I LOVE RICE!
I don't have any other way to express how I feel for the beautiful, pearly white, 6 mm grains of happiness. (I remember almost punching a guy who made fun of 'us' rice-maniacs.) It is my comfort food. I get all cranky and sad on a day I don't eat rice at least once. No wonder I was so close to being a Bridezilla before my wedding as I was off rice for 2-3 months :D
A lot is said about the evil of eating rice, but something which has been mentioned in ancient civilisations and mythologies across cultures, cannot be bad. You can read the views of my favorite nutritionist and the most sensible person in the food business, Rujuta Diwekar, on rice here in this Outlook article: bit.ly/1JvFDVj, and also on her blog: bit.ly/1RbsAL6.
I'm no nutrition expert but even I know that anything eaten in gigantic proportions is going to harm your body and rice is no different. Being a bengali, we are fed rice literally since we start eating. We even have a ceremony for it! Our food habits are closely linked to our geographical locations and I now find it amusing (NO, I don't resort to violence anymore...) when someone from the Hindi speaking belt or Punjab or Haryana asks me with a smirk, "Tum bangali log poore time chawal-machli hi khaate rehte ho kya? Hamare yahan toh mahine mein ek-aadha baar hi banta hai". (Do you bengalis eat rice and fish all the time? It's only made once or twice a month at our place.) Or how s/he did not get any roti while being on that project in Chennai.
Well, if you're from a place which is located on a river-bank and surrounded by water bodies, the obvious choice would be to eat a grain where one can use this water abundance to grow it! And fish... we will talk about it some other day. So, basically you don't have to be related to Einstein to understand the love of rice in the hearts of people across the four sides of the country. Yes, even people from Kashmir love their fish and rice!
Rice is easy to make, more filling and can be eaten in many forms. It can be turned into a whole-some meal, can combine beautifully with veggies to meat (B.I.R.Y.A.N.I). Even left-over rice has so many uses (fried rice tastes best with such rice). However, how do you make a perfect bowl of rice? You can make it either in a pressure cooker or a cooking pot on a gas stove/induction top. You can use a rice cooker or microwave as well, but I like to make it in a cooking pot.
The cooking time of rice depends on the variety of rice. In Bengal or Kerala, parboiled varieties of rice (which is unpolished—known as Sheddo chaal in Bengal and Rosematta, Palakkadan Matta or red parboiled rice in Kerala) is eaten more than the sun-dried (polished) white or what we call aatap or kaccha variety. Brown rice is 'unmilled' or 'hulled' variety. The polished white variety is quickest to cook (10-25 minutes, depending on the quantity of rice being cooked). Rest all the varieties mentioned above take much more time.
During my childhood, we always ate parboiled rice, which was cooked in an aluminium cauldron (handi) despite living far away from Bengal. We bongs can find our food in Timbaktu as well :-p So this variety of rice needs a lot of water for cooking and once it is cooked, the excess water is sieved out, and I can bet a lot of us and our mothers have burnt their hands during this process :)
And due to this long cooking time and the danger of getting burnt, once I started living alone, I decided to switch to the normal white rice. I don't need to have many accompaniments with it. Give me a dollop of ghee (and if it's that special cow's milk ghee Jharna <3 i="">) with a bit of salt and my kancha lonka (a green chilli), and I'm sorted! PLEASE DO NOT HAVE IT ON A DAILY BASIS!!!
We bongs have this thing for rice and ghee and other boiled veggies, which were traditionally put in the same pot of rice for cooking. Many veggies, including potatoes, okra, pumpkin, and even bitter gourd (KARELA). I got into this because of my brother, who discovered the love for this meal from our maternal grandmother, with whom he stayed till the age of 8. Being a young Bengali Brahmin widow, one of the disgusting customs (we have, as other Hindu communities, had, in fact still have, some of the most unfair rituals for our lady widows) she had to follow was to be off non-veg for the rest of her life and on the 11th or Ekadashi of every month, cook herself a meal which she would offer to the Gods to pay for her past lives' sins that took her husband away before her. This meal will be purely satvik, meaning no meat or poultry of course and no onion or garlic or oil, too. So, she would put all these veggies in the rice handi and when everything was cooked, she would peel the potatoes and mash everything with ghee and salt. And as my brother often used to tell me, it was purely divine! So, more often than not it used to be our indulgence. We would add some mustard oil, chopped onions and green chilies or add pickle oil and have it with rice. So during my solitary days, this always came to my rescue.
