked out for more consistent results. This is a little heavy on the rice, so you could cut down on the rice, as desired.
- 2 cups of long grain white rice
- 2 ½ cups of chicken broth or water
- 1 teaspoon unrefined salt (leave out if broth already salted)
- 4 tablespoons of butter
- 1 pound of ground beef (grassfed preferred)
- 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely minced or put through a garlic press
- 2-4 lemons
- Half a bunch of fresh Italian parsley, rinsed and dried
- Rinse the rice in a fine sieve until the water runs clear. Place in a medium sized pot with the chicken broth or water and the salt. Bring to a boil, stir to make sure the rice isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan, and turn down heat to low. Cover and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the rice is tender. Take off of the heat, and add the butter to the pot. Let sit for five minutes, and then gently fluff up the rice and mix in the butter.
- Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, cook the beef and garlic together over medium-high until the beef is cooked through and no longer pink. If there is any extra fat, drain from the pan (I push all of the beef to one side of the pan, and then tip the pan allowing the grease to pool to the other side. It can then be easily removed with a spoon). Gently salt the beef.
- Cut the parsley greens from the stems, and finely chop. In a large bowl, combine the rice, beef, and parsley, as well as the juice from 1 or 2 of the lemons. Taste test. Usually, I add more lemon and salt. You want a good balance between the salt and the tangy lemon juice, so experiment with it to taste. We enjoy ours quite lemony, so I serve extra lemon wedges on the side. Yum! If using Enjoy
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This looks so tasty Kimi! I might even make it this weekend!
Thanks Katie! Hope you like it as much as we do. 🙂
It looks so light and fresh, something as a family we are really craving in Alaska! I plan on making this next week (might replace the beef with moose!
Telaina,
I love both the simplicity of this meal, and the yummy flavors. It would be really interesting to try with moose!
Your site is my go-to for simple, healthy, frugal meals. This one looks like no exception. Looks lovely, will try soon.
We tried this last night, and it was good, but it felt like it was lacking something. A topping of some kind. I am not sure what, but it just seemed a bit incomplete. It was a great base, but just felt like it was needing something additional. Any suggestions on toppings or saucenfor next time?
Hey Michelle,
Hmmm…that’s hard to say, since we like it as is. But we do lots of lemon on ours. 😉 If I could eat cheese, I’d definitely be adding some feta to this recipe! It goes really nicely. Other ideas: Caramelized Onions, a Lemon tahini sauce, or a savory yogurt sauce.
I’m a huge fan of sauce on everything I eat, so I can completely understand the feeling that something is lacking even when the flavor is good. 🙂
I’ve never made this dish, but here are some ‘saucy’ variations I could see myself trying when I do make it:
*topping with a dollop of sour cream
*making a reduction sauce of chicken stock to pour over the top (could be seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, more lemon or basil, or some combination)
*topping with avocado (chunks or ‘smooshed’ into a guacamole consistency)
I wouldn’t have thought of it myself, but I also like the idea of a savory yogurt sauce as Kimi suggested… probably with salt, lemon, parsley, garlic and maybe a tiny pinch of turmeric.
I always think of mexican flavors when I go to make beans or rice type meals, so I like the idea of something completely different like the lemon.
Depending on how frugal I need to be the week I try making it, I might try stretching out the meat even more with some red lentils, which would also go really nicely with your idea of topping it with caramelized onions. You might lose some of the lovely simplicity of the dish that way, but it might work well in it’s own right anyway.