Tomato Rice Box

West African jollof rice packed cold for a school lunch box. Fry the tomato base until the oil separates, then leave the lid alone while it steams.

Makes

4 lunches

Hands on

20 min

Start to finish

60 min

Keeps

4 days in the fridge

• 2 cupslong grain white riceRinsed until the water runs close to clear. Short grain or arborio goes sticky and this dish depends on separate grains.
• 1 can (6 oz)tomato pasteThe whole small can. It is the backbone of the dish, not a seasoning.
• 1 can (14.5 oz)diced or crushed tomatoes
• 1red bell pepper, roughly chopped
• 1yellow onionHalf of it goes in the blender, half gets sliced for the pot.
• 1habanero, or half a jalapeno, optionalTraditional. Leave it out for a child who will notice.
• 1/3 cupneutral oilMore than feels right. You need enough that it can separate out later, because that separation is your signal the base is ready.
• 2 1/2 cupsgluten free chicken or vegetable stockStock cubes are the label risk on this page.
• 1 teaspooncurry powderA blend, so it needs reading. Single spices do not.
• 1 teaspoondried thyme
• 2bay leaves
• salt

1. Blend the canned tomatoes, bell pepper, half the onion and the chile until smooth.
2. Heat the oil in a wide pot that has a tight lid. Cook the sliced onion until soft, then add the whole can of tomato paste and fry it, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes, until it turns from bright red to brick and stops smelling raw.
3. Pour in the blended mixture and cook it over medium for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring now and then. It is ready when it has darkened, when a spoon dragged across the bottom leaves a track that stays open for a second, and when oil pools at the edges. Everything after this step is assembly.
4. Stir in the curry powder, thyme, bay leaves and salt, then the stock. Bring it to a boil.
5. Rinse the rice and stir it in. Taste the liquid right now and fix the salt. This is your last chance to season it.
6. Turn the heat to its lowest setting, put the lid on tight and cook 25 to 30 minutes. Do not lift the lid and do not stir. Stirring is what turns it into a pot of mush. If the grains are still hard at 30 minutes, add a couple tablespoons of hot water, cover, and give it 5 more.
7. Turn off the heat and leave it covered another 10 minutes, then fold it through with a fork.
8. Spread it out on a sheet pan to cool before it goes anywhere near a lunch box.

1. Cool it spread out on a sheet pan. Hot rice sealed under a lid steams and settles into a dense layer that no fork will separate, and this is the failure that ruins the whole batch.
2. No thermos on this one. It eats fine cold or at room temperature out of a plain box with an ice pack.
3. It is a dry rice by design and that is exactly why it travels. Resist adding sauce to make it look better going into the box.
4. Protein goes on top, cold and already cut: leftover chicken, a boiled egg, black beans. Anything wet mixed through will soften the grains by lunch.
5. Send something juicy on the side. Cucumber, orange segments or grapes keep the meal from feeling dusty at the table.

• The rice is clumped and mushy. The lid came off during cooking, or it got stirred partway through.
• It tastes thin and sharply of raw tomato. The base was not fried long enough. Bright red paste that has not turned brick has not done its job.
• The bottom is scorched and the top grains are still hard. The heat was too high, so the liquid boiled off the bottom before the steam reached the top.

Stock cubes are the one to watch, and they matter more here than on any other page on this site, because Maggi is what nearly every jollof recipe calls for and Maggi chicken and beef cubes list wheat flour on the label. Knorr is not a way around it: those cubes use a barley based yeast extract and carry no gluten free claim. Herb-Ox bouillon prints gluten free on the front of the box, and a carton of stock with a gluten free claim does the same job in this pot. The curry powder needs one look too. Single spices are not a concern, but blends can carry wheat flour or wheat starch as a bulking or anticaking agent, so buy a curry powder that says gluten free or mix your own from turmeric, cumin, coriander and ginger. The rest of the pot, the tomatoes, the paste, the rice and the oil, is single ingredient food.