Black Rice with Chicken and Garden Vegetables Stir-fried in a Pan
Our Il Moro pan-fried with Italian chicken and garden vegetables: a quick family supper, Italian in its raw ingredients.
Black rice, pan-fried the way we make it at home: Il Moro Acqua e Sole cooked the day before and cooled in the fridge, cubed Italian chicken marinated in soy, garden vegetables cut into julienne (carrots, courgettes, peas, sweetcorn), scrambled eggs and a finish of toasted sesame oil. A wok-style technique over a fierce heat: the cold grain separates instead of clumping and takes on the colour of the soy without going to mush. A quick family supper, Italian in its raw ingredients and eastern in the gesture.
When fried rice has to please the children and the grown-ups with no arguments, we swap out the prawns of the classic version for Italian chicken, and keep the garden vegetables we know best: carrots, courgettes, peas, sweetcorn. The technique stays the same one we use here at Lumellogno for our wholegrain black rice Il Moro: cooked the day before, cooled in the fridge, a quick toss in a good hot pan. The cubed chicken holds up well to a fierce heat, takes on the colour of the soy, and does not dry out if we lift it out after four minutes and return it only at the very end.
We do it pan-fried in our own way: a light eastern gesture, nothing forced, worked with a real Italian rice. Our Il Moro is grown in the 350 hectares around Lumellogno, a hamlet to the west of Novara, and we dry it at a low temperature in our own drying house. This slow step leaves the structure of the grain intact, and it is the reason it stands up to the heat of the pan without going to mush: it stays whole, takes on the colour of the soy, looks well on the plate. A quick Wednesday-evening supper, Italian in its raw ingredients and eastern in the gesture.
Ingredients for 4
Ingredients
- 320 g Wholegrain Black Rice Il Moro Acqua e Sole
- 350 g chicken breast, cut into 1 cm cubes
- 2 carrots, cut into julienne
- 2 courgettes, cut into julienne
- 150 g fresh or frozen peas
- 100 g sweetcorn, drained
- 2 eggs
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 2 cm fresh ginger, grated
- 4 tablespoons naturally fermented soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 4 tablespoons high-oleic sunflower oil
- 2 fresh spring onions
- to taste fine salt and freshly ground white pepper
Notes from Home
- The Il Moro rice should be cooked the day before and cooled in the fridge, never used straight after draining
- Organic or free-range chicken: the quality of the breast comes through, the flavour holds up to the pan-fry
- A wide, heavy-based pan or a wok: no non-stick over a fierce heat, non-stick is ruined above 230 degrees
- Naturally fermented soy, ideally light: dark soy is thick and masks the grain
- Toasted sesame oil only at the end as an aromatic finish, never for frying
- Garden vegetables: in summer we add edamame and peppers, in autumn cabbage and mushrooms
Method
Day-before rice (40 min + 2 h in the fridge)
We boil the Il Moro in plenty of salted water for 40 minutes, until the grain is soft on the outside and still firm at the heart. We drain it well, spread the rice out on a tray, leave it to cool to room temperature for 30 minutes, then cover it and put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours. The ideal is to cook it the evening before: cold rice is the secret of pan-frying, because it loses its surface moisture and, on contact with the searing metal, separates instead of clumping.
Marinating the chicken and mise en place (10 min)
In a bowl we combine the chicken cubes with 1 tablespoon of soy, half of the grated ginger and a grind of white pepper. We stir and leave to rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile we cut the carrots and courgettes into fine julienne (3 mm wide, 4 cm long), shell the peas, drain the sweetcorn. We beat the 2 eggs in a small bowl with a pinch of salt. We slice the spring onions, separating the white part (for the pan) from the green part (to finish at serving). We finely chop the garlic and the remaining ginger.
Searing pan, aromatics, chicken (5 min)
We heat a wide, heavy-based pan (or a wok) over a high heat for 2 minutes, until a drop of water evaporates instantly. We pour in 2 tablespoons of seed oil and swirl it round. We add the garlic, the remaining ginger and the white part of the spring onion, and toss for 30 seconds: the aroma releases at once, and must never colour dark or turn bitter. We add the marinated chicken cubes and toss over a fierce heat for 4 minutes, until they brown at the edges. We lift the chicken out and keep it aside on a plate: overcooking it would make it dry.
