The Correct Way To Make Rice

OK boys and girls, friends and lovers. Here we go again, I've been thinking I need to add something that will go with the recipe in the previous post, and for the sake of simplicity, and starting with the basics, I thought rice is a good place to start. If you can cook rice, you can live. I lived in Japan for 5 years, so I do humbly claim knowing something about the subject.

Most people in Japan use a rice cooker, this is a kitchen appliance that is solely dedicated to making rice. Some of them can make bread too, but then it will be round. I's a good investment if you're going to be living on rice, if you're single etc. It's not practical for me, because I don't eat that much in the way of carbs, and so what follows is the manual way.

OK, let's jump right in then. If you live in South Africa, then you are probably familiar with the Tastic brand. It's OK, not remarkable, just a good meat and potatoes rice, if I may be permitted such an obscure statement. There are actually many different kinds of rice, but we won't go into that now. What is remarkable to us, borderline consumers, is that the directions, the cooking instructions on the back of the bag of Tastic and all other 'normal' rice is WRONG. It would seem that the people in charge have an interest in misleading their customers, their very bread and butter, or maybe they just don't know any better.

The idea behind making rice the right way, is to treat the cooking rice as a living organism. Like a pupa in incubation. You have to respect the things you eat, and treat them accordingly. Otherwise they gang up on you and give you heartburn, indigestion, gas, and eventually cancer.

To begin, pour out the rice into the pot. This should be a heavy pot, at least the base must be quite thick. Don't use flimsy aluminium pots. The best kind of pot for making rice is a clay pot, you can use it on  gas, but I'm not sure about electric stove, at least not the kind with an exposed element. This is a bit of a novelty though, and a sturdy stainless steel pot with a snugly fitting lid should work fine. The lid is indispensable, and it must fit well. It is not essential to measure the amount of rice, but lets say for clarity's sake that it's about 500ml, or 2 mugs full.

First, wash the rice, with cold water, unless you have a solar geyser made with food grade materials. Wash it over and over until the water no longer becomes cloudy. Now for the cooking water, it must be cold, this is very important. Pour some in so that the water level is just a few centimeters above the rice level. Shake it a little bit so that the rice lies evenly. Now place the pot on a level surface and put your open hand into it so that your palm and your fingers rest on the rice. You don't really put weight on it, the rice must remain level. Now, the water must reach your knuckles, or your knuckles must be under water but it mustn't come up any higher than that. At least this is true for Japanese rice. Rice sold in South Africa soaks up more water, so what you can do is let the water come up just a little bit higher than your knuckles. but not more than 2 centimeters.

Into this, add a pinch, or two, no more, of salt. Salt is not really that good for you, and for some reason Japanese rice requires no salt at all. Tastic tastes a little bit funny if you don't put in any though. Now put on the lid and put it on the stove. You have to start with a low heat. If you don't want to pay very much attention to it, you can leave it like that for about an hour. If you're in a hurry you can turn up the heat as soon as it's boiling. The most important rule here is that you DON'T take off the lid until it's done. To find out how far it is you  have to listen. There's a certain sound it makes when it's boiling (That's when you can turn the heat up), and when it's almost done it becomes more of a sizzling. Remember though that if you open it too soon, you've blown it. So if you are in a hurry, turn the heat up once it's boiling, then when you can hear that it's almost done, turn it down quite low again, otherwise it will burn.

The first time you try this, rather don't be in a hurry. Low heat and leave it for an hour. When I say low heat, I mean high enough to get it boiling eventually. This is actually why it takes a bit longer this way. Ideally it should  start boiling in about 15 minutes, if it's not boiling in 20, then just turn up the heat some.

When it's done, its will sound particularly dry with a kind of sizzling noise. Open it, and give it a good stir with a rice scoop or a wooden spoon. That's it, Enjoy! If you want to be decadent, and large amounts of butter don't scare you, stir in 50~100g of butter and a teaspoon of thyme with this, just after you've opened it. (Not margarine, PLEASE!)

This is actually a  good party trick because many people cringe if things aren't measured out. As for the 1 cup rice three cups water instructions, they are wrong. As far as measuring things out goes, you don't ever want more than 2 cups water per 1 cup rice. Maybe the reason they say that is because many people just cook rice without a lid, which is a total sacrilege anyway. So now you know. Happy rice making! (And eating).