Food and Cooking

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.