Bovril and Rice Dog Treats

Hi everyone it’s BBC2 here, thanks for dropping in to read our blog. We know it’s a busy time for everyone so thank you! We are just putting the finishing touches to the Christmas shopping list, trying to get everything done so that we don’t have to go shopping after today. Let me see, plenty of gin, tonic, lemons and ice. To tell the truth we are lucky enough to have a plumbed in icemaker in the garage. Another little trick I do is when a certain German supermarket has a special on its un-waxed lemons, I buy a few bags and slice them, putting them on a tray and freeze them ready to pop in to a freezer bag, so when I get to sit down and have a G&T there is always a slice, very civilized.

Which brings me to Max our dog, or are we his humans? Anyway I like to make him his own ice cubes and when I get a slice of lemon out of the freezer he knows that his ice cubes are next to the lemons and he sits looking at me, then the freezer, expecting one of his ice cubes! You see I make them dissolving a heaped teaspoon of Bovril or Marmite in 100ml hot water then adding another 100ml of cold water and pouring it into a silicone ice cube tray and freezing it, he loves them.

It was when I was making him a tray of ice cubes and the jug with the beef drink was sitting on the side it got me thinking…I had, as usual, some plain boiled rice leftover form the Burmese curry we had the night before, and as you may know I don’t like to throw anything away, so I set about making him some treats using bits leftover and the store cupboard.

Ingredients
280g/10oz cooked plain boiled rice
170g/60z plain flour
1½ teaspoons Bovril or Marmite

Method
Place the cold boiled rice into a food processor and pulse until you have fine breadcrumbs, then add the flour and pulse a few times to incorporate then add the Bovril/Marmite, I found the easiest way was to pour the teaspoon onto the mixture and stick it into the mixture and stir, so that it left the teaspoon clean. Then pulse until the Bovril/Marmite is evenly distributed throughout the mixture, you will need to stop the processor once or twice to scrape down the sides, depending on your cooked rice you may need to add a little more flour if the mixture is too sticky.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough to bring it together, and then rollout the dough to about ¼ inch thickness cut into strips about 1 inch and cut these into about 1½” pieces, then place on a baking sheet/pan and pop into a preheated oven 160c fan for 20 minutes or until cooked and dry. This time could vary depending on how much moisture is in the rice but you are looking for them to be completely dry, when they were cooked I turned off the oven and left them in there to dry a little more. I must say that both Max and Teddy seem to like them and there is a very hollow crunch sound they make when they both are eating them that sounds very satisfying.

Do give these a go and you can use what you have with regards the cooked rice just scale it up or down, as always we look forward to your feedback or/and comments.

BBC1: The dogs certainly love these! We would also like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy and peaceful Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, or festive season of your own!