In my partnership with Castor River Farms I really want to make you rethink rice! I want to show you how a humble ingredient can be transformed into something spectacular, and make you think, “wow I never knew you could do that with rice”. So my goal is to introduce you to new recipes that will hopefully inspire you to cook with Castor River Rice, and to show you just how beautiful a grain can be. Like my Crispy Rice Roll with Orange Blossom Honey where rice is the main star of this delicious dessert. Its inspired buy my love of my favorite middle easter dessert, baklava. But I put a rice twist on it! It has those classic warm spice but the addition of orange blossom honey, coconut, and mango sorbet make this rice dessert fit for an upscale restaurant. Give it a try, I’m pretty dang sure all your guests will be amazed!

Crispy Rice Roll with Orange Blossom Honey

Ingredients

1cup Water

1/2 cup Castor River Farms Jasmine Rice

2 tsp Cinnamon, ground

1 tsp Cardamon 

1 tsp Ginger, ground

1 tsp rose water, optional

1/2 tsp. Nutmeg

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 cup Orange Blossom Honey

Garnish

Chopped Pistachios

Coconut Flakes

Pomegranate seeds

Mango Sorbet

Directions 

In a sauce pot set over medium high heat, add the water and bring to a boil. Then add the rice, cinnamon, cardamon, ginger, rose water, nutmeg, and salt. Gently stir everything to combine. Cover the pot with a lid, reduce the heat to low and cook for about 12 minutes, or until the rice is just cooked through.

Once the rice is cooked, remove the rice from the pot and place it on a half sheet tray to cool. Let the rice cool for about 15 minutes.

After the rice is cool, add 1/4 of the rice mixture to a sheet of plastic wrap. Then gently roll the rice up in the plastic wrap to form a log or a roll. Repeat this with the remaining rice. Then place the rice rolls in the refrigerator for about 1 hour to full cool.

When the rice rolls are cooled. Add about 1/2 cup of oil to a sauté pan set over medium high heat. Once the oil is nice and hot, and you can see some ripples starting in the oil, remove the plastic wrap from the rice roll, then gently fry the roll in the oil. Make sure to brown all the sides of the roll. Repeat with remaining rolls.

Gently heat the orange blossom honey in a sauce pot set over low heat. Heat the honey until is it more watery in texture. Then remove the pot from the heat and gently place a rice roll in the honey, making sure to roll all surface area of the roll in the honey. You want to make sure it soaks up some of the honey. Once the roll is covered in remove the roll and repeat with remaining rice rolls.

Serve the rice rolls warm and garnish with pistachios, coconut flakes, pomegranate seeds, and mango sorbet.