So how do you make rice? Well, with time you just know when it's done. My mother-in-law says that when my husband was just 2 and could barely speak, he used to play in the porch overlooking the kitchen in their Barrackpore home. He would somehow look at the water bubbles forming in the rice handi and say, Ma, hoye geche (Mom, it's done) and when she would check the rice, and it would actually be done. So take birth in a Bengali family in your next life to know the perfect formula to make rice, see we just know it :-p Lollzz... No, no just kidding! Bengali moms boasts just a little too much about their babies. Yes, their kids are always babies to them and are the poor victims of this unjust world and are THE BEST!!! I remember one of my friend's (bong again) mom told me that she could make fish curry at the age of 5 (yes, I raised both of my eyebrows too!)
Jokes apart, 'try and try, until you succeed' formula also works, like in every thing else, when cooking rice. When you are using a pressure cooker, take equal quantity of rice grains (I'm talking about kaccha or basmati rice) and water (or 1:1 formula). For beginners, dip your index finger in the cooker and if the first horizontal line on it is immersed in water, you are good. Let the cooker whistle once, and your rice is done.
Now for the open pot method:
1. Wash the rice twice. Don't overwash it, else you will break the grains.
2. Boil water, double the volume of rice you are cooking. So for one cup rice, use two to two-and-a-half cups of water (1:2). If you plan to drain the water after cooking, take around 6-7 cups (1:6). For brown rice, too, take 6-7 times more water than the quantity of rice.
3. Let the water come to a full boil, then add the washed rice grains and stir it once lightly to make sure the grains don't stick to the bottom. Then, out down the stove to medium flame and keep stirring from time to time. When the rice completely soaks the water (when you are using the 1:2 method), switch off the gas and cover the pot for 5-7 minutes. Your rice is ready. Else in the 1:6 method, when you see the rice has come on top, check a grain by squeezing it with your fingers. If it's completely smashed, your rice is done. Again keep it covered for sometime and then drain the water using a colander or sieve it by tilting the pot with its cover (hold it with two kitchen towels) and draining the water in the sink.
4. After the rice is done, take off the lid and let it be in open air for some time. It's ready to be devoured.
From cooking for just myself to cooking for an entire family, it took me sometime to understand how to make the perfect bowl of rice every time, but my Mom-in-law told me that with time I will just know that when it's done and now I can also tell by just looking at the bubbles that when it's hoye geche :)
Hope you enjoyed this experience, tell me about your comfort food and how to make it. Awaiting your comments. I will share many more wonderful rice recipes that are easy to make as well as taste delicious in the coming days. Until then, keep exploring!
I don't have any other way to express how I feel for the beautiful, pearly white, 6 mm grains of happiness. (I remember almost punching a guy who made fun of 'us' rice-maniacs.) It is my comfort food. I get all cranky and sad on a day I don't eat rice at least once. No wonder I was so close to being a Bridezilla before my wedding as I was off rice for 2-3 months :D
A lot is said about the evil of eating rice, but something which has been mentioned in ancient civilisations and mythologies across cultures, cannot be bad. You can read the views of my favorite nutritionist and the most sensible person in the food business, Rujuta Diwekar, on rice here in this Outlook article: bit.ly/1JvFDVj, and also on her blog: bit.ly/1RbsAL6.
I'm no nutrition expert but even I know that anything eaten in gigantic proportions is going to harm your body and rice is no different. Being a bengali, we are fed rice literally since we start eating. We even have a ceremony for it! Our food habits are closely linked to our geographical locations and I now find it amusing (NO, I don't resort to violence anymore...) when someone from the Hindi speaking belt or Punjab or Haryana asks me with a smirk, "Tum bangali log poore time chawal-machli hi khaate rehte ho kya? Hamare yahan toh mahine mein ek-aadha baar hi banta hai". (Do you bengalis eat rice and fish all the time? It's only made once or twice a month at our place.) Or how s/he did not get any roti while being on that project in Chennai.
Well, if you're from a place which is located on a river-bank and surrounded by water bodies, the obvious choice would be to eat a grain where one can use this water abundance to grow it! And fish... we will talk about it some other day. So, basically you don't have to be related to Einstein to understand the love of rice in the hearts of people across the four sides of the country. Yes, even people from Kashmir love their fish and rice!
Rice is easy to make, more filling and can be eaten in many forms. It can be turned into a whole-some meal, can combine beautifully with veggies to meat (B.I.R.Y.A.N.I). Even left-over rice has so many uses (fried rice tastes best with such rice). However, how do you make a perfect bowl of rice? You can make it either in a pressure cooker or a cooking pot on a gas stove/induction top. You can use a rice cooker or microwave as well, but I like to make it in a cooking pot.
