Professional Cookery second year student at the Cape Town Hotel School, Tendani Nethengwe, has won the Tastic Rice – Just Add Colour Competition and walked away with R100 000.
The competition saw students from culinary institutions across South Africa conceptualise a dish, using rice as a core ingredient that mirrored the splendour of the traditional South African Seven Colours Sunday Lunch.
Each contestant was assigned a colour which represented a different mood and characteristic and was asked to come up with an easy-to-prepare, delicious meal inspired by their colour.
Tendani prepared rice cream (ice cream made from rice) with toasted brown rice soil and a rice milk marshmallows meringue.
“My dish had to be blue so I added blue liquor in the rice cream and blue powder coloring in the soil; my marshmallows were a dark shade of blue as well,” she explains.
“For garnish I added white rose petals with crystallized edges made from egg yolks and castor sugar, and then I added a bit of food coloring for a light blue color.”
“I wouldn’t have done all of this without the help of Nina Timm, my mentor who helped me from the beginning to the end, but most importantly Tastic, for giving me the opportunity to showcase my talent.”
Tendani says after winning the competition she feels a lot more confident after realizing that she can definitely handle pressure and think on her feet.
WINNING RECIPE: Rice cream, with brown rice soil and rice milk marshmallow meringues
1. Rice cream
Ingredients
- 1 cup of jasmine rice, cooked
- ¾ cup of blue curacao liqueur *
- ¾ can of condensed milk
- 500ml cream
- 1 tsp. of salt
- 3 cups of crushed dry ice (handle with caution, if using it)
Method:
Blend the rice and the liqueur together until smooth. You can also leave the blended mixture a bit coarse to give it texture.
Whip the cream until soft peak stage and fold in the condensed milk.
Fold in the rice mixture in the whipped cream and add the salt.
Using an electric mixer, add the dry ice to the mixture bit by bit make sure the rice mixture stays smooth and the dry ice has completely dissolved.
Continue to add the dry ice until the mixture resembles the texture of ice cream (hard and smooth). If not using dry ice, put the mixture in a freezer-proof dish and freeze overnight.
Leave the mixture In the freezer until use.
2. Rice milk marshmallows
Ingredients
- ½ cup of basmati rice
- 3 cups of water
- 1 tsp. of blue colouring
- ½ cup of sugar
- 3 gelatine sheets soaked in water for 5 min.
Method:
Cook the rice with the water. Add a pinch of salt. Do not wash the rice before or after.
Once the rice is cooked preserve the water from the rice. You need at least 2 cups.
In a sauce pan. Add the rice milk, sugar and the colouring and bring to the boil until the mixture has thickened a bit. Then add the gelatine and boil for 10min or until the mixture coats the back of a teaspoon.
Transfer to a mixing bowl and beat the mixture using an electric beater to whisk. Whisk the mixture until it has thickened and the coloured has lightened.
Transfer to a piping bag and let it set .
3.Rice soil
Ingredients
- 50ml brown rice, toasted
- 1 tsp. of blue powder colouring
- 50ml castor sugar
Method:
Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. To get a finer texture sift the blended mixture.
Crispy rose petals
Ingredients
Crispy Rose Petals
1 egg white
A drop of blue colouring
Mix the two and dip the white rose petals individually (half the petals ad well as just the tips for variety) . Sprinkle castor sugar all over until each petal is covered with the sugar. leave in the fridge to set.
TO PLATE
Sprinkle the soil in a thick flat linear form. Pipe the marshmallows around the soil in big and small circles.
Scoop a nice portion of the rice cream and place in the top center of the soil.
Place blueberries and halved strawberries around the plate to add contrast. Place a few rose petals around the rice cream.
