Palestinian Upside-Down Rice (How many portions? )

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

You know those days when you're looking at the recipe, looking at the volume of food and wondering how on earth it is x many serving?

I know I've made this dish once before. I've not made any annotations inn the recipe book (very unlike me). I know I haven't cooked this recipe recently (as in the last few years) and I'm trying to work out exactly how all of this is going to fit into the dish...

So here goes.

2 very large aubergines (+1.25kg)
1 large courgette
2 red peppers
8 large tomatoes (½ sliced, ½ chopped)
4 medium potatoes
2 large onions
1 head of garlic
500g of a long grain rice.
1L veg stock

So here's your question. It is served with flaked almonds, a bowl of plain yoghurt, and supposedly a bowl of pickles (I'm not doing the pickles).

My plan had been to serve it with a portion of protein, and decrease the serving size. But I'm looking at it all and thinking that at least half isn't going to fit into the cooking vessel.

OK, half didn't fit in the cooking vessel!

 

[Windigo]

I'm torn between 4 or 5, we usually eat a 100 g of rice a person in my household. But there was no option for 5, so I voted 4 which is probably on the large side but we always eat pretty big portions on our main meal of the day. 6 is possible for small eaters. Honestly I'd say 5 all in all.

 

[Yorky]

I'm torn between 4 or 5, we usually eat a 100 g of rice a person in my household. But there was no option for 5, so I voted 4 which is probably on the large side but we always eat pretty big portions on our main meal of the day. 6 is possible for small eaters. Honestly I'd say 5 all in all.

Same here. 100 gm per person.

However, when I was in my teens and well into my twenties I would eat at least double what I eat today.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I'm torn between 4 or 5, we usually eat a 100 g of rice a person in my household. But there was no option for 5, so I voted 4 which is probably on the large side but we always eat pretty big portions on our main meal of the day. 6 is possible for small eaters. Honestly I'd say 5 all in all.

Same here. 100 gm per person.

Eecks... I guess we must eat a lot less than others? I know I could live off rice (and have done, I prefer it to pasta) but the volume of veg also needs to be taken into account and there is a lot of veg in there as well. Roughly 4kg of vegetables. That would work out at 125g of rice and 1kg of veg per person just for 1 meal. Can you honestly say you eat that much veg? Most people don't make half that in the entire day, fruit included.

2 very large aubergines (+1.25kg)
1 large courgette (500g)
2 red peppers (500g)
8 large tomatoes (½ sliced, ½ chopped) (1kg)
4 medium potatoes (750g)
2 large onions (500g)
1 head of garlic
500g of a long grain rice.
1L veg stock

I can double check those weights in the morning, but I know roughly what they all were from the shopping list and that total is 4½kg of veg between 4 people. Even in this household that's a lot.

We bought 6 Aubergine and this recipe used 2.
Half of the tomatoes are for another aubergine recipe at the end of the week.
This is the relevant part of our receipt giving the weights we bought.

 

[Morning Glory]

I usually serve 50 to 75g of rice per person. I think the recipe would feed at least 6. Are there not any middle Eastern spices in it?

I'm familiar with this dish (Maqloubeh) in the chicken form but found this version which is a bit similar to yours. Note that it serves 4 and has 300g rice.

Maqloubeh recipe (upside-down rice with aubergines and peppers)

 

[Morning Glory]

Maqloubeh recipe (upside-down rice with aubergines and peppers)

I have the recipe book from which this comes - 'Zaitoun' which is rather good.

 

[Yorky]

Eecks... I guess we must eat a lot less than others?

I was answering the question "According to the recipe........".

I would not eat 1 kg of vegetables on top of the 100 gms of rice, maybe 200gms plus 200 - 250 gms of meat (and no starter or pudding).

When I add a recipe of mine to Food.com I can never assess how many servings there are.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Are there not any middle Eastern spices in it?

Loads... they just didn't influence the portions

(Black pepper, sweet paprika, hot paprika, cloves, green cardamom, cumin, coriander seed, cinnamon, turmeric). I added chili flakes in as well.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I have the recipe book from which this comes - 'Zaitoun' which is rather good.

Mine is from Veggiestan
Veggiestan | A vegetable lover's tour of the Middle East: the blog of the book.

 

[Windigo]

Eecks... I guess we must eat a lot less than others? I know I could live off rice (and have done, I prefer it to pasta) but the volume of veg also needs to be taken into account and there is a lot of veg in there as well. Roughly 4kg of vegetables. That would work out at 125g of rice and 1kg of veg per person just for 1 meal. Can you honestly say you eat that much veg? Most people don't make half that in the entire day, fruit included.



I can double check those weights in the morning, but I know roughly what they all were from the shopping list and that total is 4½kg of veg between 4 people. Even in this household that's a lot.

We bought 6 Aubergine and this recipe used 2.
Half of the tomatoes are for another aubergine recipe at the end of the week.
This is the relevant part of our receipt giving the weights we bought.

View attachment 93608

I can honestly say I am very bad at math

When I worked catering I wasn't writing the recipes. A kilo of veg a person is indeed far more than I estimated.

But yeah I do eat 100 g of rice at any meal with rice.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I was answering the question "According to the recipe........".

I would not eat 1 kg of vegetables on top of the 100 gms of rice, maybe 200gms plus 200 - 250 gms of meat (and no starter or pudding).

My point was that the recipe says 500g dry weight rice and +4kg of vegetables, so clearly you'd not expect you eat all the rice and leave the veg behind. If you take a "slice", you'd be getting a slice of all of it, and if your slice assumes 100g of rice, then you'd be taking ¼ to ⅕ out the vegetables as well.

I'm trying to work out with that volume of vegetables and rice how many it should be feeding. The dish I've made holds at least 6 portions for us and I've half the veg mix left over (so if I add 2 more aubergines, 4 potatoes and the rice I can make the entire thing yet again. The extra is in the freezer for another week). It just seems to us that the quantities are weird for want of a better expression.

 

[karadekoolaid]

My guess is that this would easily feed 8 people. There´s a heck of a lot of veggies in there plus 500 gms of rice. We´ve got a vague measurement in the family that a cup of rice is enough for 4 people: here you´ve got about a cup and a half for 4 people.

 

[Morning Glory]

My guess is that this would easily feed 8 people. There´s a heck of a lot of veggies in there plus 500 gms of rice.

I agree - I said above it would feed at least 6 but probably more like 8! The standard amount of rice per person is generally accepted to be around 50 -75g. Obviously it depends on the dish though.

We´ve got a vague measurement in the family that a cup of rice is enough for 4 people: here you´ve got about a cup and a half for 4 people.

The standard cup measurement translates to 210g so that is about enough for 3 to 4 people, as you say.

 

[Windigo]

I agree - I said above it would feed at least 6 but probably more like 8! The standard amount of rice per person is generally accepted to be around 50 -75g. Obviously it depends on the dish though.

It's Asian culture to eat about a 100 g a person, and I stick to that. If I ate like my Indonesian ancestors I'd probably be a lot slimmer but they certainly don't skimp on rice. 100 g exactly fills a standard rice bowl.

50/75 g is Western government food recommendation portion size, indeed.

 

[TastyReuben]

My guess is that this would easily feed 8 people. There´s a heck of a lot of veggies in there plus 500 gms of rice. We´ve got a vague measurement in the family that a cup of rice is enough for 4 people: here you´ve got about a cup and a half for 4 people.

That’s what I was about to post, 8 people due to the amount of other vegetables in this.