The cooking time of rice depends on the variety of rice. In Bengal or Kerala, parboiled varieties of rice (which is unpolished—known as Sheddo chaal in Bengal and Rosematta, Palakkadan Matta or red parboiled rice in Kerala) is eaten more than the sun-dried (polished) white or what we call aatap or kaccha variety. Brown rice is 'unmilled' or 'hulled' variety. The polished white variety is quickest to cook (10-25 minutes, depending on the quantity of rice being cooked). Rest all the varieties mentioned above take much more time.
During my childhood, we always ate parboiled rice, which was cooked in an aluminium cauldron (handi) despite living far away from Bengal. We bongs can find our food in Timbaktu as well :-p So this variety of rice needs a lot of water for cooking and once it is cooked, the excess water is sieved out, and I can bet a lot of us and our mothers have burnt their hands during this process :)
And due to this long cooking time and the danger of getting burnt, once I started living alone, I decided to switch to the normal white rice. I don't need to have many accompaniments with it. Give me a dollop of ghee (and if it's that special cow's milk ghee Jharna <3 i="">) with a bit of salt and my kancha lonka (a green chilli), and I'm sorted! PLEASE DO NOT HAVE IT ON A DAILY BASIS!!!
We bongs have this thing for rice and ghee and other boiled veggies, which were traditionally put in the same pot of rice for cooking. Many veggies, including potatoes, okra, pumpkin, and even bitter gourd (KARELA). I got into this because of my brother, who discovered the love for this meal from our maternal grandmother, with whom he stayed till the age of 8. Being a young Bengali Brahmin widow, one of the disgusting customs (we have, as other Hindu communities, had, in fact still have, some of the most unfair rituals for our lady widows) she had to follow was to be off non-veg for the rest of her life and on the 11th or Ekadashi of every month, cook herself a meal which she would offer to the Gods to pay for her past lives' sins that took her husband away before her. This meal will be purely satvik, meaning no meat or poultry of course and no onion or garlic or oil, too. So, she would put all these veggies in the rice handi and when everything was cooked, she would peel the potatoes and mash everything with ghee and salt. And as my brother often used to tell me, it was purely divine! So, more often than not it used to be our indulgence. We would add some mustard oil, chopped onions and green chilies or add pickle oil and have it with rice. So during my solitary days, this always came to my rescue.
So how do you make rice? Well, with time you just know when it's done. My mother-in-law says that when my husband was just 2 and could barely speak, he used to play in the porch overlooking the kitchen in their Barrackpore home. He would somehow look at the water bubbles forming in the rice handi and say, Ma, hoye geche (Mom, it's done) and when she would check the rice, and it would actually be done. So take birth in a Bengali family in your next life to know the perfect formula to make rice, see we just know it :-p Lollzz... No, no just kidding! Bengali moms boasts just a little too much about their babies. Yes, their kids are always babies to them and are the poor victims of this unjust world and are THE BEST!!! I remember one of my friend's (bong again) mom told me that she could make fish curry at the age of 5 (yes, I raised both of my eyebrows too!)
Jokes apart, 'try and try, until you succeed' formula also works, like in every thing else, when cooking rice. When you are using a pressure cooker, take equal quantity of rice grains (I'm talking about kaccha or basmati rice) and water (or 1:1 formula). For beginners, dip your index finger in the cooker and if the first horizontal line on it is immersed in water, you are good. Let the cooker whistle once, and your rice is done.
Now for the open pot method:
1. Wash the rice twice. Don't overwash it, else you will break the grains.
2. Boil water, double the volume of rice you are cooking. So for one cup rice, use two to two-and-a-half cups of water (1:2). If you plan to drain the water after cooking, take around 6-7 cups (1:6). For brown rice, too, take 6-7 times more water than the quantity of rice.
3. Let the water come to a full boil, then add the washed rice grains and stir it once lightly to make sure the grains don't stick to the bottom. Then, out down the stove to medium flame and keep stirring from time to time. When the rice completely soaks the water (when you are using the 1:2 method), switch off the gas and cover the pot for 5-7 minutes. Your rice is ready. Else in the 1:6 method, when you see the rice has come on top, check a grain by squeezing it with your fingers. If it's completely smashed, your rice is done. Again keep it covered for sometime and then drain the water using a colander or sieve it by tilting the pot with its cover (hold it with two kitchen towels) and draining the water in the sink.
4. After the rice is done, take off the lid and let it be in open air for some time. It's ready to be devoured.
From cooking for just myself to cooking for an entire family, it took me sometime to understand how to make the perfect bowl of rice every time, but my Mom-in-law told me that with time I will just know that when it's done and now I can also tell by just looking at the bubbles that when it's hoye geche :)
Hope you enjoyed this experience, tell me about your comfort food and how to make it. Awaiting your comments. I will share many more wonderful rice recipes that are easy to make as well as taste delicious in the coming days. Until then, keep exploring!
