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I'm writing an article about cooking rice, and I was wondering if anyone could give me any amusing anecdotes or examples of what NOT to do. I don't have any funnies myself, so it's going to be a very boring article.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Don't buy a rice cooker that only has directions in Japanese if you don't read Japanese. (My sister did that. Luckily, my other sister had a roommate at the time who was from Japan.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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If you want two cups of cooked rice and you start with two cups of raw rice, you had better have another pan to put the overflow into. That is a college boy story that has been around since ancient china. There is usually a component of trying to impress a guest.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I admit, this article is more difficult than I expected. What measurements of rice and water does one use when one wants to properly boil the water? Also, how much dry rice makes a single serving?
I use a rice cooker, so I've forgotten all these answers. Shame, shame... Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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does the rice cooker come with its own measuring cup? I use one of those, it must be 3/4 cup, maybe. If you make too much, you can save the rest for later. I put about 1 1/2 cups water to every cup of rice.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Eaquae, check out How to Steam Rice. It's the only method I use, and it turns out perfectly every time, as long as you don't walk away too long!
Oh, and also, I think 1/4 cup dry rice per person is standard for "side dish" servings. I think that makes about 3/4 to 1 cup rice per person when cooked. Honestly, I just throw it in by handfuls.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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And if you -do- wander off and have it end up a charred black mess at the bottom of the pot, soak it and clean it quickly. Don't let it harden for a few days.
Umm, just saying.
Posts: 650 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Thanks, everybody. I've got the rice cooker measurements (follow manufacturer's instructions) and boiling (put in lots of water and don't forget to stir), but I'm lost on proper measurements.
Yeah, kq, I do that myself when boiling, but now I have to be all responsible and stuff.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Oh, and also, I think 1/4 cup dry rice per person is standard for "side dish" servings. I think that makes about 3/4 to 1 cup rice per person when cooked. Honestly, I just throw it in by handfuls.
1/4 cup dry rice generally makes up to 3/4 cup cooked rice.
Serving size mentioned above applies if you're talking about normal white folk from North America. If you're talking about those for whom rice is a staple in their diet, ie Asians, it's much more. The locals here, regardless of gender and including children as young as, oh, 5, will eat 1 1/2 to 2 cups of cooked rice at every meal, and generally, in rice and curry packets, it includes that much rice. Pretty much everyone (except me and other foreigners) can polish the things off with no difficulty. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Yeah, I count on 1/2 cup dry per person when we're having a curry or beans over it and it's a main part of the meal, rather than a side to a meat dish.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I have a rice cooker without directions and I constantly play around with the water amounts which is always exciting.
Oh, and when you pour rice into the cooker, look carefully for bugs, especially if the rice package has lettering in a foreign language.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Oh, Theaca... that has definately happened to me.
We brought these little moth-type flies into the house with birdseed and they infested everything. It was disgusting- you'd open the rice or the cereal and find both wiggly worms as well as the flies themselves and their webs. They got into everything, however tightly sealed and dried, unless it hadn't previously been opened and some of those, too. We had to throw out lots of food and freeze the rest and we squashed hundreds of the insects.
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Heck, we get that with at least half our bags of rice here. It's just a known fact that here, you need to wash your rice at least once before you cook it, more if you have visible bugs. We also sometimes get small stones, but luckily for me, Fahim usually gets them. And no, I don't plan it that way.
It's also why people buy rice in fairly small quantities here, despite eating vast quantities of the stuff.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Don't forget to mention something about the many varieties of rice.
Basmati, long grain, short grain, brown, wild....
Wonderful wild rice comes from the upper Midwest, cultivated in many cases by Native Americans, as it has been done for centuries.
Wild rice takes about twice as long to cook as store-bought white rice.
When I was a kid, I had a chance to tour the Rice Research Institute in the Philippines; I was fascinated by what was then (1970's) quite a pioneering effort to genetically engineer strains suited for different parts of the world -- short stalks to survive typhoons, disease resistance, pest resistance, high yields, fast yields (for up to 3 harvests a year), adapted to hot or cold or high altitude, etc.
Posts: 431 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Some tips on cooking rice: try putting in just a little bit of spices into the rice while it's cooking (toss into the boiling pot, or put it in when you're starting the rice cooker). Salt is the typical one, but lemon juice can be very good, and you can experiment with other spices such as black pepper or allspice if you like...
An important feature of rice that many people ignore is the stickiness. Amount of water and cooking time, and the type of rice are what affects how sticky the rice is. If you're going to eat rice with chopsticks, you really need sticky rice.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Everyone who makes fried rice needs to know this: after cooking your rice, let it set to room temperature (or throw it in the fridge), then fry it. I read that in one of the Top Secret Recipes books and it's the best hints ever!
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Everyone who makes fried rice needs to know this: after cooking your rice, let it set to room temperature (or throw it in the fridge), then fry it. I read that in one of the Top Secret Recipes books and it's the best hints ever!
Oh, goodness, yes. You should NEVER use fresh rice when making fried rice, ever, ever, ever. Day old rice is by far the best.
I have many thousands of stories about cooking rice - Japanese style (NOT Chinese style) sticky rice - in a rice cooker. Most of them involve morons coming into a dorm kitchen saying "Heeeeeey, whatcha cooking?" while the rice is cooking, lifting the lid and letting all the steam out.
Hell hath no wrath like the Japanese boy from Hawaii whose rice is ruined.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by John Van Pelt: Don't forget to mention something about the many varieties of rice.
Basmati, long grain, short grain, brown, wild....
Red Rice in Sri Lanka. Yep, it's really red, and when ya cook it, it's pink!
Red rice is the local equivalent of brown rice. It can still be polished into white rice, but red is healthier, as is brown.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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We have red rice here, too. You can get it at TJ's.
I always freeze my rice (and flour, and sugar) for at least 48 hours (more for large containers) before storing it. Kills all the buggy eggs and I don't get bugs in my rice (or flour, or sugar.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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You can get several varieties of red rice at Erewhon, too. (And like much of their rice, it is sold by the pound. So I can buy a little bit of 6 or 7 varieties or red and brown rice, and mix them together. The resulting (cooked) dish was dubbed "Rice Collection" by one guest.)
And "wild rice," while delicious, is not actually rice at all.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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If you've been boiling chicken lately, pay attention and don't put in the same ammount of salt you've been using to boil the chicken. There IS a limit to how much salt tastes good on rice.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Whoa! It's been ages since I popped in to visit the site! I read the posts here and had to chuckle.
I do know how to cook rice but before I learned to cook it I learned that, yes it is possible to burn water.
I was planning on cooking rice one night and put the water on to boil and got distracted and I forgot the pan of water on the stove until the smoke alarm reminded me.
Recently I cooked dinner for a friend of mine before I moved out West, and part of the dinner included rice. At one point I wernt to check it and she came up behind me and slammed the lid back down on the pot and said something about never taking the lid off the pot till it was done, and then added that a Japanese friend had told her that!
I thought she was insane actually.
Posts: 113 | Registered: Nov 2005
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It's just a known fact that here, you need to wash your rice at least once before you cook it, more if you have visible bugs. We also sometimes get small stones, but luckily for me, Fahim usually gets them. 
