Spiced Rice with Tomatoes and Bell Peppers

This recipe is from one of my favourite cookbooks, Vefa's Kitchen. I only slightly changed the recipe by adding green pepper as well as red, and that's because the hubby really wanted both peppers. We served this side dish with pork chops and we both really liked it.


6 tbsp butter
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups long grain rice
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground coriander
2 1/4 lbs fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, finely chopped

Melt the butter in a large pan, add the onion, garlic until softened. Stir in the rice and cook for 2 minutes. Add the salt, sugar, spices tomatoes, tomato paste and stock. Mix well, cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the bell pepper and simmer for 5 minutes.