Baked rice with leeks and white beans

 A dish I have taken from my favourite recipe online service: food at the New York Times! As usual I made some small adjustments to their original recipe. So here it is

What you need

• 1 lemon
• 2 cups of long grain rice (e.g. basmati)
• 3 long/larger leeks
• flakes of almonds
• 1 lemon
• white beans (2 cans - or cook them yourself)
• salt, pepper, chilli flakes
• parmesan
• flat leaf parsley 
• ca 1 litre water
• a small stock cube (vegetable or chicken)

Equipment

• roasting pan
• aluminium foil

How you do it

• preheat the oven to 200C (ca 400F)
• wash and chop the herbs
• wash, peel and cut the leeks. Cut them into ca 1cm thick disks.
• sprinkle the leeks evenly over the pan surface area
• take the juice from 1/2 lemon and sprinkle over it. Cut the rest into slices and place them evenly between the leeks
• put some chilli flakes, salt and pepper over it as well as the almond flakes
• sprinkle some olive oil over it. It would be great if I had an oil spray can to get that evenly distributed - but c'est la vie. 
• put the pan into the oven and roast it for ca 20min
• just before the end of the 20min bring the water to the boil so that it is ready when you pull out the pan from the oven
• after 20min, the almonds and leeks should have browned a little and you need to pull out the pan and place it on a heat resistant surface
• take the rice and sprinkle it evenly over the leeks/almonds
• do the same with the white beans
• grate some fresh parmesan over it
• pour the water over it. Make sure the water submerges all of your ingredients (the rice will expand)
• cover the pan with an aluminium foil and place the pan back into the oven
• bake it for ca 20-22min
• finally:
• pull out the pan and remove the foil
• add your herbs of choice and mix well under the baked rice
• put the pan back into the oven for another 10-12 min so that the rice on the surface gets a bit crispy

Once it's pulled out you may add some additional fresh herbs. I think that adding parmesan on top of the dish is worth it and adds a nice flavour.

Instead of just using water I also thought that maybe adding a glass of white wine might add a nice flavour to it.