Thread to ask basic/silly cooking questions

fucking 40 euros that, here!

Rice is hard to cook. There are so many variables; type of rice, washing, soaking, hardness of water, size of panā€¦ Basically there is no foolproof method for perfect rice other than trial and error. Even with a rice cooker it takes a bit of practice.

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use a microwave rice cooker. itā€™s dead easy and consistent.

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thatā€™s my old method (before microwave rice cooker)

I used to know a lady from Myanmar who would put it in the oven covered in foil for 20 minutes after a short boil. Iā€™m rubbish at cooking rice.

Just cook it like pasta! That works. Check it every minute or so after 10 mins (white) or 20 mins (brown) until itā€™s the texture you like then quickly drain off and stick a lid on the pan if you can.

There is a really good method (absorption) involving the correct water to rice ratio, which is different with each type of rice. In general itā€™s 2:1 water volume to rice volume or 2.5 to 3:1 with wholegrain rice.

The trick is that you put the cold water on the rice, bring the boil, then put the lid on an let it simmer for about 15 minutes for white rice or 20-25 for brown.

When the simmering is done you donā€™t take the lid off but you leave it for 5 mins so the steam soaks into the rice.

^^^^ But itā€™s a bit more complicated. We have glass lidded pans which makes it a lot easier because once the waterā€™s boiled off the glass clears a lot so I can judge when to take the heat off, but because youā€™re not meant to remove the lid Iā€™m not sure how people work it with opaque lids.

Tell me about how you like to prepare and cook your aubergines, guys.

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no it doesnā€™t

Iā€™ve never made rice that tastes as good as out the rice cooker no matter how much fucking about i do

Iā€™ve found no matter how Iā€™m cooking them the most important step seems to be to salt them then pat them dry after a few minutes. otherwise they go mushy.

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Salting eh? Okay cheers. Will do. So you just use kitchen roll to get the salt out, no washing.

yeah just kitchen roll. no point going through a load of faff to get moisture out to only then run it under the tap

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Fair. I normally brown the hell out of it first but it takes a while with a fair amount of oil.

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Still takes practice to make perfect rice in a rice cooker, though, or at least it does if youā€™re me

Donā€™t make me post that cazza onion rice recipe again.

Yeah thereā€™s various ways of doing it. One way of cooking glorious rice is to melt butter in the bottom of the pan (be generous) and then tip the dried rice in and gently fry it/coat it in the butter for about 30 seconds tops (not too hot, you donā€™t want the rice to burn). Then pour in vegetable stock (not water) at about the 2:1 rice to water ratio mentioned above and cook. After this it gets sketchy because at a certain point my wife turns the heat right off and wedges a tea towel under the lid and leaves it sitting there. Whatever it is, it produces glorious, flavourful rice.

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Give me some ideas for the slow cooker. I have cracked beef/chicken casseroles but feeling like I can be more adventurous

Thereā€™s a little saying I came up with that goes ā€œthere are no basic/silly questions, just basic/silly answersā€. Just something to think about maybeā€¦

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Mashed potatoes!

(Yeah I know those blog recipe things are agonising to scroll through but these are worth it - use red potatoes with the skin on but donā€™t overcook them)

The almost idiot-proof method I use for (basmati) rice is

  • Fill mug with rice. Transfer rice to pan.
  • Fill same mug with boiling water. Transfer boiling water to pan. Do this again, so you have twice as much water as rice.
  • Heat on high until it starts boiling vigorously. At that point, reduce the heat a little so itā€™s still boiling but not going nuts. Leave the lid completely off.
  • Start a timer for eight minutes.
  • When the timer goes off, turn off the heat. Put the lid on the pan.
  • Start a timer for eight minutes again.
  • When the timer goes off, your rice is ready.

Works perfectly every time, and I used to be shit at rice. The only downside is that itā€™s a Jamie Oliver method.

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Yeah with plain rice youā€™re just infusing with flavour/salt by using stock. With couscous it probably upsets the balance of something. I dunno (very rarely eat couscous).

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