Rice

[simonp]

Don't forget to read up on the chronic illnesses (e.g. reactive arthritis) that can be triggered by things like Salmonella, Campylobacter, etc, before deciding to strengthen your immune system in this way.

[Bledlow]

Yeah I've heard stories of rice causing food poisoning, but it seems to me it's the meat in fried rice, and not reheating properly that's the problem.

Bacillus cereus is very nasty stuff, & just loves boiled rice, even if there's no meat in it at all.

Bacillus Cereus, Cereals and Rice - Types Of Bacteria (UK)

[Gruff]

Don't forget to read up on the chronic illnesses (e.g. reactive arthritis) that can be triggered by things like Salmonella, Campylobacter, etc, before deciding to strengthen your immune system in this way.

I don't recall saying I'd "decided to strengthen my immune system in this way".

The gist of my posts has been that I simply don't worry very much about these things.

I've taken a view on the risks involved, for me, and and base my behaviour around that view.

I wonder how many things people blithely do every day which might (or might not?) be more dangerous.... travelling by car, running down the stairs, working on a farm? Who knows, eh?

Anyway, don't forget to read up on the KSI stats before crossing the road.

[Sergeant Pluck]

I lay my hand flat on top of the rice, and if the water just covers my first knuckle, it's enough water. It works with both a electric rice cooker, and rice I cook on the hob.

I've always used a roughly similar technique and have never seen the need to drain rice after cooking. Great with normal basmati, but I am having trouble getting it to work as well these days as I have taken to using a 50/50 brown / white rice mix. Any suggestions?

[Jakob]

Hmm, we regularly keep the rice warm in the rice cooker for 2-3 days and eat it. (My wife more than me) and it's regular practice in China/Korea/Japan.

[Gruff]

I've always used a roughly similar technique and have never seen the need to drain rice after cooking. Great with normal basmati, but I am having trouble getting it to work as well these days as I have taken to using a 50/50 brown / white rice mix. Any suggestions?

For a long time I measured both rice and water by volume. I used a particular little scoop that was just the right size for a portion of rice, then I'd use two and a half scoops of water. I found that different batches of rice could need different amounts of water, so, each time I'd start a new 5 kilo sack of basmati I might need to tweak the volume of water up or down. Once the ratio had been found it worked every time for that batch of rice.

Try measuring until you find a formula that works for your 50/50 mix?

I think how much water you need depends somewhat on how you cook your rice. I bring to the boil, then turn it right down to the merest of flames, and keep the lid on all the time. That means almost no evaporation so I don't need much water. If you give it a bit more welly on the gas, or like lid off, then you'll obviously need to add more.

Nowadays I just measure by eye, chucking in rice and water so it looks about right. I'll then have a quick peek two or three minutes before end of cooking time, if it looks either a bit wet or dry I turn up the heat or add another splash of water, as required.

[Sergeant Pluck]

I'm beginning to think that as the brown and white absorb different amounts of water the only way to get them both perfect is to do them separately. Which I won't do. So I think I'll switch to brown and white on different days when I'm eating my way through a huge pot of curry over a few days.

[TimO]

I've only suffered from food poisoning on about three occasions, but one of those was caused by a bag of frozen rice stir fry from a supermarket.  I certainly didn't badly store it, since I bought it and ate it pretty much straightaway.

Presumably somewhere in the supply chain it was badly stored, but for about 24 hours, almost hourly I couldn't be more than a stones throw from the loo, probably the worst bout I've ever had.

Gone off rice is bad, very very bad.

[Jakob]

I'm beginning to think that as the brown and white absorb different amounts of water the only way to get them both perfect is to do them separately. Which I won't do. So I think I'll switch to brown and white on different days when I'm eating my way through a huge pot of curry over a few days.

The new fancy steam pressure rice cookers from Korea and Japan are supposedly very good at cooking mixed rice.
They're about $300 here, but going from my experience of buying rice cookers in the UK, they'll probably be at least 400 pounds.

[kevinp]

This way of cooking rice was shown to me by a mess Sargent, they have to cook quite a bit of rice at a time:)

Put your required amount of rice in a  pan for me this is 60 grms, if you wash it first do that.

put enough water in the pan to cover the rice by 1/2 inch, add salt if required.

bring water to boil, take off heat cling film the lid of the pan so no steam escapes, ready to eat when all the water has been absorbed.

This is also the best way to cook it when camping as you only need to bring it to boil rather than boil and simmer for 20 minutes or whatever, as its colder outside wrap the pan in a towel and put into your tent to keep it warm.