- Preparation Time: 0:05
- Cooking Time: 0:30
- Serve Immediately
Introduction/Overview
White rice is essential in the Jamaican diet as we use it for a few of our favorite dishes; stew peas and rice and curried goat to name two.
As simple as white rice is, its sometimes difficult to cook right each time. An expression used is shelly rice which is where the rice grains don’t stick to each other which is really how you want to eat it. But its an art. People you meet in Jamaica will cook this different ways.
Ingredients
- White or brown rice
- Salt
- Water
- Butter
Method
- Measure out the amount of rice you want. This is tough, but you get used to it over time. Basically cook enough that will hold in the pot in which you are cooking it. So I usually do three cups as that’s the size of my pot.
- Wash rice throughly. My mom says she’s washing out the starch :-).
- Once washed, add some water, salt to taste and butter; now this is the most important part of preparing rice as if you get the amount of water wrong it will be quite soft and not as good. So how do you do this? Practice. Here’s a rule of finger that my friend Richard told me in New York. Place your little finger in the water and ensure that the water above the rice is at the fist line on your finger. Sounds crazy right? But it works every time.
- Use medium fire and ensure that it does not boil over as it will if the flame is too high.
- Turn down the flame as it cooks so it does not burn as you don’t want that either. The fewer times you open the pot the better since its the steam that will cook the rice.
- Cook until done; i.e. the grains are not tough anymore.
- Serve hot with whatever meat you’ve prepared.
Photo (s)
Video
This video shows you the entire process.
PDF (with recipe and photos and transcript)