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Hi TL, So, first of all, I'm not quite as chobo of a cook as this topic makes me sound. I'm actually pretty good. The problem is that I usually use a special rice cooker which makes the rice come out awesome every time, and I've come to rely on it.
However, I've recently moved to Germany for the summer, and I have pretty much nothing here. All I have is two pots and a frying pan. Two nights ago my rice was too dry and hard even after an hour of cooking, but last night it was too soft and watery after just half an hour of cooking. Do you guys have any tips on how to make it come out good?
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for 1 person i usually get half a cup of rice, full cup of water, as soon as it boils turn it down a bit, when all the water is gone, your rice should be perfect
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2 cups water + 1 cup rice. Boil the water(add a little salt, butter or olive oil if you like) and when its at a rolling boil drop the rice in. Reduce to a simmer and cover.
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2 pots and a frying pan is enough to cook a zillion things btw. Learn to do stir fry and pasta sauces~
www.foodnetwork.com zzzzzz
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OMG poor non-italians just use scolapasta tl.netters!!
Boil the water, throw the rice inside, when it taste cooked, you use the magic scolapasta
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3 part water, 1 part rice, microwave 20 min, done
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Okay. So, usually, you have to eyeball the amount of water you put into the pot. Get a nice stainless steel pot or a non-stick black one. Those two are the easiest to clean afterwards (non-stick > stainless steel, though).
Since I'm a college student, speed is the most important factor. Rice cookers take anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, so I stopped using mine. Using a pot properly takes way too long as well (~20-30 minutes), even though the rices comes out the most perfect that way.
I always cook it the Asian way, so I think it's really weird that you'd put in salt, butter, or olive oil.... Rice tastes good by itself; no need to add other stuff. I heard that salt and butter kills the flavor of rice too.... Simple is always better; being able to use only common ingredients and make something taste good is the best cooking.
Anyways, here's the fastest method of cooking rice well that I've found. 5-8 minute rice:
1. Put in however much rice you want, I always put in 2 cups if I'm only cooking for myself.
2. Wash the rice thoroughly, dumping out the water each time (don't dump out rice!).
3. Hard part: adding the right amount of water. So, if you were to look at the rice pot from the side view, let's say the rice level is at "2 inches". Then, I'd fill the water up to "3 inches". Thai people use the half/half system, where the water level is twice as high as the rice level. But that makes it too watery. 2/3 is a good measurement to use.
4. Put the pot on the stove. Turn the stove to HIGH.
5. Water will boil in about 3-5 minutes. Once it starts boiling, immediately turn the stove to somewhere between medium and low, more towards the low side. (If you wait too long while it boils, then the pot will boil over and it'll be crap. If that happens, slightly open the pot to let out the hot air and make it cooler. You should never open the pot over and over, it makes the rice taste terrible)
6. After about 2-4 minutes, the rice should be done. You can check it, the water levels should be gone and the rice should start to look fluffy and not wet anymore. If you check it and the rice is shiny looking (but no water), then just wait like 1 more minute before you eat it.
7. Try moving the rice around with a spoon slightly. If it feels sticky and wet, you messed up. Put it back on the stove (on low) and do a little more. If the rice is too dry and hard, then you should sprinkle a cup of water over the rice and put it back on the stove (on low).
Goodluck. I learned this from a friend in college, and I cook for people 2 times a week. It never fails and cooks amazingly fast.
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On June 20 2007 03:42 ToT)BrAiN( wrote: for 1 person i usually get half a cup of rice, full cup of water, as soon as it boils turn it down a bit, when all the water is gone, your rice should be perfect This is what I've been trying to do, although since I don't have measuring cups I might have messed up the proportions.
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On June 20 2007 03:45 red.venom wrote:2 pots and a frying pan is enough to cook a zillion things btw. Learn to do stir fry and pasta sauces~ www.foodnetwork.com zzzzzz I can do stir fry and sauces EZ. I just can't do rice
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On June 20 2007 03:58 0x64 wrote: 3 part water, 1 part rice, microwave 20 min, done ROFL like I have a microwave.
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And thanks WhatisProtoss. I'll try it your way tonight.
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On June 20 2007 04:25 Luddite wrote:I can do stir fry and sauces EZ. I just can't do rice Yeah, stir fry and sauces are the easiest things to cook. No wonder everybody cooks pasta, it's just so easy.
I never use measuring cups. When you need to cook fast, you don't have time to use such things. I've had to cook for 11 people in 60 minutes before, I don't have time to measure crap out and put it in.
Oh, and Luddite, just remember that the hardest part is how much water you add. The way I check is, I put water into the pot, then smooth down the rice so it's LEVEL.
