h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've almost never been able to cook rice well. Y'know, all fluffy and separate like you get in a curry house or a Chinese. So, on the BBC Food YouTube channel I find two videos telling us how to do that... but they both say exactly the opposite!

Jane says rinse your rice and stir it once it starts to boil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uve-rcHkm4I

Delia says don't rinse it and don't stir it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5TUy4sqBZE

I'm so confused At least they both agree on the amount of water.

Well, there's also the issue of whether it should be "fluffy and separate" to begin with. Asian cooks often prefer sticky rice especially when using chopsticks.

Let's assume that I'm looking for "fluffy and separate", shall we?

As far as I can comment from experience - it depends entirely upon the type and make and quality of rice you use. I can't make any recommendations because we have completely different makes and kinds here in Germany. I know that expensive rice usually ends up grainy and hard and tastes awful, whereas a common or garden parboiled long grain can turn out perfect.

You can measure the water exactly or use far more than twice the amount of water. My mother swears by pouring a kettle of boiling water over it once you've strained it from the saucepan, which would imply using the second method. That usually helps, with the added advantage that you can swill the saucepan out and get those last few grains out, too.

I have a hunch that dropping the rice into boiling water, rather than putting the rice and water (cold) on to cook together helps, too.

But this is probably all teaching your granny to suck eggs.

I haven't watched the videos, but I have used the "rinse and stir" method to great effect for fluffy rice.

I made some rice last week (pea pulao rice, actually), following the instructions which said to rinse it until the water runs clear *and* soak it for 30 minutes prior to cooking *and* fry it with the onions for a few minutes before adding the water (and frozen peas), but not to stir it once the water was in.

I still got a huge sticky mess. As I inevitably do.

Currently looking at frying pans online (you'll need to watch Delia's video to understand why). I don't actually own one - had three cast iron skillets for the past 40 years.

Can you get basmati rice there? When I tried my usual method to get fluffy rice the first time I tried basmati, it went madly fluffy. I ended up with about three times as much as I needed by volume.

Better than that, we have TexMati rice!

http://www.riceselect.com/products/texmati/

Cool old Guy cooking rice with a pinch of salt
"It higly depends on the brand, prepreperation and strain of rice.
Experience (or the box) will tell to rinse.

Throw some water in the pan makeit boil, Create a rice island, just some grains above the water. Fire on high until it boils again, fire half, stir, put lid on.

Wait some minutes for the rice to get cooked, when the water runs out kill the flames, keep pan on stove stir from the bottom up.

Let it rest for some time (still on the hot stove, if cold room add towel to insulate).

Add some drops of fresh lemon juice and stir for sticky rice (sushi)
Add some nut/ sunflower oil and stir for seperate grains.

(note I did not mention the salt)"

Thanks CoG, I'll try that method.

That was Basmati rice I was using, KB, although I'll often use wholegrain too, or a mix. For a while I stopped buying anything called Basmati because of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basmati#Patent_battle

Mannnnn... All this patent crap is too much to bear sometimes, it really is.

I just use a rice cooker..shove it in then forget it

I have considered a rice cooker in the past but my kitchen is so small I can only accommodate a very few monotaskers. In fact I only really have one - the toaster.

I've been having a look this morning (this morning... well, I suppose technically it is but it feels like the middle of the night ) at what my local restaurant supply store has to offer. I do need a frying pan that isn't cast iron, as good and as useful as those are. I'll continue to cook my morning fried egg in the small one. But they have some commercial grade non-stick ones which aren't too pricey, and I think I'll get one of those as long as there's a lid that will fit it tightly. I've been meaning to go there for a while anyway to get some high-temperature spatulas and few other bits and pieces.

Hmmm... I was unaware of those patent issues. They come from that same company I linked to above.


I wonder how much of their rice lines go back to the 5 Japanese families that moved here around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. Some of these five families smuggled rice plants and seeds at great risk from Japan and started huge rice farms South of Houston. Later their farms were considered so vital for the War Effort of WWII that some of them were exempted from Internment. One of the original farmhouses still stands in the midst of sprawling shopping centers at the corner of the Gulf Freeway and NASA Rd. 1. http://www.google.com/maps/@29.5310874,-95.1275573,3a,75y,280.42h,75.87t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjifFD5mMdqqzX0CIiIAoFA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Look around that location. The Kobayashi family still owns all the property at that intersection. Those shopping centers are all leased from them at all four corners of that intersection, (Moto Kobayashi's story: http://hirasaki.net/Family_Stories/Kobayashi/Kobayashi.htm )


Here is a link that leads to some of these histories I haven't fully read yet. Specifically the Webster Families.
http://hirasaki.net/Family_Stories/Family_Stories.htm

I nearly always use tilda rice thesedays, the tilda pure basmati has a superioir flavour and especially scent to me; plus a highly consistant cooking time; exactly 12 minutes.

Fry onion finely diced in oil (often with some garlic and fennel seed or cumin and mustard seed), rinse rice under cold water for about five minutes (longer the better I think), throw that in, stir, then add twice by volume water to rice, plus a 'tad' more for luck, stir once, cover with lid, slightly lose, cook for 12 minutes, after 9 minutes room fills with scent of the rice, after 12 minutes, oughta be almost* dry (I.E., used up all the water, but, a litle remains), leave lid off to finish cooking, and it oughta be easily nice and fluffy - I use a non stick saucepan for the rice so it can't create the bugger to clean bottom in the pan

Wild rice mixed with basmati always cooks up nice and fluffy, probably moreso than just basmati on its own (something to do with presence of differnt shape and hardness of grains, perhaps, not sure)

a very few monotaskers. In fact I only really have one - the toaster.
But a rice cooker can be used for soup, scrambled egg, and lots of other things, would imagine you might even be able to make a cake in it....like saying a breville will only be good for toasted sandwiches yet they can do so much more...

Maybe so, but I don't have the space for it.

Any road up. The more I think about it the more I'm starting to realise that I pretty much do cook my rice like Delia. Except for the no-rinse thing. I cook rice in my stockpot. It's six quarts and is as big as big as a medium sized frying pan at the bottom. But I still think I'll get a proper frying pan, one that isn't made out of the same stuff they used to build bridges out of before steel was invented.

I think the prize goes to Delia