The Rekindled Love of Lemon and Rosemary

Some things are just meant to be together. Like Lemon and Rosemary – long-term marriage that is. Do you reckon they ever get bored of each other being in the same dishes? Lemon and rosemary chicken...lemon and rosemary cakes...lemon and rosemary pies...

Can you see where this is going?

Yes, it's time for these guys to reignite their love.

Now I always have an unlimited supply of lemons in my fridge which I never fail to use up – a squeeze of juice here, a scrape of zest there – rarely is there a forlorn lemon in my house.

Herbs on the other hand, are a different story. Now I absolutely love using fresh herbs – but I admit I usually buy those fresh packets at the supermarket. The ones where you get a small bunch in clear plastic. (You see, I have tried the potted sort, but they always seem to die on me within a few days. And that's just no good.)

Anyway. To come off this massive tangent, I always struggle to get through a whole packet and usually end up throwing the last few dying sprigs away. This time, I had a few sprigs of rosemary left, but I was determined not to let them get to their yellowing state - hence the inevitable pairing of the Lemon with the Rosemary.

Now, I was in no mood to bake a lemon and rosemary chicken, cake or pie though (you can probably tell from the longwindedness of this story that it was getting late in the evening for my dinner), so I decided to whip up a kind of, er, rice salad instead.

I wasn't sure how the Lemon and Rosemary would take to this idea. I mean, sure, you'll find that they've been together in it before, but not that much I guess. Certainly not something I've tried before. But they worked together beautifully.

Ahh, nothing will stop them being together :-)

(No, not even the random boiled eggs)

Lemon and Rosemary Rice Salad (v)

Print-friendly recipe

Serves 2:

150g uncooked white rice
250ml hot veggie stock
Juice and zest of 1 small lemon
100g celery, chopped
50g mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
4 hard boiled eggs, sliced

1. Put the rice in a pan with the hot stock and gently bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and carefully mix in the lemon juice and zest. Cover for 10 minutes.
2. At the 10 minute mark, chuck in the celery and mushrooms.
3. After 5 more minutes, stir in the rosemary. Turn off the heat, then add the hard boiled eggs on top to warm through.
4. When serving, remove the eggs first and dish up the rest of the rice salad, before placing the egg slices on top.

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