Cumin Rice with Avocado

Tara is back on her feet. The bed rest worked. Cole called Monday and said the doctor is pleased and Tara is moving around the house and feeling better. They will come down for Halloween weekend if she feels strong. I told them to take it easy. Cole said, We are. We are taking it easy. He sounded tired. He sounded like a man whose wife had had a bleeding scare in early pregnancy and who had not slept much in a week. I knew the sound. I was glad to hear it begin to lighten.

The fall roundup started Tuesday. I had three neighbors helping — Tom Whelan, who at eighty-one still rides for the cutting and is better than half the men a third his age, and the Donnelly brothers, who I had shod horses for in August and who had offered to come help when I had time to round up. We worked the cattle off the south range and into the home pasture over three days. Two hundred head moved without incident. The new calf, the September baby, came in with his mother, which was the test of his readiness, and he handled it. He is small but he is sound. I am not weaning him. He is going to winter with his mother in the calf shed.

Patrick rode out for an hour Tuesday morning. I had not planned it. I came out of the house at six-thirty and he was at the barn, dressed, with his coat on, putting his foot in the stirrup of his old gelding. Mom was there. She had helped him with his boots. He was getting on the horse. I started to say something — I do not know what — and Mom looked at me and shook her head once. So I did not say anything. He got up. He sat his horse. He rode out with me to the south gate and watched me work the gate and rode back and I helped him down at the barn and he sat in his chair on the porch for the rest of the day and slept twelve hours that night, and the next morning he had nothing to say about any of it but he had ridden, and he had done it himself, and Mom and I did not discuss it because there was nothing to discuss, but I have thought about it every day since. Some moments are gifts. You do not unwrap them with words.

Cooked chili Wednesday for the men working roundup. A double batch of the elk chili in the big Dutch oven, served from the back of the truck at noon with cornbread Mom had made and butter and honey and pickled jalapeños. The Donnelly brothers ate three bowls each. Tom ate two. I ate two. The men sat on tailgates and on overturned buckets and on the steps of the porch and ate and laughed and one of the Donnelly brothers told a story about his father stealing a calf from a neighbor in 1962 and the neighbor not noticing for six months and his father, on his deathbed in 1989, having to confess it to the priest who happened to be the son of the neighbor whose calf had been stolen, and the priest having forgiven him only after asking for the cash value of a 1962 calf with twenty-seven years of compound interest. The men laughed. The story was probably ninety percent true. Truth in Montana stories runs about ninety percent on the high end. I will take it. The food was right. The roundup was right. The week was full.

Saturday cookout had ten men. Marcus had hit fifty-six days. We had the chili from Wednesday — a fresh batch — and ribs and slaw and Mom's cornbread, and the fire went late and the temperature dropped to thirty by midnight and we all wore wool and we drank coffee and the talk got, late in the night, into territory that men in their middle years find their way to when there is fire and food and no whiskey: how do you live with the things you cannot fix. The answers were various and partial and none of them complete and all of them honest. Marcus said, You do not. You learn to walk around with them and you find people who know what is in your pockets and who do not ask you to empty them. I said, That is the truest sentence I have heard tonight. The men nodded. The fire burned down. We went to our beds. Sunday I slept until nine which is unheard of, and made pancakes, and ate them, and the week was good. The fire helps. The chili helps. Patrick on the horse helps most.

The elk chili got all the credit that Wednesday — and it deserved it — but what I keep coming back to is how a good side dish can quietly hold a meal together the way a good hand holds a herd together: steady, unfussy, present. This cumin rice with avocado has been in our rotation long enough that I don’t think about it so much as reach for it, especially when I’m cooking for a crowd and need something that fills a bowl, stays warm on a tailgate, and doesn’t ask anything of the men eating it except that they eat it. After a week like this one — Patrick on his horse, Tara on the mend, the cattle in — simple food that does its job without complaint felt exactly right.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups long-grain white rice
3 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 ripe avocados, diced
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped (optional)
Lime wedges, for serving

Instructions

Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 4–5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 60 seconds until fragrant.
Toast the rice and spices. Add the dry rice directly to the pan and stir to coat in the oil. Toast for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until the grains are lightly golden and smell nutty. Stir in the cumin, smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper and cook 30 seconds more.
Add broth and simmer. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once boiling, reduce heat to low, cover tightly, and cook for 18–20 minutes until liquid is fully absorbed and rice is tender. Remove from heat and let steam, covered, for 5 minutes.
Fluff and finish. Fluff the rice gently with a fork. Taste and adjust salt if needed. Transfer to a large serving bowl or keep in the pot if serving from the back of a truck.
Prep the avocado. While rice rests, toss the diced avocado with lime juice and a pinch of salt. This keeps it bright and prevents browning.
Serve. Spoon rice into bowls and top generously with avocado. Scatter cilantro over the top if using. Serve with lime wedges alongside. Goes well next to chili, ribs, or anything coming off a fire.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cumin Rice with Avocado — A Side Worthy of the Men Who Earned It