Green broccoli rice
I live in Brazil and around here is very common to make broccoli rice (rice, broccoli and sometimes garlic).
I have eat it many times in restaurants, they are either white or green like the pictures below.
When I do at home I only manage to make it white, how can I make it greenish like the second picture?
Around here the white one is more common but from my experience the green one has more flavour.
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From my experience, I used to cook green rice, however I don't use broccoli in this coloring method. I use spinach instead.
I boil the spinach, then blend them all with their water until being very smooth. then I cook the rice using this water.
I guess u can try this method, then add the broccoli as whole pieces in it.
Unfortunately, I have no pics to post here.
The tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica), also known as the Mexican husk tomato is the perfect apporach, as an alternate opposite to the red one also commonly used in rice and other foods. Raw blended sauce is also a usual choice, but the multiple and inclusive transformation processes (sautee, broiling, frying, boiling, etc.) along with other greenish blended sauce related ingredients (Avocado, coriander, parsley*, Poblano pepper**, Serrano green chilli***) hit a better spot. The less different ingredients, the more you'll keep original favor. You may find many matching sauces with similar ingredients on market and most of them may be hot (green habanero chilli), just find the difference by asking or differenciating its container shape (hot sauses are contained in drop-serving bottles while the rest tend to be spoonable).
*Parsley is often confused with coriander (chinese parsley), coriander is stronger.
**Poblano pepper is NOT hot.
***Serrano chilli IS HOT and is smaller than the Jalapeño. It also has a ligth green color and unlike the Jalapeño, it is a better ingredient in cooking. They may be hot by origin or they can actually become hot(ter) if you broil/bake/sautee/... them (lemon in serrano and vinegar marinade in jalapeño can actually mantain, lower or make its hotness more acceptable). Heinz is ptobably the most available brand if you are looking for already made options. Hotness/Itching strongly depends on how country is used to it. Also the words pepper and chilli are often used interchangeably, making it some hard to catch what is and what is not hot (however, since all mentioned and similar are peppers due to its shape, chilli is more apt to the hot), so about other green chilli/pepper possible options not mentioned here: inquire or go on your own.
Mashing/pureeing the broccoli is probably the best bet here, as folks guessed in comments. That second picture looks like it has really tiny pieces of broccoli, small enough that you end up with it coating the rice.
This seems to be confirmed by recipes online that look relatively similar. For example this recipe says:
Coloque os talos e as folhas até eles ficarem al dente. Retire e coloque em água bem gelada (para interromper o processo de cozimento). Pique os brócolis bem fino e bata com a faca até ficar quase com um mingau.
Coloque a manteiga numa frigideira e frite bem os brócolis picados sem deixar secar. Acrescento o arroz. Mexa bem e sirva imediatamente.
Or with Google Translate:
Place the stems and leaves until they are al dente . Remove and place in ice-cold water (to stop the cooking process). Chop the broccoli finely and mix with the knife until almost a mush.
Place the butter in a frying pan and fry the broccoli and chopped without leaving dry. Add the rice. Stir well and serve immediately.
and their picture looks similar to yours, though a bit more yellow:
As for whether that'll give you more flavor... probably kind of? It'll certainly spread out the broccoli, so that you taste it in every bite of rice, but there won't be any just-broccoli bites.
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