cooking 101

I love food.

I envy people that can cook really really well. For me they are living legends! My father and two of my brothers are excellent cooks. Give them the right ingredients and materials and they would serve you the best dishes that would make your mouth water.

I want to learn! I’ve tried. Don’t get me wrong, I can cook. Just not that well. I can follow the recipe but the outcome seems to be not good enough. I even plan on enrolling on a culinary school. Just a few quick courses might help me improve.

Speaking of culinary schools, I’ve stumbled to this site that’s made for those who really plan on finding great chef schools. They’ve got bio-sketches of chefs and they feature the best schools for culinary! It’s the perfect site for interested people (like me) who plans to learn a trick or two in cooking.

how to cook rice

Being in an Asian country, I’ve been trained how to cook rice when I was still young. Rice is like the major crop in the Philippines and the rest of the Asian countries. I really don’t know what to feel whenever I encounter a grown man scratching his head in front of a cauldron or a rice cooker explaining his dilemma of not knowing how to cook rice. You need a cauldron or a rice cooker.

Step 1.
Put the rice in the cooker. It doesn’t really matter how you put it. People usually use cups. Go ahead and use cups. I don’t use cups. I pour the whole kilo down.

Step 2.
Wash the rice with water. If you already think it’s clean, I don’t care. Clean it again. You’ll never know how many impurities it may have. Let the impurities flow as you drain the water.

Step 3.
Pour water. The amount of water is debatable. Some people use the same amount of cups as the rice. Some say add an extra cup. As for me, I use my fingers. I use it as a measuring stick. I stop pouring until the water reaches half of my middle finger which stands from the surface of the rice.

Step 4.
Set the cooker. Do not forget the lid!

Step 5 (for cauldrons).
Set it on strong fire. When it boils, open the lid a little to let air out. Then wait for it to cook.

Caution:
Do not leave your rice cooking unattended. For rice cookers, the cookers accumulate a lot of watts. For those who cook in fire, rice burns easily.