Just Rice

The opening post in my brand new blog is about rice.

When you build a house you must start at its bottom, its foundations. And that’s what rice is to me. It is the basis of every meal. Around it, I “build” a colorful meat or veggie-vegan dish. sometimes it comes at the end of the meal – sweet and soft with cinnamon and citrus floral aroma.

Beside of that, there is something emotional about rice.

For me, rice is a childhood taste. Almost every meal included a plate full of rice.

I remember Saturday evening’s, when all the cooked food from Shabbat was finished and there were some rice leftovers, we enjoyed eating it plain with only Israeli salad and zhug which is a Yemenite hot sauce.

Though we are not Yemenites zhug joined our every meal, but that is a story we will get back to some other time.

Just think about this little grain that nurtures so many people around the world and comes in so many colors and types. A true Wonder of creation!

In the Far East it’s eaten sticky and in the Middle East, we pride our “one by one” – when every grain is separated from the other and you can eat them one by one. the Italians like it moist and rich and the Persians with a lot of diced green leaves.

But eventually, there is nothing! I mean nothing like plain, a bit oily white rice.

My favorite kind is the basmati. It has some aroma with a fine and special flavor.

The basmati is narrow and long. There are a white kind and a little bit darker one – the Indian kind. Both are great. But the flavor of the Indian basmati rice is a little stronger.

There are many ways to cook rice – for me, this is the easiest and fastest of all.

It is important to choose the right pot, if it’s too large most of the rice will touch the bottom of the pot and will dry up, on the other hand, every grain needs a personal space of its own, and so in a too small pot the rice won’t cook well and will become sticky. And speaking of pots, it’s better to have a heavy double coaster iron pot which will prevent the rice from getting burnt.

Well, enough chatting around. Let’s start making – tasty, plain white rice:

Ingredients:

2 cups basmati rice

2 TS coarse salt

2 TBS olive oil

3 cups boiled water

Preparation:

1. Wash the rice gently in a bowl with cold water. Careful not to break the rice grains. Drain the water and repeat this action 3-4 times until most of the starch is out and the water is clear.
2. Put the rice and the rest of the ingredients together in a pot and stir gently. Cover the pot.
3. Let it boil on high heat. When boiled move the pot to a middle burner on a lower heat without opening the lid at all.
4. After 5 minutes stir gently again. Cover the pot and let it cook for another 15 minutes.
5. Open the lid and mix gently letting air get in between the grains.
6. Let it rest for another 10 minutes, while the lid is covering half of the pot.
7. Bon appetite!