Traditional rice cooking is an Asian housewife’s pride and family’s secret.
Ingredients range from plain rice steamed in plain water, cooking with salt, with butter, with soup or with spice. Cooking wares range from clay pot, ceramic pot, pan, bamboo trunk, leaf or, simple cloth. For modern housewife, bamboo trunk is replaced by electric rice cooker. It is easy to buy, from any oriental shop. It is convenient to use, just pour in rice&water, close cover, plug, push button and wait. All good rice cooker come with cooking instruction. Following is some rice cooking tip.
A typical Asian rice eater like me take about 100g dry rice (about half cup). Rice for side dish may be lesser portion. For small amount, cooking ratio is 1 cup of dry raw rice cooked in 1-1.2 cup of water. Softer cooking need more water. To cook larger amount, increase rice&water proportionally but use little less water. Rice can be cooked without additive. Some prefer salt or butter, taste vary to individual. Try with small additive first. Best to buy cooking pot according to your requirement. If you are preparing for family of 2, use cooking pot for 2 cup rice. Do not use too large pot as it will have too large cooking surface which can make rice uncooked. When rice is cooked off fire or power and let rice simmer for minimum 10 minutes. This will make rice more tender and not sticked to pot. For firm cooking (fried rice) parboiled rice is suitable but 10-20% more water is required for cooking. For normal firm cooking, use white rice. Hom Mali and Basmati give soft cooking rice but Hom Mali is little sticky and wet but Basmati is dry. Glutinous will turn sticky and shiny when cooked.