Before you begin the recipe, cook about ⅔ cup of rice until tender and softened. Cool the rice grains completely.
You can cook or steam the rice in a stovetop pressure cooker, pan or Instant pot adding water as needed.
In a pan heat olive oil. You can also use any neutral flavored oil.
Add the chopped garlic and saute for some seconds. No need to brown the garlic.
Then add chopped scallions (spring onion whites). Begin to saute the spring onions stirring often.
Saute till the spring onions become translucent and have softened. Now add chopped mushrooms. Initially the mushrooms will leave water.
Saute them until all the water evoapartes from the pan and the mushrooms are completely cooked.
Add ground black or white pepper, crushed white sesame seeds, thyme and oregano to the mushrooms. Mix well.
Now add the cooked rice and salt as required. The rice has to be completely cooled before you add it at this step.
Mix and saute the rice with the mushrooms for a couple of minutes.
Garnish with the scallions greens or cilantro.
Serve mushroom rice hot or warm with a salad or you could just drizzle some extra virgin olive oil to the rice and enjoy the bowl of mushroom rice.
Notes
Instead of white button mushrooms you can also use cremini or shiitake mushrooms.
Use any non-sticky variety of rice to make the dish. While I prefer to use long-grained rice like basmati but any medium to short grain rice will also work well.
Spring onions give a good flavor but you can replace them with shallots or regular onions.
Feel free to add your choice of herbs and spices.
The recipe can be easily scaled up to make a big batch.
If you have any leftover cooked rice then making this recipe is a breeze.