Rice and Shine

I love doing rice for meals.

No matter whether it’s going to be porridge or congee, fried rice, coconut rice, packed rice cut into cubes or any shape you like, a side dish, as filler in soups or just simply steamed to perfection, rice would be staple for me and the family.

Now, I know that some people think it’s unhealthy due to all the carb.  I’d say, its the volume that makes the difference.  I have had rice almost all my life and I am a normal 5′3″ and 125lbs.  Furthermore, rice is considered an organic food compared to other processed carbs.

Back to the many ways one can enjoy rice dishes, with the advent of new technology, there are a few appliances that could be used to cook rice as you wish.

For porridge/congee, the slow cooker or crock pot is a  good choice, where one could even add pieces of chicken to simmer to perfection while you tend to other things.

For packed rice, the way I do it is to cook manually and ensure it’s cooked further than you would eat as your main meal with other condiments, drain the excess water and press the rice into containers and let it chill before cutting into cubes or into cookie cutter shapes.

For normal cooked rice and even coconut rice, the best almost hands-free way to do so would be using the electric rice cooker.

For fried rice, the best cooked rice to do this would be normal cooked rice leftovers from the meals the day or night before and chilled in the fridge overnight.  And just before I add the chilled rice into the wok for frying, I would gently break the clumps without mashing them up, so that the flavor or seasoning of the fried rice would be evenly distributed.

Good thing is that now, I can do rice in many ways by using my electric rice cooker, the one with multi-settings, of course.

Risotto – which we should not over stir or be stirring too often seems a breeze to make, and rice puddings turns out well too.

In the next post, I will indulge more on what features are available on the new-age electric rice cookers. Till then…