Brown Rice and Shrimp Salad

By Dana Jacobi
American Institute for Cancer Research

The health benefits of tea are making waves in newspaper and magazine headlines. With all this buzz surrounding tea, including its potential role in cancer prevention, I started thinking about ways to consume more.

Increasing the variety is one answer. Today, doing that is particularly easy, since supermarkets offer aisles full of choices. Green tea can be found flavored with mint, orange, even lemongrass. That’s a far cry from the days when there were only a handful of choices, and mostly black teas at that. Americans are also notorious for serving the traditionally hot beverage over ice. But for an even bigger change of pace, I wondered about cooking with tea.

There are precedents for using tea in dishes. Most are ethnic and some are even ancient. Tea eggs are a good example. Chinese cooks make these decadent treats by hard-cooking eggs, cracking their shells and simmering them for up to eight hours in a cocktail of tea, soy sauce, cinnamon and other spices.

The eggs emerge with their whites marbled a soft, red-brown. They have a savory, spiced flavor.

Cooking grains in tea seemed like a natural extension of tea eggs. This works particularly well with brown rice – especially fragrant, Asian types like basmati or jasmine. Strong, spiced tea tints the rice just slightly darker and adds pleasant, yet subtle under-notes.

The shrimp I like using in this dish—Brown Rice and Shrimp Salad—are the small, precooked frozen varieties that are reasonably priced.

Nubella News, a division of Marketing Technology Solutions, Inc., offers content intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. We encourage our readers to seek prompt medical care for health issues and consult their physicians before starting a new diet, fitness regimen, or medical treatment.