Rosemary-Lemon Rice

So my cousin from Virginia called this morning to let me know that she was coming to visit with our other cousins who came in from California and somehow we all ended up at my house. What to do with 10 people suddenly coming for dinner?

I took a bunch of split chicken breasts and dry-rubbed them with a little salt, garlic powder and cumin and then grilled them. My half-Greek cousin made the salad (awesome as usual), and my wife took ciabatta rolls and smeared them with her cream pesto, added sliced tomatoes and then melted mozzarella on top. But even with all that coming together for dinner, I felt that something was missing.

Since rice is such a staple in our family, I wanted to serve rice but somehow it needed to be special. Since it topped out at 95° today, I thought it should be something light and summery (but as usual, I wanted it to be easy). Here's what I did:

I grabbed 4 sprigs of rosemary from the garden, stripped the leaves off the stems and then chopped them finely. I minced 2 garlic cloves and put the garlic-rosemary mixture in a pot with some olive oil and a half-pat of butter and slowly heated them. Then I zested one whole lemon into the pan and let it heat slowly as well while I rinsed two cups of jasmine rice. I drained the rice and put it into the pan with the rosemary-garlic-lemon and stirred it up. After about 30 seconds of sizzling, I put 4 cups of water into the pot and brought it to a boil. At that point, I zested another lemon into the pot, added a couple of pinches of salt, and then finished it out over a long simmer.

When it was finished cooking, I tasted it. It seemed to be missing something, so I put about 1/3 cup of coconut milk into it and it took on a creamy, risotto-like consistency. I transferred it to a serving dish by flaking it with a fork and it became a light & fluffy mound of delicious rice with a delicate lemon and rosemary flavor. The rosemary added green flecks to the rice, making it pretty on the table.

Needless to say, there were no leftovers.