Basmati rice salad with summer vegetables

An excellent summer recipe that can be either a stand-alone lunch or an excellent side dish for meat or fish. You can experiment with a set of greens for such a salad: take basil and cilantro, tarragon and chives, oregano and marjoram.

Ingredients

• 1 cup basmati rice
• 2 medium young carrots
• 5 radishes
• 5 cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 cup green peas
• 50 g lettuce mixture
• 1 small shallot
• 5 sprigs of parsley
• 10 sprigs of thyme
• 5 green onion feathers
• 2 tbsp. l. pine nuts
• 2 tbsp. l. red wine vinegar
• 6 tbsp. l. extra virgin olive oil
• salt, freshly ground pepper

Directions

1. Place the rice in a bowl and rinse in cold water until the water is clear. Throw in a colander. Boil a little less than 2 cups of water in a wide saucepan, add 1 tsp. salt and rice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for 20 minutes. Then loosen the rice with a fork and cool completely.
2. Peel and finely chop the shallots. Chop green onions and parsley leaves thinly. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half, cut the radishes into slices. Fry pine nuts in a dry skillet until golden brown.
3. Boil water in a saucepan, salt. Peel the carrots and cut into 3mm thick slices. Place the carrots in a saucepan and cook for 3 minutes. Add the peas and cook for another 5 minutes. Discard vegetables in a colander and rinse with cold water. Cool it down.
4. Combine vegetables, lettuce, and rice in a large bowl. Mix wine vinegar with olive oil, salt and pepper, add thyme leaves. Pour the dressing over the salad and sprinkle with pine nuts.