However, if you want to develop a nice crispy crust on the bottom of the pot to make Fan Nung: Sizzling Rice, it is best to use a pot and a stove. Or simply scrape it up and salt it or roll it in gomasio and have it with saké or biru (beer).
Whether for a rice cooker or a stove-top, the most sucessful proportions are 1 1/4 cups of water to 1 cup of rice.
Sushi rice is moistened by slowly adding su (rice vinegar) to cooked rice and fanning it, so please don't use too much water.
You lifted the lid! You lifted the lid! Ack! Ack!
Problem: The rice is still very chewy or hard in the middle after the allotted time. Solution: Add just enough water to create a little steam, 1/4 cup or less. Put the lid on and cook the rice on very low heat for another 5 minutes.
Problem: The rice is cooked but too wet. Solution: Uncover the pot and cook over low heat to evaporate the water. Or gently turn the rice out onto a baking sheet and dry it in a low oven.
Problem: The grains are split and the rice is mushy. Solution: Use the rice for congee or rice pudding and start over if you have the time. If not, give them congee instead.
Problem: The bottom layer of rice has burned. Solution: Run cold water over the outside of the pot's bottom to keep the burnt flavour from permeating the rest of the rice (don't add water to the rice itself).Tip out as much rice as you can salvage.
Heat to boiling over medium heat. Keep boiling over this heat; you might need to reduce heat a bit if it threatens to spill over the top, but when that happens I usually just skim off the top with a metal spoon, which returns things to normal. After a few minutes, nearly all the water will be gone, and you'll actually be able to see "holes" in the rice. Immediately cover the pot and reduce heat to a minimum. Cook, keeping pot tightly closed, for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and leave to stand (still tightly closed!) for another 10 minutes.
You might want to fluff up the rice a bit with a fork before serving.
IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT STIR THE RICE AT ANY POINT DURING THE PROCESS! STIRRING CAUSES THE STARCHES TO LEAVE THE RICE, LEAVING YOU WITH YUCKY RICE BROTH!!
It's so good. But when it's too wet, white rice turns gummy, brown rice explodes and turns into mush. I prefer the grains to be thoroughly cooked but distinct unless deliberately aiming for a stickier rice.
I liked the idea of placing one's hand on top of the rice and pouring in water until it reached the knuckle of the middle finger. But when I tried it, it didn't work and I theorized at the time that either my hands were too small or my pot was too big. So I use a measuring cup and measure exactly one and one-quarter cups of water for each cup of grain.
After washing grain, I tip it into a mesh colander, let it drain for a few minutes and then shake it a bit to eliminate any extra water the rice is retaining. I put a measuring cup under a colander of washed rice once. In the space of a couple of minutes it yielded an extra (unwanted) half cup of water.That can make a big difference.
In a rice cooker, you can add the rice, the water, and a little salt at the same time, swirl it to submerge all of the rice, flip the switch and ignore it. The instructions that come with some rice cookers advise against cooking heavier grains in them, but I use mine to cook white and brown rice, kamut, spelt, barley, wild rice or combinations of all of the above and they always come out well. When I cook more than five cups of these, I add a smidgen more water (maybe two to three tablespoons per cup.) Porous grains such as white rice take 30 to 40 minutes in my rice cooker; brown rice and larger grains take the best part of an hour.
When I cook grain on the stove, I use a heavy pot, bring the water to a boil first (with a little salt added) and don't let myself walk away from the stove while the water is coming to a boil because once it begins to boil, the water evaporates very quickly. The moment it boils, I add the washed rice and just swirl it in the pot - enough to make sure that it is covered by the water, rather than stirring it. Then I cover it with a lid, reduce the heat to minimum and leave it alone. It takes about 25 minutes to cook white rice on a stove, 40 to 50 for brown.
To make crispy rice, I leave "pot rice" on the burner for an extra 15 to 20 minutes. With white rice, and the right timing, a lacy, delicate, chewy crust forms on the bottom of the pot that will break into pieces easily.
If your rice is too wet or even too crunchy, burnt or otherwise not usable as run-of-the-mill side dish, then take the gunk, lump, pile, etc. of rice product, season it fairly heavily (naturally in fitting with your meal) and then dump it all in a pan with already hot oil. Treat the mass now like a pancake batter. Let the underside brown very lightly. By this time, your rice pie should hold together. When it's ready, flip the whole thing at once and brown the other side. Each time you flip, you should mash all the rice to perfectly fit the pan. Keep flipping until both sides are nicely (lightly) evenly browned and you are fairly sure that the middle is also lightly cooked, then flip it onto a plate. To garnish, sprinkle basil, cayenne pepper, powdered sugar, whatever, based on your ealier seasonings and your meal in general.
Treat the mass now like a pancake batter. Let the underside brown very lightly. By this time, your rice pie should hold together. When it's ready, flip the whole thing at once and brown the other side. Each time you flip, you should mash all the rice to perfectly fit the pan. Keep flipping until both sides are nicely (lightly) evenly browned and you are fairly sure that the middle is also lightly cooked, then flip it onto a plate.
To garnish, sprinkle basil, cayenne pepper, powdered sugar, whatever, based on your ealier seasonings and your meal in general.
