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THE FOOD WE ATE.   3. Shadley’s rice recipe – jazz up your life AND your rice!  [6min read].

My apologies for the previous long post, but the curry recipe needed it if I was to do it justice.

Equally important is the rice.  A good basmati rice, like a good jasmine rice, is probably the  kind of rice they serve in heaven.

Rice cooker pot with jazzed up, long grain, basmati rice   —>

Buy a premium Basmati rice. It’s worth the extra price with less starch in it and less likely to stick together.  Ask the Indian supplies store person what the best one is.  The brown Basmatis I have tried are not as tasty.

Wash the rice till almost clear – if still starchy after more than 3-4 rinses then you know not to buy that rice again!

I use a rice cooker with  3 x cups dry rice with 4.5 cups of water.  Probably the same for a microwave and a bit more in the pot on a stove [probably more electricity this way].You can preboil the water in a kettle – men of action hate waiting for water to boil in a cooker or pot.

Needs a bit of salt – of course(I keep it low).

Now jazz up the rice.  

Add 1 x handful of fresh curry leaves to the rice cooker at the start.  Or  I grind 1x handful of dry curry leaves and add a generous dessert spoon of the crushed leaf to the cooker.  Anybody who makes curries must have a curry leaf tree.  Mine is in the ground, but I trim it back to 1.5m high at end summer when the leaves go a bit spotty.  Can also be controlled if planted in a big pot.  Cut away all seeds – or the garden will be awash with massive trees!

Also, add 1 x heaped teaspoon of whole cumin seeds and 1 x heaped teaspoon of mustard seeds to the cooker and let them all boil through from the beginning.

After cooking for a while, stir a bit to mix the seeds and curry leaves into the rice while there is still some water in the pot.  Do not stir with a spoon.

Use a big fork instead, e.g., from a salad serving set or best is the carving set fork with its long points.  Don’t scratch the cooker!  These forks cause less breakage of any long-grained rice.

Alternative simple recipe is to use only the whole cumen seeds as is  often found in restaurants.

When done, it’s a rice that one can eat on its own, maybe with a bit of yoghurt or place the yogurt on top of the curry as it soaks its way into the spiced rice.

Now I have to run as I am salivating too much and I know I have a packet of the rice and another with black-eye beans curry in the freezer.  I tend to cook for two weeks at a time.  And now it’s time for a twelve o’clock lunch!

Question:

Any other tips for rice?

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