Stop with the mushy rice already!
This Christmas I had enough of my dad’s rice. It’s easily the worst thing my father cooks. My mom was never one for cooking. The only meal she has ever taken seriously is Christmas dinner. She can cook turkey, ham, yams, steamed and stewed vegetables, etc. However, as soon as the calendar moves to January, suddenly, her cooking becomes a bit of a disaster. In conversations with her, I’ve told her that it’s not that she’s bad at cooking, she’s just not passionate about it. The only time that she is, is around Christmas, which, if you realize that she became a pastor after retiring from her job as an eye doctor, suddenly makes sense. A pastor being passionate about Christmas? Stunner.
On the other hand, my father has always been a consistently solid cook. This is the man that made me fall in love with chicken liver and other offal despite being a picky eater as a kid. I could never count the number of times that I ate dinner and was amazed from a particular taste and asked my dad, “What is this?”
The answer I heard back was the familiar refrain, “Food.” A word that was code for, “If I told you what you were eating, you wouldn’t eat it. Shut up and finish your dinner.” That said, my dad has always had a food that he consistently cooks poorly. Finally, this Christmas visit, I had to launch my complaint. The food that he consistently cooks poorly? Rice.
Personally, I’m usually successful at cooking rice. Sometimes, out of sheer laziness, I throw vegetables in with my rice, which changes the ratio of water to food cooking in the pot. That can lead to failure, but when I’m not experimenting, I have no problem making rice.
Back in university, without any guidance I figured it out. The apartment that my brother and I lived in gained the label, “Survivor Island,” by Bonjay member Ian Swain. The only food we always had in our cupboards was rice. My brother and I lived around the corner from a grocer that sold certain items in bulk and we were amazed how affordable a huge sack of rice was.
When I use the word sack, that is not an exaggeration. We bought a lined-burlap sack full of rice. Being poor students, rice, flour and cooking oil were the only foods that we always had. That being said, I know how to cook rice.
I primarily cook rice similar to how you’ll see below. One day, when I had hours free, I experimented with steaming rice. I understand the very basic rule that you never reboil rice. Instead, fry rice at a high temperature to re-hydrate it. Once you figure out the basics, your palette for rice, and thus food, improves vastly. Understanding basic rules about cooking rice can stretch a meal. Rice is super easy to season. It can add texture to an otherwise basic plate. If you want to level up as a cook, learning how to cook rice properly is the fastest way to do so.
How you ask? First watch the video below:
There are some exceptions to the method in this video, for instance, you’ll need to use slightly more water when cooking brown rice. Also with brown rice, you want to start with the rice in a cool pot, get it to a boil and then add salt (an important step) before turning the pot to a simmer.
Personally, I add an oil, or fat to my pot when cooking rice. This has two benefits: It enhances the flavor of the rice, and it changes the temperature that the water boils at. This means that you can cook your rice at a slightly higher temperature. It can force you to use slightly more water, so you’ll need to pay attention to your pot a bit more.
I don’t always wash my rice, but when I do, I wash my rice differently than what is demonstrated. After I measure rice, I pour it into a bowl, add water to the bowl, and lightly knead the rice in the bowl until the water becomes milky. I then drain the water. I repeat this 3 times, or until I can see the rice grains in the water after kneading it. After draining the water, I add the rice to the pot, with my measured amount of water.
As I told my father this Christmas vacation, “If you have to drain water when you cook your rice, you’ve used too much water.” Learning this is the foundation to cooking good rice. Having good rice means that if you’ve cooked too much, you can reheat and re-hydrate refrigerated rice by simply cooking it at a high temperature in a pan with oil. That’s how you reheat rice. Never add more water.
Or, just buy a good rice cooker. Seriously, dad, stop feeding us mush. You’re far too skilled a cook to be feeding us inedible rice.
