Fluffy Steamed Rice

I love rice. Loved it as a child, a teenager and now an adult. There used to be days where my day wasn’t complete if I did not have a plate full of it for dinner. Nowadays, I have weaned myself off it a bit but the cravings still linger. For something so simple, fluffy steamed rice can be a bit tricky to get right – especially if you decide to go the easy route and make it in the microwave cooker (never seemed to get the water:rice proportion right when I tried about 8 times). Because I absolutely detest the sticky white glutinous mass  the rice cooker creates I have my own not-so-special and very hard to get wrong method of making it fluffy. For this basic recipe, the advanced kitchen tools & ingredients you need are: a large crockpot (2 – 3 times the size of the amount of rice your are cooking) a colander or “boyyu” as my mum calls it  – a.k.a. a steel bowl with holes in it to drain water; Basmati rice (gasp – who would have thought!) 4 – 5 cups water Salt to taste

To make enough for 4, soak 2 cups of raw rice in water for about an hour and drain. Fill the crock-pot 3/4 with water  – the water to rice ratio should be atleast 3:1. Let the water boil and the rice cook for about 15 minutes. Dip a spoon and taste test if it is ready. Using the colander, drain the excess water. Using a fork, separate the rice while still hot and let drip dry for about 10 mins. That’s it really.

If you like your rice to be cumin flavoured simply heat up about 2tbsp butter in another pot. Once melted, fry 1 – 2 tsps of cumin seeds until they start popping. Pour in the rice and stir till the rice is sufficiently cumin coated. I love rice and this is probably the closest I have gotten to the steamed separate grains of goodness you get at the restaurants. So, try it out now and share your experience.