I wanted to do something a little different to accompany some chicken breasts, and settled on the idea of a herb pilaf from the ever useful Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly as, frustratingly, I didn’t have quite enough of all the herbs – I suspect the proper amounts of ingredients would result in a more prettily green-flecked dish.

ingredients:

1 tblsp olive oil
40g (about 8 tsp) of butter
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
2 tblsp finely chopped coriander
2 tblsp finely chopped watercress
1 cup finely chopped spring onion (including greens)
2 handfuls finely chopped baby spinach leaves
1 cup long grained rice
1 1/2 cups of water or chicken stock
salt, pepper, fresh parmesan

Heat the oil and half of the butter into a medium sized saucepan. Add the herbs, watercress, spring onion and spinach, and cook for a few minutes, stirring. Add the rice, and stir until the grains look shiny and are well covered with the greens. Add the water and salt, and bring the mixture to a boil. Turn the heat down low, cover, and simmer undisturbed for 20 minutes.

Stir the remaining butter through the rice, season with pepper and serve as a side dish with the fresh parmesan to sprinkle over.