Pasta & Rice & Beans, Oh My.....

As I sip on my evening coffee I sit back and ponder all the important things in life. How much coffee can you drink in 48 hours and not explode. Is it bad that you notice when blood re-enters your coffee circulation system. How nasty is the minor sniffles I'm experiencing that the virus can survive in a 99.9% coffee environment of what used to be my blood stream.

The little things in my life when I'm trying to avoid going homicidal at my coffee shop of choice due to the Christmas music. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the holidays, but not in mid-November, I NEVER want to hear Christmas music on my birthday, the scorpio in me twitches. Never make an animal with poison glands twitch when caffeinated!

In the realm of single, transient, world spanning, male cooking which I preach as a particular kind of 'food porn' (No! Not that kind you dirty, dirty mind!) there are important staples in every meal. Extenders and bases which make up many meals around the worlds. The stretchers of budgets and fillers of bellies: rice, pasta, and beans.

Alone each of these dishes don't sound very appetizing to many pure American pallets, which with what they have been abused with over the last fifty years, I can't blame them! Instant rice? Crap for pasta? And the proper use of beans has become a lost art!

For shame...but that is the price of 'progress' I guess. That and mutant tomatoes that don't taste like anything because the flavor has been selectively bred out of the plant in favor of size. Don't get me going on the mass produced 'super fruit' that doesn't taste like its supposed to. The rant can last until I'm fed at least two-three gin & tonics and then beat over the head with a baseball bat.

Of all the grains around the world, rice is the number one most eaten grain in almost the rest of the world other than the USA. This of course is sad state of affairs, which I blame the jerks who invented 'instant rice' for propagating a substandard produce. In the coming weeks I intend to pull out some of my favorite rice dishes, all on my budget of course, and look to feed my need for international cuisine. With that said I should probably give some hints on how I make rice.

Rice Done Easy

Tools:

Heavy pot with lid.

Heavy wooden spoon.

Ingredients:

White Rice*

Water

*Alright, lets face the facts that there are hundreds of different kinds of white rice in the world and you'll go made trying to figure out what kind to use. Between Jasmine and Sushi and Spanish Rices, how can you know what kind to use? Well there is always experimenting, but I am a fan of 'Iberian' or 'Arabian' white rice, which is usually a medium grain white rice used in the western edge of Asia, North Africa, and Spain. But honestly, you do NOT need to buy a name brand rice for it to be 'good', it is all about cooking it properly.

How to make Rice the easy way: Alright, add the rice that you want to cook to the pot, as much as you'd like (I tend to make leftover rice for things like fried rice which is tomorrow's dinner). Remember that rice expands a lot when it cooks, so don't put TOO much in. I tend to max out at 2 cups in my smaller pot with a lid.

Alright, move the rice around so it is flat on the bottom of the pot. Put your small finger on top of the rice so you can use your finger as a measuring device (Hey! This is scientific here! I just won't drink the hemlock to get out of the charges of 'corrupting the youth'. You'll have to take my head the old fashioned way!) Fill the pot with water until it comes up to the first little knuckle of the pinkie finger.

Now you have a pot of wet rice. And the peasants rejoiced. "....yeah....."

With that bit of sarcasm out of the way, put the lid on the pot and put it onto the stove on low. Wait until the water has a strong boil, and turn the burner off and walk away for twenty minutes.

Alright, I should explain what is going on here before you have a heart attack, I'm blamed for killing you, and then point out that the inevitability of mortal life culminates in death because that is what mortality is defined by and then sentenced to death by the right honorable Judge Straphimtothechairtofry from Texas. Once the rice and water are boiling, the rice will continue to cook in the pot and absorb the water from the residual heat from the boiling water. It isn't witchcraft, this is science! Although if you want to believe I'm a sorcerer with mind-bending powers, I want a gin & tonic....I want a gin & tonic....

The number one thing you cannot do when cooking rice is playing with it. You will be tempted to poke and prod and move it around, but leave the poor grain alone until it is done cooking! It isn't hard! When you turn the heat off, turn on an alarm (alright, I might have one programed into my cell phone for when I do rice so all I do is hit the button), and LEAVE IT ALONE!!!

When the rice is done, open the lid and with the heavy wooden spoon stir it so any residual heat/moisture can escape the rice. You are 'fluffing' the rice in the pot, which will help make it more airy when you eat it. I tend to serve a cup and then some of rice to each person when I have guests, not because I'm cheap, but because I'm cheap and it is filling! So anytime you hear someone complaining that they are hungry an hour after eating chinese, ask them if they ate the rice. Nine times out of ten they didn't, so it is their problem!

Well I'm off to work on zombies and social paradigms I can pull down, until tomorrow, Bien Camino!