Florentine Rice — The Rice That Held Our Blended Table Together

Christmas 2019. The Fremont apartment hosted: Karen, David, James, me. Kevin and Lisa in Portland (Lisa's family's turn for Christmas). Helen and Michael in San Jose. Small but complete: the core, the foundation, the four people around a table with a turkey and tteokguk and galbi jjim and tangyuan.

Karen's turkey was, as always, flawless — the woman has been cooking this turkey for thirty-five years and the thirty-five years show in every golden, crispy-skinned, perfectly-moist bite. My tteokguk was the fourth Christmas tteokguk: clear broth, tender rice cakes, egg ribbons. The tradition is bedrock. David said, "I do not remember Christmas without this soup." The forgetting-Christmas-without-tteokguk is the deepest compliment. The Korean food has written itself into David's memory as essential. Not optional. Essential.

James made tangyuan — the Taiwanese rice balls, colorful and round, floating in sweet ginger broth. The tangyuan were the new addition, the Taiwanese layer on the Korean-American Christmas, and Karen loved them. She said, "These are like mochi in soup." David ate four (David and round, sweet things: a secret alliance). The tangyuan are tradition now — one year on the table makes it tradition, the way japchae became tradition at Thanksgiving and tteokguk became tradition at Christmas. The table adopts new dishes the way the family adopts new people: slowly, then all at once.

After dinner, James gave me a gift: Korean wedding ducks. Hand-carved, painted in traditional colors, wrapped in silk. He said, "For our home. For the Korean tradition that is also our tradition now." The ducks on the shelf. The Korean inside the apartment. The Taiwanese beside the Korean. Both. Always both.

Saturday: the leftovers Christmas. Tteokguk reheated, turkey cold on sandwiches, tangyuan dissolved into a thinner broth that James heated with extra ginger. The leftovers are the echo of the holiday, the food continuing to nourish days after the gathering, the love persisting in the refrigerator.

After that Christmas — with tteokguk’s tender rice cakes in clear broth and James’s tangyuan floating round and sweet in ginger broth — I kept thinking about how rice had quietly anchored every dish on that table. Rice cakes, rice balls, rice in every form our two cultures knew how to love. When I want to carry that feeling into an ordinary weeknight, I come back to this Florentine Rice: simple, warm, and the kind of dish that sits comfortably next to anything — Korean, Taiwanese, or American — without asking for the spotlight.

Florentine Rice

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup long-grain white rice
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cups fresh baby spinach, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Lemon wedges, for serving (optional)

Instructions

1. Cook the rice. Bring the broth to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the rice, stir once, then reduce heat to low. Cover and cook for 18 minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 5 minutes.
2. Sauté the aromatics. While the rice cooks, heat butter and olive oil together in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5–6 minutes until softened and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more until fragrant.
3. Wilt the spinach. Add the chopped spinach to the skillet in batches, stirring each addition until just wilted, about 2–3 minutes total. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
4. Combine. Fluff the cooked rice with a fork and fold it into the spinach mixture in the skillet. Stir gently to combine everything evenly over low heat for 1–2 minutes.
5. Finish and serve. Remove from heat and stir in the Parmesan. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve warm, with lemon wedges on the side if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 265 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 39g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 310mg