Cooking rice is a bit like riding a bike. Once you have mastered a technique that works for you, then you never fall off. But how do you master the technique, and anyway, what technique?
Now, that is the $64,000 question. Open a random selection of cookery books, and they will all tell you something different. The Indian food writer Julie Sahni always soaks her basmati rice for half an hour before cooking. The Persians will soak their Domsia rice overnight. Some folk cook it in lots and lots of boiling water, others coat it with butter before adding the water. Some cook it very slowly on low flame with a hat mat.
This confusion misleads people into thinking that cooking rice is complex, and drives them into the arms of that awful boil-in-the-bag stuff, which has no true flavour whatsoever, or else drives them to fork out money to buy a rice cooker (useful devices, incidentally, and they do work; my wife craves one).
But if you don't want the boil-in-the-bag version and you don't want to buy yet another kitchen gadget, then all you have to know about rice is that it is, in fact, easy to cook. I am presuming that when we talk about cooked rice, what we want to achieve is fluffy, light, long grain rice, where each grain is separate and distinct.
The answer is to use a technique which is a mixture of boiling and steaming, which is to say the rice is first boiled in water, and when the water has almost evaporated, then you cover the pot and let the rice finish cooking in its own heat. I began to use this technique years ago, and it has proven pretty fail-safe ever since. Here are what I regard as the essential tips:
The rice must be thoroughly washed, so that the water coming off it runs clear, and all the starch on the grains is washed away.
You must cook the rice in a large, heavy pot: piling the grains on top of one another as they swell means they don't cook evenly. You must cover the rice by an inch of water.
As the water comes to the boil, stir the rice a few times to ensure it does not stick. This is when I also add a pinch of sea salt.
You have to learn when the rice should be taken off the heat: when the surface of the rice is pockmarked by holes, through which the water is steaming off, and no surface water is visible, that is the time. It should take about 10 minutes to reach this stage.
The rice must then be covered with a very tight lid. I go one step further, and place a tea-towel over the top of the pot and place the lid on this to create a very tight seal.
The rice must then be left to continue cooking in its own steam. At this point I simply take it off the heat. Others turn the heat down to the barest minimum.
For everyday cooking I usually use basmati rice, sold in a clear plastic packet, simply labelled "Basmati Rice", and imported by Wholefoods Wholesale and Munster Wholefoods. It is widely available, and is the most suitable rice for the recipes that follow. Look out also for Patna Rice and Thai Rice, the latter an exceptionally delicate rice with a lovely flowery flavour.
Here, to begin, is a very succinct summary of how to achieve perfect rice, and it is a mantra which Ken Hom repeats in all of his books. It works.
Ken Hom's Rice Master Recipe Serves 4
400 ml (14 fl oz) long-grain white rice
600 ml (1 pint) water
Use volume, rather than weight, to measure the rice: pour it into a clear measuring jug to the required level. Put the rice into a large bowl and wash it in several changes of water until the water becomes clear.
Drain the rice, put it in a heavy pan with the water and bring it to the boil. (Note, the water should be at a level 2.5 cm (1 inch) above the surface of the rice. Too much water means gummy rice). Continue boiling until most of the surface liquid has evaporated; this should take about 15 minutes.
The surface of the rice should have small indentations, like pitted craters. At this point, cover the pan with a very tight-fitting lid, turn the heat as low as possible and let the rice cook, undisturbed, for 15 minutes.
Do not uncover the pan during this process; time it and wait.
There is no need to "fluff" the rice. Let it rest for five minutes before serving.
So, let's begin with a dish which demands that your accompanying rice is spot on, that old bistro warhorse of beef stroganoff. In their book The Prawn Cocktail Years, Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham suggest that rice is not the best accompaniment to the dish, and that potatoes, noodles or polenta would suit better. Nonsense. Not only must beef stroganoff have rice, it must have a ring of rice around the edge of the plate with the stroganoff in the centre.
And stroganoff also gives me a chance to tell one of the great restaurateur's tales.
A regular female customer of a restaurant always managed to make one criticism of every dish, no matter how good.
One night, after a main course of beef stroganoff, the maitre'd asked: "And how was everything, madam?"
"Excellent Damien", she replied, "except the beef in the stroganoff was cut too large - it is after all a fork dish."
"Well madam," he replied patiently, "What we do in the kitchen is to cut the beef to fit where it's going".
Beef Stroganoff
3 tablespoons cooking oil
salt and pepper
600 g fillet steak, preferably tail, trimmed and cut into thick slivers
50 g butter
3 medium onions, peeled and thinly sliced
350 g button mushrooms, sliced
1 heaped teaspoon paprika
400 ml soured cream
juice of 1 lemon
one dessertspoon finely chopped dill
Take a heavy-bottomed, preferably non-stick, frying pan and heat half the oil until it is smoking. Season the meat well and put half of it into the pan. Fry quickly, moving it around briskly until it is lightly browned. Lift it out with a slotted spoon and put in on to a plate. Heat the remaining oil until it is as hot as before and repeat the process with the other half of the beef. It is important that the beef remains rare at this stage.
