Welcome

Hi everyone, this is the blog’s unofficial launch day (official one to come when a few more people know about it i think!) – or rather, a cheeky way to bring it to all my Facebook friend’s attention, just in case they hid my posts for being an opinionated git during the election :-).

Not quite sure what I'm going to cook tonight – I've got some large King Prawns out of the freezer and some granary bread baton left over so i might do some sort of Mediterranean thing i think. Will tell you later…
Anyway, one thing i think it might be helpful to share was a word about rice. Quite a few people struggle to get rice consistently right, and it can be a faff – you have to check it over and over again, and there’s still the inevitable ‘oh crap’ moment when you realise it’s gone slightly over… Well there is a way to get it right consistently – works particularly well on Basmati.

Wash the rice and shake all the water out of it.  Then heat a small amount of oil in the pan you’re going to cook it in (just enough oil to lightly coat the rice, not loads) – you can add any spices at this stage too if you’re doing pilau or other flavoured rice.  Once the oil is hot, add the rice and stir it for a minute or two to coat it all.  Then add the water…

The water should be boiled prior to adding, and then comes the trick.  Add the same amount of water by volume as the amount of rice – you can do this by eye or by measuring if you want too.  Keep the pot on a medium-high heat until the water starts boiling, then put the lid on and take the pot off the heat.  The rice will keep cooking and will absorb all the water in the pan – but won’t overcook. 

Once done, you can either serve straight away, or leave it to cool.  If you cool it, spread it out on large plate or dish so it cools as fast as possible, then refrigerate it (only once cold).  Don’t serve lukewarm rice or leave rice out once it’s cooled – it’s one of easiest foods to get food poisoning from…
Anyway, lecture over, hope that’s helpful to some of you!