A Foraged Dinner - Green Rice Cake

       
                         Free food! Wild silverbeet growing on Purau beach.


While one would not want to forage for dinner every night of the week, it is always good to get some really fresh food for free when it presents itself in the course of doing something else healthy - like taking a beach walk.

Silverbeet grows wild on quite a few of the beaches around Banks Peninsula, producing big healthy leaves from seemingly pure sand. It tastes as good, if not better, than the garden kind, although the leaves tend to be a bit tougher.

Rather than eat them whole and plain, it is good to incorporate them in a recipe with other ingredients, like the one for Green Rice Cake, below. I got this recipe from one of Lois Daish's food columns in the NZ Listener some years ago, and have made it regularly ever since.


                                  GREEN RICE CAKE
                                            (serves 2-3)


Ingredients

3/4 C arborio rice
200g spinach or silverbeet
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 T olive oil
50g butter
1 egg
1/2 C grated cheese (Parmesan OR vintage cheddar)
1/3 C creamy milk
salt, black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
a handful of torn basil leaves (optional but desirable)


Method

Preheat the over to 180 degrees C.
Lightly oil a medium-sized glass or china baking dish.
Bring a pot of water to the boil, salt it well, add the rice and boil it for 8-minutes.
Drain the rice in a sieve.
Blanch the silverbeet or spinach leaves in a pot of boiling water, drain them well and let them cool.
When cool, squeeze them dry, and chop them roughly.
Fry the onion gently in the oil for a few minutes.
Add the butter and melt it.
Toss the green leaves in the melted butter and oil.
Break an egg into a large bowl and whisk it lightly.
Add the milk, cheese, rice and green leaves.
Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and mix in the torn basil leaves.
Pout the mixture into a baking dish, and bake for around 20 minutes - until it is firm in the middle.