Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Perfect Rice...Every Time

Photo courtesy of ScottChan of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
 How many times have I made rice and it turned out to be a huge sticky mess? I can't begin to count the times! All I wanted was rice that sat nicely on a plate and I could put stir fry over or I could use it in fried rice, one of my favorite foods!
Well, I've tried and tried and just couldn't get the hang of it. Now, finally after all these years, I've figured out something that works for me! EVERY. TIME! The great thing about this method is that it doesn't much effort and if you do a little planning, you won't be using any extra electric or extra appliances (yes, I almost bought a "rice cooker" before I discovered this method).

So...lets get started.

The amount of rice doesn't matter...whatever you need for your family. For ours we usually make one cup of dry rice so we end up with about two cups of cooked rice.

You'll need a covered baking dish. If you don't have a regular casserole dish you can use whatever you have and cover it with foil but I prefer my Corning Ware dishes. Put one cup of rice in the dish and add two cups of water, add a dash of salt (if desired but it's not necessary) and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Place the lid on the dish and bake it at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Turn off the oven and let it sit another 15 minutes. Fluff it with a fork and serve.

Now the way I save on energy is I'll bake a dish or two of rice while I'm baking something else. If I'm not serving it with dinner I let it cool off some then I put it in the refrigerator for later use. Most of the time it becomes part of lunch for the next day when I have something that calls for cold rice...like fried rice!

Here's another tip: If you are using it for fried rice, instead of adding two cups of water, replace 1/4 of a cup of water with soy sauce. Then when you make your fried rice the next day you won't need to add the soy sauce so you won't need to wait for it to evaporate when you are frying the rice. It really makes the rice crispy.

Have a great day!
Mavis D.