Rice for Breakfast

Being on a limited nightshade diet, no tomatoes, potatoes or eggplants, coupled now with a gluten-free diet (no wheat, barley or rye), it gets difficult finding alternatives for dishes that I love.  One in particular is hash browns in the morning. Potatoes were a staple growing up, being eaten in almost every meal, plus snacks. That was a lot of carbohydrates (or carbs) being consumed. Add bread to this, again eaten at every meal, and you're well above the recommended daily allowance of carbs. So wheat bread is gone as well as potatoes. Although peppers and tomatoes will be limited, potatoes will not be allowed. Sweet potatoes are okay, but tend to be too sweet for many dishes. Hence, an experiment with rice as a potato substitute in the popular breakfast staple, hash browns.

Rice is very sticky. It contains a lot of starch like potatoes but very little flavor of it's own. This makes it a good candidate for substitution. After several tries I succeeded in creating a suitable and flavorful  breakfast hash brown. The trick to holding it all together is to reheat the rice so the starch can work its magic. Once heated you mix the ingredients and form your patties. Place patties in the freezer for about 15 minutes before using them, or store them in the fridge for later use. The cooling allows the starch to bond the grains together, holding the form of the patty. Once cooled these patties can be pan fried to a golden brown and served with eggs. They may also be formed into small rounds, like "tater tots", and deep fried. This I will try later. It should make a good side dish for dinner or served with a burger, gluten-free bun of course.

Here is the recipe for the hash browns I made:

2.5 cups cooked rice, re-heated or just made
Garlic powder to taste
Onion power to taste
Celery seed to taste
Black pepper to taste
1 egg yoke

Combine and form into 4 patties. Let stand in freezer for 15 minutes or store in refrigerator for later use. Heat a skillet on medium to medium-high and add oil to generously coat pan. Place patties in skillet and let brown. Turn to brown the other side. Serve hot. Add cheese, optional.

Eat well and stay healthy

Bill