Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Rice Pilaf Unplugged

I love rice pilaf, but when you look at the price of the boxed stuff, it's outrageous: about $1.50 for a mix like this one containing three, at most four portions. Considering I just bought three pounds-plus of rice for $3.75, it's a rip off.

So this weekend I set out to make rice pilaf from scratch. I laid down a couple of teaspoons of olive oil in my big frying pan and sauteed a small onion and a clove of garlic, being careful not to brown them. Once the onion was soft, I added a cup long grain rice (I like the Carolina brand), plus salt and pepper and cooked the mixture for a couple of minutes. I then poured in two cups of chicken stock, brought it to a boil, covered, set on low and let simmer.

Problem one: as I've found in the past, for some reason you need more liquid when cooking rice in a pan than in a pot. I'd like to know the scientific explanation. It's puzzling and frustrating.

After about 10 to15 minutes, most of the liquid was gone. I tasted and it was like putting pebbles in my mouth. I added another cup of water and cooked some more. After another 10 minutes, I tasted again and it was done.

The result: not terrible, but also not a lot of taste. My daughter corrected concluded that it needed a salt, which did improve it. That said, not a disaster, entirely edible, but uninspired and borderline bland.

It's just so easy to rip open a box and pour that hydroginated goodness and polysaturated mystery chemical into the pan.

1 comment:

  1. I learned at food school that when you cook rice, you should always add water to the height of the first knuckle of your finger, no matter what size pan you're using or how much rice. Seems to work.

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