Add 25 g of the butter to the pan and cook the onions slowly until they are golden and sticky. Tip them out of the pan on to a plate. Melt the remaining 25 g of butter and fry the mushrooms, with the paprika, until they are soft and the spice has cooked a little. Remove them from the pan and put them with the onions.
Spoon the soured cream into the frying pan and warm it through until it is liquid. Put the beef, onions and mushrooms back into the pan, bring the mixture to a simmer and stew it very gently for 10-15 minutes until creamy and unctuous.
Stir in the lemon juice and dill.
So, now that we are all able to ride our rice bicycles, let's do some wheelies. This is a smashing recipe for pilaf pie, given to the food writer Claudia Roden by Nesret Eren of Istanbul. This is great fun to make and to serve.
Pilaf Pie
Serves 10-12
1 chicken, with giblets, weighing 1.5 kg (33 1/2 lbs)
2 carrots, diced
2 onions, quartered
salt
6-8 peppercorns
4 sprigs of parsley
2 tablespoons pine-nuts or slivered almonds
125 g (4 oz) butter
pepper
500 g (1 lb) long-grain rice
250 g (8 oz) filo pastry
250 g (8 oz) cooked green peas
Wash the chicken and reserve the heart and liver from the giblets. Put the chicken in a pan with water to cover and add the carrots, onions, salt, peppercorns and parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes or until the chicken is tender, then lift out of the pan. When cool enough to handle, remove the skin and bones and cut the meat into 5 cm (2.5 inch) strips.
Strain the stock, reserving the carrot pieces. Fry the pine-nuts or almonds in a tablespoon of the butter until golden, then remove with a slotted spoon.
Cut the chicken heart and liver into small pieces and fry in the same butter for five minutes, adding salt and pepper.
Now make a rice pilaf. Bring 900 ml (1 1/2 pints) of the strained stock to the boil in a saucepan, add the rice and stir. Bring to the boil again, then simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes or until little holes appear on the surface of the rice. Remove from the heat before all the stock has been absorbed. Stir in the nuts and the heart and liver with 50 g (2 oz) of the remaining butter.
Pre-heat the oven to 180C (350 F, gas mark 4). Grease a 4.5 litre (1 gallon) oven-proof dish or bowl. Melt the rest of the butter. Line the bowl with six sheets of filo so that they overlap and hang over the rim, brushing lightly with melted butter between the sheets. Spread with two layers each of the rice mixture, chicken pieces, carrots and peas, then cover with a final layer of rice.
Bring the hanging pastry edges up and fold them over the rice, brushing with a little butter. Cover with four more sheets of overlapping pastry, brushing each with melted butter. Trim the corners and fold the edges to close the pie.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Serve hot.
Now that we have secured our rice cooking confidence and are assured experts with long-grain rice, let's branch out into the technique of cooking arborio rice, the art of the risotto, for this final recipe.
Here is a brilliantly delicious idea from the inimitable Gerry Galvin, of Galway's Drimcong House. Galvin makes a straightforward risotto, but then takes it a step further by deep-frying the cooked rice, and serving it with a pepper compote. It is a brilliant vegetarian invention, and features in his book Everyday Gourmet.
Gerry Galvin's Rice Balls with Pepper Compote
Serves six The rice:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
25 g (1 oz) butter
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
40 g (1 1/2 oz) mixed dried apricots, finely diced
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 level dessertspoon cumin seeds
pinch ground ginger
176 g (6 oz) arborio rice
1 litre (1 3/4 pints) vegetable stock
a handful of finely shredded coriander leaves
salt, pepper, flour, oil for deep frying
Pepper Compote:
1 red, yellow and green pepper (seeded and sliced thinly)
2 medium onions (sliced thinly)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
salt and white pepper
Method:
To make the compote:
In a heavy-based saucepan cook all ingredients, covered, for three minutes. Uncover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir now and then, season to taste.
Cook the rice as if you were making a risotto. In a large pan sautee the onion and garlic in the butter and vegetable oil. As they begin to colour add the finely chopped dried apricots, the spices and the rice. Stir until all the grains of rice are coated, and then little by little, add the boiling stock, only adding more as the stock becomes absorbed in the rice. The risotto should be just sticky - not too liquid. Season with salt and pepper and the finely shredded coriander leaves. Allow to cool.
To make the rice balls:
Heat the oil until a grain of rice sizzles the second it touches it. Form the rice into golfball-sized balls with floured hands. Deep fry until just crispy. Drain and serve on the compote.