How to Make Simple White Rice

Rice is a staple crop in vast swathes of the world. It is said to have been domesticated on the flood plains of Iraq at the dawn of civilization, and is one of the cornerstone crops that allowed for agriculture, dense population structures, and the resultant technological, and economic development of modern civilization.

Rice is kind of a big deal. It gets a bad reputation nowadays, because carbohydrates have been demonized. I know better, though.

This is a simple recipe on how to cook white rice.

Ingredients:

1. Rice
2. Water
3. Salt

Instructions:

1. Put whatever amount of rice you want to eat into a pot (usually, it's about 1 cup for 1 person)
2. Put your index finger on the surface of the rice, and fill it with water till the surface of the water reaches the first knuckle of that finger
3. Add salt to taste
4. Let it boil
5. Take it off the cooker once the water has evaporated

You don't need to drain the starch from this recipe. The amount of water to put in is always one knuckle's distance, from the surface of the rice, to the surface of the water. It's an old standard used for white rice, no matter how much rice you have. This works best with long grain white rice, but should hold for all kinds of white rice.

Note that for health reasons, sometimes it's good to add water "in excess" (i.e., a lot more than you need), note when the rice is cooked, and then drain the rice. This reduces the amount of starch you ingest, which isn't so bad a thing. Choose your poison, if you'll pardon the phrase.

Whatever works for you. This is an easy recipe, and rice (white or brown) is an awesomely delicious thing to eat.

Simple Cooking

Cooking is good fun. At it's core, it's simple chemistry and physics. At it's most flamboyant, it is art and a form of expression.

The problem I find, though, is that I'm not looking for art. I just want to eat. I have the BBC on, I just got back from work, and I'm at my kitchen counter, and I want to make food.

I had trouble finding good websites online that give you simple recipes. Most of them:

1. Have too many ingredients
2. Have too detailed and lengthy protocols
3. Often express key ingredients in grams (impossible to visualize since density is difficult to intuit), which makes the rest of the ingredients expressed in more easy terms (like teaspoons or pinches) impossible to follow, since your base assumption is suspect (what does 250 grams of chicken really look like?)

You can work around these, certainly. Estimate the weight. A normal chicken weighs about a kilo, so 250 grams is about a quarter of that. None of these are major roadblocks.

But it's annoying. Simple things should be simple.

Which is why I'm publishing a few of the basic recipes I've picked up in my very brief time cooking. My recipes will:

1. Express ancillary ingredients as percentages by volume of your primary ingredient
2. Express time as percentages of completion rather than minutes (since cooking styles, timeframes, electric or gas stove, all constrain the pace at which you can move)
3. Have a clearly defined core
4. Be extensible

Points 3 and 4 need some explanation.

By "clearly defined core," I mean that there are a few things in the protocol that absolutely have to be done. If any of these break, you're breaking the recipe. Everything beyond those core points are negotiable, and variable.

Most people don't like eating the same thing everyday. So this is an important part of cooking. The assumption here is that you are looking to use the same recipes, but vary certain parameters. Mixing and matching should be a foregone conclusion.

"Extensible" is a continuation of the point on "clearly defined core," as it is a step further than merely tweaking certain parameters. It connotes modularity. One recipe should easily be the precursor for further recipes, and one should be able to swap certain key ingredients in a recipe for something completely different, but keep the basic principles the same. For example, a recipe on chicken curry should be just as applicable to mutton or beef, with only slight variations unique to the ingredient.

I'll publish them as I get better at them. Till then, goedenavond!

How To Make Simple Chicken Curry

Ingredients:

1. Some chicken (skin or no skin, whatever is good for you)
2. Some onions (~10% the mass of chicken)
3. Tomatoes (or tomato puree, about 10% the mass of chicken)
4. Garlic, and ginger (preferably as paste, but finely cut will do, about 2% of the mass of chicken)
5. Curry powder mix (availably freely, usually a blend of spices, about 5% the mass of chicken)
6. Cooking oil (about 2% the mass of chicken)
7. Salt to taste

Instructions:

1. Put it all into a pot (don't add water).
2. Turn the heat on low, and mix things up a little best you can (doesn't have to perfect, it's just the beginning)
3. Cover it, and keep mixing. The lack of water may make the chicken stick to the bottom, so just shake things up every few minutes.
4. After a while, chicken broth will develop (guaranteed to happen with raw chicken), which is why you don't need to add water. This is what you're waiting for.
5. Mix it more thoroughly now, and make sure the spices are evenly distributed (easier to do now that there's a medium)
6. Cover it, and let it cook. You can turn the heat up a bit more, now that there's water.
7. When it's done, feast, preferably with rice. Flatbread, pita bread, sliced bread, or tortillas work just as well, though.

Variations:

1. I love vegetables, and adding them to this recipe is very simple. The main parameter to consider here is timing. Too soon, and your vegetables become mush. Too late, and they're totally raw (not necessarily a bad thing, but not always ideal, like with potatoes).
   
   Just go crazy with the vegetables being cognizant of the timing. For potatoes, pop them in at about 40% completion. Your mileage may vary depending on the kind of potatoes you use, and how finely you cut them. Finely cut potatoes have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio, and so cook faster.
    
2. Sometimes you want gravy, sometime you don't want much gravy (depending on if you're eating it with rice, or with bread, or with vegetables, or on its own). You vary this by varying how much you cover your pot. If you cover it more, you'll have more gravy (more water is retained in the system). If you cover it less, it will be drier.
   
   
3. Minimize the amount of oil you put in. Oil isn't the best thing to eat, and it makes cleaning up harder. But oil is an oft-abused ingredient. Think about it, too much oil doesn't ruin a dish the same way too much salt ruins it. So a lot of people become chronic abusers of it.
   
   The reason for that is simple: oil is a good heat buffer, so adding extra oil delays food from burning. But oil is not meant as a cover for bad cooking, it's meant as a flavor enhancer, and a cooking medium.
   
   Minimize the amount of oil you add, and monitor and regulate the amount of heat you apply. This isn't possible on first try, but do your best and refine your protocol as you go along.
   
   
4. Salt. If you're eating the chicken with rice, too much salt is okay (rice dilutes the salt, so you have some leeway). If you're eating it with bread, it could mean the difference between an edible and inedible meal. Be careful with salt, and err on the side of caution. Add less to start with, and refine the amount later on in the cooking. I usually add some salt initially, and refine it at about the 70% completion mark by tasting it.
   
   
5. This simple recipe can be varied by varying the spice blend. Go crazy with it. You can't go wrong so long as you have the core spices: turmeric and coriander. After that, your imagination and taste palate are the only limitations.