Crisp vegetables (3 min)
We add 1 tablespoon of oil to the still-hot pan. We tip in the carrots, courgettes, peas and sweetcorn all together, and toss for 3 minutes over a high heat, stirring constantly. The vegetables should stay coloured and crisp, lose only a little of their cooking liquid, and never cook down like a stew. The orange of the carrot, the green of the peas and the yellow of the sweetcorn should reach the plate bright and alive.
Rice, eggs, chicken (3 min)
We move the vegetables to one side of the pan. We pour the beaten eggs onto the other side, let them set for 20 seconds, then break the eggs into rough pieces with the spatula. We add the cold rice and separate it well with the spatula, tossing everything together. We return the chicken we had kept aside. We toss for another 3 minutes over a fierce heat, stirring constantly: the grain warms through evenly and takes on the colour of the soy.
Finishing and serving (1 min)
We pour the remaining 3 tablespoons of soy sauce and the tablespoon of toasted sesame oil along the edge of the pan, and stir vigorously for 30 seconds to bring it together. We adjust the salt only if needed (the soy already salts it), with a grind of white pepper. We turn off the heat, add the green part of the spring onion, and serve at once in warm bowls.
Our family cooking
Pan-frying seems a gesture far from our paddy fields on the Novara plain, but the rule that makes it work is the same one we apply here at Lumellogno: respect the grain. In our wholegrain black rice Il Moro, the way it holds up in the pan comes from the low-temperature drying we do on the farm, in our own drying house. It is a slow step that does not break the inner structure of the grain: the rice stays whole even after tossing over a fierce heat, and takes on the colour of the soy without going to mush. The world’s recipes, too, are better with a well-made Italian rice. We do it pan-fried in our own way, and it works.
Lumellogno · Novara plain
Il Moro for the pan-fry, and why it works
The closed supply chain, from seed to grain, lets us guarantee the same quality every year. We grow Il Moro in our 350 hectares around the hamlet of Lumellogno, west of Novara, dry it in our own drying house and pack it on the farm. The slow processing is the technical reason the grain stands up to the fierce heat of the pan: it does not crack inside, it does not release starch on the outside, it does not stick. Cooked the day before and cooled in the fridge, it is the right rice for wok-style dishes made at home.
«We do not sell anonymous rice off the shelf: we sell our own, the same rice we eat here as a family. The world’s recipes, too, are better with a well-made Italian rice.» From the Acqua e Sole kitchen, Lumellogno
One word of warning we feel we should give: do not skip the rice’s rest in the fridge. The cold grain loses its surface moisture, and that is what makes the difference between a clean toss and a paste of stuck-together rice. Forty minutes of cooking the day before, two hours in the fridge, and the searing pan will do the rest in ten minutes.
Questions about pan-fried black rice
Can I use day-before rice?
Which chicken should I choose?
Do I really need a wide pan, or will the everyday one do?
Suggested Pairing
To go with the pan-fried black rice we like clean drinks, ones that hold up to the sweetness of the chicken and the soy base without masking them. We happily open a light Italian craft beer, an unfiltered Pilsner or Lager, or an Erbaluce di Caluso DOCG from the Canavese, dry and mineral, served well chilled.
If you prefer a fuller-bodied white, a Timorasso Colli Tortonesi from our cousins over in the Alessandria hills stands up well to the pan-fry and the sesame oil at the finish. For anyone wanting a rosé, a young Vespolina rosé from the Colline Novaresi works just as well. Avoid big tannic reds, which clash with the soy.
Wholegrain Black Rice Il Moro Acqua e Sole
Our wholegrain black rice, grown at Lumellogno and processed in our own rice mill. Low-temperature drying, a closed supply chain with ISO 9001 certified production, a whole grain that stands up to the pan-fry without going to mush. It is the rice we use for the quick Wednesday-evening supper with Italian chicken and garden vegetables, and the one we recommend for bringing a real Italian rice into wok-style recipes at home.
Bring Il Moro homeOriginal Acqua e Sole recipe, from our kitchen at Lumellogno.