Then, I put my finger into the very middle of the pot into the rice. I measure the deepness of the rice (it's usually to my first knuckle), then I make sure the water level only comes up to about 1/2 or 5/8 of that level ABOVE the rice.
Just so you aren't confused, I added a picture:
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Ha, thanks for the picture. The finger knuckle measuring thing is a really good idea.
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On June 20 2007 04:44 Luddite wrote: Ha, thanks for the picture. The finger knuckle measuring thing is a really good idea. Yeah, dude, no problem. I have to make ways to measure stuff in a speedy way. I put my pointer finger into the rice, and measure the level with the tip of my thumb. Good luck!
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I'm a lazy bastard so the way i cook the rice is:
pour as much rice as you wanna eat in a pot fill with cold water so it fills about twice as much as the rice put it on high on the stove or whatever you use to cook, add some salt, some garlic and a bay leaf. Leave the room and come back 15-20 min later, taste the rice and it should be soft yet offer some resistance to chewing. Take away from the fire, remove the extra water and leave covered for a few minutes and it should be perfect.
That works nice with most basmati rice and some other long grain kinds. If you are using the really thick and slow ones you can try:
Fry some garlic (no need to cut it really thin, just not the whole tooth) until it's gold. Add the rice and fry it a little bit, no more than two minutes and stir all the the time or it burns. If you added 1 cup of rice, you'd add 2 of water, so 2:1 proportion of water and rice and leave it to boil for as long as the package says (usually 20 minutes) on medium heat, add some salt and always check if there's enough water in the pot so it doesn't burn (just tilt it a bit). Once all the water is gone (will be around the 20 min mark) take out of the fire and cover for 2-3 minutes.
If you wanna try your hand at making a Paella (yeah, the traditional Spanish dish), you can try this simplified version that gives decent results:
For 250 gr of rice (it must be the thick and slow kind, never the long grain or basmati, they just don't soak up the flavour):
is a good example.
You are gonna need: 1 onion 1/2 red pepper 3-4 garlic teeth 1 peeled tomato (canned or natural, doesn't matter that much), OR fried tomato sauce, preferably with no other ingredients. 1 cooking chorizo (get it at import shops), it should have around the radius of a quarter or 50c coin. , if you get the dry kind it's alright as well, you just have to add it a bit later. Sea food or fried chicken or both. Anything tastes good on a paella, be creative, you can add random vegetables if you like. Chicken soup.
Get yourself a big pan with enough capacity to hold at least 4 times the volume of rice you're gonna put in (must be a pan, paella doesn't get done well in a pot).
Boil the seafood with a bit of salt in another pot and save the water. Put the rice in a cup so you know how much you're adding. Cut the chorizo in thin slices around half a thumb in thickness.
Fry 1 onion, 1 red pepper and 3-4 garlic teeth until the garlic is gold and the onion is transparent (the usual thing) in the paella pan with a generous amount of olive oil (don't fill the whole pan with it but have enough so you can see it bubbling, it's important to have more oil than usual because you are gonna be adding more things soon). If you like the pepper to be soft, put it in the microwave a few minutes before frying it.
Add 1 big peeled tomato and fry it for a bit, add the chorizo, the seafood and all other ingredients that you might have wanted to add (my mom usually adds clams, shrimps, fried chicken and "mejillones" don't know the english word for that; but i've seen all kinds of things in there, it's pretty much up to you). Fry this for a few minutes, stir very often so nothing burns.
Add the rice and keep stirring for a further 2-3 minutes, and you really don't want anything to burn at this point, trust me on that one. Now add 1 cup of chicken soup + 1 cup of the water you used for boiling the seafood per cup of rice you added (1:1:1 proportions). Let simmer for 20 minutes on medium or the time that is printed on the package which should be around the time when no water is left. Cover for 5 minutes and serve.
I generally don't add any salt to the pan since usually the chicken soup and sea food water will be already salted, but it's up to you. If you don't like burned rice, you should stir the paella every few minutes, but some people love it (my mom will actually not stir at all intentionally to get lots of burned rice on the bottom, don't ask me why, she loves it).
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Dude.... I'm sure he doesn't want to buy all that crap. He just wants to cook simple white rice.
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Fantastic EnDeR_ thanks !
Paella has a great taste if it's well done... I tasted this huge one hahaha
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On June 20 2007 03:35 Luddite wrote: Two nights ago my rice was too dry and hard even after an hour of cooking, but last night it was too soft and watery after just half an hour of cooking. Do you guys have any tips on how to make it come out good?
This used to happen a lot to me and sometimes it's not even your fault, the rice just sucks. Try at least another rice brand and you might be surprised. I never buy the cheapest rice anymore, it never gets the same flavour and usually cooks a lot worse than most of the other brands, and rice is cheap anyway.
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