Rice Is Nice
I love rice. (And ham. You love ham!)
But rice.... ah, it's good. (Goes well with ham, too!) (OK, quiet down now... let me get on with my blog entry!) (Geesh, chill out, I was just thinking about you... it's close to lunch time and all...) (thanks, but um, remember the *rice* we had for breakfast?!) (Oh, yeah, ok... carry on.)
Where was I? (darned internal monologue) (darned egotistical arteest writer-types)
Rice is the world's one-stop grocery shopping. I could look up the figures but I think it's safe to say that more people in the world eat rice than any other one foodstuff.
I love most rice. I'd like to say I never met a bowl I didn't like, but then again, I have to remind myself that I ate in the college cafeteria. (Oh god, aren't you forgetting that horrible monstrosity called "Southwestern pilaf" at Chili's? BLECH!) (Good point.)
My rice world opened up, however, when I learned the purported ye olde Chinese way to cook rice. If you want fluffy, wash the rice first and discard the water. If you like sticky, go straight to Step 1. This is not a recipe. It's more of a way to cook rice.
1. Take a quantity of rice and cover it with cold water in the cooking pot. Shake to level it out and make sure you have water to cover PLUS enough to come up to the middle joint in your thumb when you rest your thumb on the surface of the newly submerged and leveled rice. Make sense? You can use math to figure out quantities, but this way, I can use whatever pot comes to hand and I'm good.
2. Season with salt or garlic or whatever you like at this point. Stir and put on the stove uncovered.
3. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally and cut back the heat to medium or medium low once it's boiling.
4. Keep an eye on it, and when the water has boiled down to where it's bubbling up through little channels, cover tightly, remove from heat and let it stand for 20 minutes.
5. NO PEEKING. None. Don't even try it. Shake your wooden spoon at family members who try.
After 20 minutes, fluff with a fork and it's ready to go. If it doesn't seem done to you, then add more water and bring to a boil, cover tightly, remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Just so you don't boil all the water away while it's on the heat, you will have nice rice.
I like this method the most because you have 20 minutes to cook other stuff and have the rice and other stuff all come out perfect at the same time.
I like rice in a bowl anytime. Top with butter and cinnamon for breakfast. Top with salsa, yoghurt and cheese for lunch. Cut up leftover meat and veggies, stir fry it lightly with a beaten egg. Yum. It's all good.
But rice.... ah, it's good. (Goes well with ham, too!) (OK, quiet down now... let me get on with my blog entry!) (Geesh, chill out, I was just thinking about you... it's close to lunch time and all...) (thanks, but um, remember the *rice* we had for breakfast?!) (Oh, yeah, ok... carry on.)
Where was I? (darned internal monologue) (darned egotistical arteest writer-types)
Rice is the world's one-stop grocery shopping. I could look up the figures but I think it's safe to say that more people in the world eat rice than any other one foodstuff.
I love most rice. I'd like to say I never met a bowl I didn't like, but then again, I have to remind myself that I ate in the college cafeteria. (Oh god, aren't you forgetting that horrible monstrosity called "Southwestern pilaf" at Chili's? BLECH!) (Good point.)
My rice world opened up, however, when I learned the purported ye olde Chinese way to cook rice. If you want fluffy, wash the rice first and discard the water. If you like sticky, go straight to Step 1. This is not a recipe. It's more of a way to cook rice.
1. Take a quantity of rice and cover it with cold water in the cooking pot. Shake to level it out and make sure you have water to cover PLUS enough to come up to the middle joint in your thumb when you rest your thumb on the surface of the newly submerged and leveled rice. Make sense? You can use math to figure out quantities, but this way, I can use whatever pot comes to hand and I'm good.
2. Season with salt or garlic or whatever you like at this point. Stir and put on the stove uncovered.
3. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally and cut back the heat to medium or medium low once it's boiling.
4. Keep an eye on it, and when the water has boiled down to where it's bubbling up through little channels, cover tightly, remove from heat and let it stand for 20 minutes.
5. NO PEEKING. None. Don't even try it. Shake your wooden spoon at family members who try.
After 20 minutes, fluff with a fork and it's ready to go. If it doesn't seem done to you, then add more water and bring to a boil, cover tightly, remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Just so you don't boil all the water away while it's on the heat, you will have nice rice.
I like this method the most because you have 20 minutes to cook other stuff and have the rice and other stuff all come out perfect at the same time.
I like rice in a bowl anytime. Top with butter and cinnamon for breakfast. Top with salsa, yoghurt and cheese for lunch. Cut up leftover meat and veggies, stir fry it lightly with a beaten egg. Yum. It's all good.
4 Comments:
I think I'm a rice heathen because I do the rice of the Minute variety (even though it's really five minute rice). I wonder if there is a huge difference in taste?
HUGE!
While I like Minute Rice, the difference between that and basmati or jasmine is astounding. Try Wild Pecan Rice by Konriko for starters if you want to climb the rice ladder up from Min. Rice or Uncle Ben's.
That's almost exactly how I make rice, except that I never manage to keep from eating it for a whole twenty minutes after it comes off the heat. Having absolutely no money, I eat a lot of wonderfully cost-effective rice dishes. A lot of rice is a perfect way of covering up the fact that you only have a few sad scrapings of meat, and some really lame vegetable-ends.
--Socar
Hey -- this is AndreeB. So sorry I haven't gotten back to you before this. Thanks for the email. I don't have your email and couldn't find it on your site, but you can write to me a tgernert@grandecom.net or aball@statesman.com and I can see if I can help you with that question you asked...(don't know if I should write it on here...)
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