Monday, April 18, 2011

Basic White Rice

This is going to be a boring yet essential post as rice is the staple of a Korean meal and it's quite easy to ruin a good meal by botching up the rice.

1. Choosing the rice. Get short grain or sushi rice. Small bags can be bought in any grocery store but we like to go to Asian markets and get the 20 pound and up bags. They are usually stacked at the entrance ways. Kind of like dog food bags as one friend put it.

2. You can use an electric rice cooker and if you don't have one, a regular pot with lid is fine too.



3. Follow cooking instructions on bag of rice. If you don't have any measuring cups handy you can use this trick that a lot of Korean moms use. Put a big handful of rice per serving in the pot, and for the water  just put in enough to not quite cover the tops of your fingers.


4. When the rice is done, use a spatula to fluff it. Then serve.

And there you have it. The most basic staple Korean food. Add a fried egg, some soy sauce and sesame oil and you have a quick and easy meal or midnight snack.

10 comments:

Larie said...

I think that may be the pressure cooker my mum has, except hers is red - she was so excited about it, haha. What an exciting project - looking forward to your recipes!

Jennifer said...

Love it...off to a great start...great name for the blog, (and nice sashiko potholder/ mat :) ) ! Fried egg over rice: I think I'm going to have that for lunch!

Unique Lapin said...

I have this rice cooker as well and love it. Esp for cooking beans with brown rice there is no prior pre soaking needed. I think since some people might not know how different this rice cooker or where to buy it, maybe there can be a little note for people!

But yes i am a true believer of cuckoo rice cooker!

I've stopped using my other rice cookers after I got this one as a gift!

cheers!

xoxo
Sheena

Desi McKinnon said...

Years ago my friend Enjoo taught me the finger tip trick. It works everytime. I live by it. Forget measuring.

Jennifer said...

My mom is one of those Korean moms who uses that trick. She rinses the rice until the water is no longer milky though.

Dan said...

Do you rinse the rice prior to coodking? I have always been taught to rinse until the water runs clear.

Bo said...

@ Dan
Yes, I totally forgot to put that part in! Must rinse rice until the water is no longer milky. Thanks.

JJ said...

I can't believe my never-cooking dad's tip about the rice water level is used by other people.
It's flawless, even when I know it's just 1:1 rice to water.
Anyway, just wanted to say that and I like this blog a lot. It's polished but you still have some real Korean food here.

Unknown said...

Would you do a recipe tutorial of making an egg fried rice dish without any fish or a homemade ramen dish without any fish?

Bo said...

@J. Lohmeyer
Yes, we will be doing a ramen dish soon!