Tell me the details like what makes yours perfect, why, and your cultural influence if any. I mean, rice is totally different with Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Persian food just to name a few. It is not just the spices or sauces I’m mostly interested in. These matter too. I am really interested in the grain variety and specifically how you prep, cook, and absolutely anything you do after. Don’t skip the cultural details that you might otherwise presume everyone does. Do you know why some brand or region produces better ingredients, say so. I know it seems simple and mundane but it really is not. I want to master your rice as you make it in your culture. Please tell me how.
So, how do you do rice?
South Louisiana and we grow (and eat) a lot of rice out this way; my primary rice is locally grown (usually Cajun Country) long grain rice. If there’s a need, I’ll do basamati, jasmine, sushi, etc. but I don’t always have those in stock in my pantry. I would get value from the $$ and space used by a rice cooker, but I just cook it in a pot on the stove. Always salt in the rice, sometimes I’ll swap water for stock, but typically not.
I’m usually pretty “lazy” about my rice cooking. Most of the time I’ll go just shy of 2:1 water-rice ratio. Boil water, throw in rice, cook ~20min. I usually forget to set a timer so I just keep an eye on it as I’m typically cooking other stuff at the same time. When done, stir up with a fork and cover until I’m ready to eat. Usually that ends me up with rice good for gumbo, gravies, or any other “sauce on top of rice” dishes (etouffee, curry, courtboullion, etc.). Making other dishes where you don’t necessarily want the rice to stick together, different types of rice or have different consistency I may have to use a different method.
If making a pilaf or something equivalent (Mexican rice, etc.) I’ll throw some oil, fry the dry/uncooked rice, add a bit of garlic, then definitely stock instead of water. Extra seasonings depending on what I’m cooking.
I started getting big ol bags of rice, but those are harder to deal with on a day-to-day basis, so I have one of those OXO pop top containers I’ll fill with rice and then I can pretty easily pour that into a measuring cup.