Happy Eating! -fb
The secret to cooking the perfect pot of japanese rice is washing it, and cooking it the perfect amount of time.
To wash the rice, just rinse it in the pot your going to cook it in...
To cook the rice...
Serve.
WARNING: Be careful when keeping rice warm. One of the commonest causes of food poisoning (actually THE commonest according to the food hygiene course I did) is rice kept warm in restaurants .
Warm rice provides the perfect environment for staphlococus, a nasty little bug that lives in the grooves in your fingerprints (and just about everywhere else). Fortunately it's not as serious as listeria or salmonella; normal symptoms are 24 hour D+V.
The problem is more severe in catering environments because food is more likely to have been handled by more people and because of the larger quantites involved. Leaving rice around your kitchen for a couple of days and then eating it is a bad idea though, unless you want to get intimately accquainted with your toilet.
This has been an Everything Public Service Announcement brought to you by PaulM.
See also Bacillus cereus for more detailed info on a bacteria behind rice based food poisoning.
Ok. Ultra yummy Pilau rice thingy. You will need.
(Serves 4)
Wash the rice until the water runs more or less clear. Now, get yourself a large heavy pan (so that it will be about half full when we put the rice and water in it), and melt the ghee or butter over a low heat (be careful not to burn the butter). Now, throw in everything except the rice and the water. Stir this little mixture, making sure that all the turmeric powder is mixed into the butter. Let it sizzle very gently for about a minute. Now chuck in the rice, and stir enthusiastically until the rice is very well coated with the butter (it should all go kind of orange from the turmeric). Pour in the water, turn up the heat, place the lid on the pan and leave to cook for about 15 minutes or so. The rice is done once all the water has been absorbed (but don't take the lid off the check too often, and don't stir). When the rice is done, remove from the heat and leave to stand (with the lid still on) for 5-10 mins. Serve with some kind of Indian thing (or a Thai red curry, or something).
By the way, when you serve this you might want to remove the cardamom pods and the cloves, because they taste nasty if you eat them. At the very least you should warn your guests that something unpleasant is lurking in their food.
Ok, I don't know who taught you all to cook rice, but this is how my mother taught me.
First you need to choose the right pot; it should be small enough so that rice will be spread evenly on the bottom.
Step 1 Pour a thin layer of cooking oil into the pot and heat the oil a bit. Next pour in 1 cup of rice and stir-fry it on the maximum flame until it darkens and gets a more brownish hue. (Note, if you will be seasoning your rice with anything like Paprika, Cinnamon, Knorr Cubes or whatever, do it now)
Step 2
Pour in 1 and ˝ cups of water (or 1 and Ľ depending on how you like your rice) and wait for the water to boil.
Step 3
As the water starts boiling, let the flame down to a simmer and cover the pot. Wait for 20 minutes. (As stated above, if you open the lid or stir or something stupid like that, you will be eating something like refugee camp gruel and not rice.
Step 4
If after 20 minutes the rice isn't ready wait for around 4 more minutes if it's still wet after that... then well, you didn't follow the instructions right.
Enjoy.
This is the secret of rice, told to me on a dark wintry night by a young Japanese lady. This revolutionised my cooking (which, admittedly, does mostly consist of rice-based dishes), and it can and will do the same for you, fellow eater!
This works best on a gas hob, where the temperature can be quickly and easily adjusted, but one may also use an electric hob if one is so handicapped. In this case, it is best to use two hob plates set to the required temperature, as electric hob plates take time to cool down and will belittle one's humble efforts to make perfect rice.
Take one pan of indeterminate volume, and add dried rice in the normal manner (i.e. with a cup, glass, hands, catapult, Archimedes Screw, whatever. Just get the rice into the freakin pan) and add the same amount of cold, cold water. This will look like too little water. But it is not! Do not add any more water, or your rice will be poor, like a rice-based pudding, and people will have contempt for you!
Next, put the rice on a very hot thing until it begins to boil. But be vigilant! As soon as the water begins to boil you must do two things as quickly as possible! You must first seal the pan completely, so none of the lovely, fluffy steam escapes and carries off all the rice-magic. You should use a plate, or even the pan lid. But you must take care! Many pan lids do not fit well, or have holes designed to let the steam out. These are things of the Devil, and must be watched for. Secondly, you must transfer the pan to a low heat. Use the lowest heat your hob is capable of. This will seem foolish, but you must trust me! For as yet you do not know the secret of rice, and I must be your guide. Leave the pan on this heat for fifteen minutes exactly, to the second! And remember, you must not unseal the pan........
When fifteen minutes exactly has passed, you must remove the pan from the low heat and put it on.........no heat at all! This is the secret of perfect rice, but you must leave the pan sealed for a further ten minutes to achieve it. If at any time during this process you are foolish enough to unseal the pan, the gods will laugh at you and your rice will be poor.
After this final stage of waiting has elapsed, you may unseal the pan and gaze with happy wonder at the perfectly cooked rice that you have brought into being. Gasp at the perfect light, fluffy tumescence of each grain, and giggle at the absence of any superfluous water to be arduously drained. You have triumphed over the forces of nature, my worthy friend, and have cooked perfect rice!
