Jul 21 2009
How To…Make Rice
In Nicaragua you get rice three times a day. If there’s no rice, you can’t call it a meal. For breakfast it’s mixed with beans and labeled “gallopinto.” At lunch, it’s served alongside the beans. At dinner, you can have gallopinto or rice and beans. Basically, it’s rice and beans, or riceandbeans. Got it? And you have them with everything. Even if you have pasta, rice and beans will be on the table, never you mind the double-starching.
I make rice fairly often. Nothing says “home” to me as much as a simple dinner with seared steak or a breaded chicken cutlet with a side of fluffy rice. I don’t know how common rice is at the American dinner table, but most people I know are crazy about it, but don’t know how to cook it. Even professionally trained cooks I know confess how inept they are at preparing rice.
This is how I go about the business, and it works beautifully every time.
RICE
Makes 4 to 6 side dish servings
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ small onion (about ½ cup), finely chopped
1 cup long-grain white rice
2 cups water or low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
- Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat until shimmering. Add onion and cook, stirring, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add rice and cook, stirring, until grains are shiny and evenly coated with oil, 2 to 3 minutes. Add water or broth and salt, increase heat to high, and bring to a boil.
- Boil rice (do not stir!) until most of the liquid has evaporated and you can see small bubbles bursting on the surface of the rice.
- Immediately reduce the heat to the lowest setting, cover, and cook (do not stir, do not remove lid!) for 15 minutes. Fluff rice with chopsticks or fork and serve.
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Tags: rice
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 8:04 pm and is filed under How-To..., Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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July 22nd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
You surely know how to make good rice!, like mama, right?
Can you believe that my mom, never learned how to make rice?? amazing fact!
July 24th, 2009 at 7:31 am
I do! Thank you for teaching me how, mamá!
August 4th, 2009 at 10:59 am
THANK YOU!!! Juan Carlos thanks you in advance cus he’s gettin’ Gallopinto tonight!! AOMMmnomnomnom!!
October 25th, 2009 at 7:52 am
[...] to boil until most of the liquid has evaporated and you can see small bubbles on the surface (see How to Make Rice). Reduce heat to lowest setting, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Fluff rice with chopsticks or [...]
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:05 pm
[...] about 15 minutes. Remove skillet from heat, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve with white rice, black or red kidney beans, corn tortillas, and/or fried [...]
April 19th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Thanks!
May 10th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
I think you are good writer, keep us posting