Tell me the details like what makes yours perfect, why, and your cultural influence if any. I mean, rice is totally different with Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Persian food just to name a few. It is not just the spices or sauces I’m mostly interested in. These matter too. I am really interested in the grain variety and specifically how you prep, cook, and absolutely anything you do after. Don’t skip the cultural details that you might otherwise presume everyone does. Do you know why some brand or region produces better ingredients, say so. I know it seems simple and mundane but it really is not. I want to master your rice as you make it in your culture. Please tell me how.
So, how do you do rice?
My day to day rice is pretty simple. Half a cup of organic which jasmine rice, 1.5 cups of water, a heavy drizzle (a tablespoon?) of olive oil and some salt (a teaspoon?). Bring to a boil, cover, cook for 15 minutes, leave it aside covered for 10 minutes, fluff with a fork.
When I’m feeling fancy I do a different version. I dice half an onion, fry it, add 3-4 cloves of chopped garlic, fry it, add the rice and salt, fry it for a minute, then add the water already boiling. Cook for 15 minutes as well, wait 10, fluff.
Every time I move to a new house I need to adjust the water to rice ratio to keep the cooking at 15 minutes. I’d rather add less water than cook for longer.
You fry the dry rice? What does this do? This is very interesting. I need to try this.
When you say you’re dialing in to 15 minutes. You mean you’re dialing it in so all the water is gone after the 10 minute wait?
All the water is gone after the 15 minutes. Then I take the pot out of the burner and leave it, covered, for another 10 minutes, just waiting.
And yeah, I fry the dry rice for a minute. I don’t know why, I invented that and I think it tastes different!
Lightly frying the rice before cooking it is a quite common practice for Mexican rice, and it seems to help reduce the starch content to make the rice less sticky and keep the grains whole. Here’s one link I found regarding this topic: https://chatelaine.com/food/pre-fried-rice/
Ya my mom always did that.
Interesting, thanks for the link! I’m from Brazil, and our culinary has a lot in common with Mexican cuisine… I wonder if I saw someone doing that, and that’s where I picked it up from!