How to make perfect Brown Rice

This recipe has been conceived and perfected by the mind and hands of none other than renowned chef, author and food critic Muhlio Muhlev.

It is a straightforward and reliable way to cook brown rice at home, without a rice cooker, using a pot, tin (aluminum) foil, and your ability to follow simple instructions. The water to rice ratio has been optimized for absolute perfection. This recipe represents the preferred method of cooking brown rice in the rarefied strata of the culinary elite.


Before you start, determine how much brown rice you want. A cup of uncooked (raw) brown rice contains around 650-700 calories. If you are cooking dinner, it would not be unreasonable to have about 1/2 to 3/4 cups of raw rice per person.  Adjust as needed if you are pigging out,  dieting, or want to have rice left over.

The whole process will take slightly less than an hour.

Things you need:

• a boiling pot.
• aluminum foil
• brown rice
• olive oil
• salt

Steps:

1. Add olive oil to  pot (1-2 tablespoons per cup of rice, or whatever you want.)
2. Add raw rice to the pot once the oil is hot.
3. Add salt (1/2 teaspoon per cup)
4. Stir the rice over the hot olive oil, so that it doesn't burn, but gets cooked slightly for 1-2 minutes.
5. Add 1.5 cups of water per cup of brown rice.
6. Once the water is boiling (this should happen very quickly since the rice and oil are hot),  reduce the stove top heat to low/medium. (settings 4 out of 9)
7. Cover the boiling pot with a square piece of aluminum foil (big enough to cover it completely and stick out) , and place the pot lid on top of the foil.
8. Wait 45 minutes.  There is no need to disturb the rice while it is cooking.
9. Remove the lid and foil, and leave uncovered, so that the moisture/vapor can escape completely.
10. Fluff with a fork.

That's it. If you wish, you can skip the olive oil, but you would sacrifice a lot of flavor in a misunderstood quest to reduce calories.

If you found this recipe useful,  use the comments area to pass your praise and adulation to Muhlio.

Crispy rice and leeks + fried egg = quick and tasty Saturday dinner

This easy meal was inspired by an article in NY Times, by Mark Bittman.
Marulka and SM came by on Saturday evening and we cooked this dish with the fellow chef Marulka. It was fun :)
We made few changes to the original recipe, instead of white rice we used a soup mix, containing brown rice, bulgur, lentils and peas. You can buy similar mixes at Trader Joe's or Middle Eastern markets, such as International Food Bazaar.
We replaced the ginger ( no ginger in the house ) with onions and we baked the rice instead of frying it.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of soup mix
• 4 stalks of leeks
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 tbsp onions, or ginger
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

As Marulka pointed out to me, the idea in this recipe is to use a day old steamed rice, to be able to get it crisp, when you fry it. To achieve this effect, we boiled the soup mix with 2 cups of water, and then dried it at 350F oven for 10 minutes.

We sauteed the leeks. And then mixed the leeks with grains.

We baked the mix for 10 more minutes in 400F oven.

In a separate pan we browned the onions and the garlic, fried 4 sunny-side-up eggs, and assembled the dish, a nice mound of grains with the egg on top, sprinkled with the crispy garlic and onions.

We seasoned with soy sauce, hot sauce "Sriracha" and few drops of sesame oil. Delish :)