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本帖最后由 choi 于 2-27-2025 13:24 编辑
Eric Kim, Great Grains; You don't need a rice cooker for perfect white rice — just a little patience and the right technique. New York Times Magazine, Feb 23, 2025, at page 18 (in the column |Eat").
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/ ... perfect-recipe.html
Note:
(a)
(i) After reading this article, I burst into guffaw: I have had rice in Taiwan. The method is totally different (no simmering, resting, or fluffing). Don't we (Taiwanese) know how to cook rice? On the other hand, back in 1985 (a few months after arriving at Chicago to attend graduate school), a Japanese undergraduate taught me (for free) how to drive a car. He invited me and a couple of others to his home, where his (Japanese) mother serve us a lunch and disappear (which seemed to be natural to the son, and might be a Japanese custom). The (cooked) rice tasted wonderful.; I did not notice whether it was fluffy or packed (as the cooked rice in Taiwan are).
(ii) There is little scientific research on rice cooking. So, most of the steps described in this NYT article are not explained: why this, why that? Suffice it to say that other Japanese cook rice in the same manner (as depicted by this NYT article), too. See
Yumiko, How to Cook Rice the Japanese Way. RecipeTin Japan レシピティン 日本, May 18, 2021
https://japan.recipetineats.com/ ... e-the-japanese-way/
("It is not boiled like pasta")
(iii) However, there are two scientific terms you need to know about rice cooking (gelatinization is desirable, but not pasting). From the Web:
"Rice is mostly starch, which exists as semi crystalline granules [in a single grain]. If exposed to enough heat and moisture [coming from water surrounding the grain], these starch granules swell and soften, losing that hard, crystalline structure, a process known as gelatinization. When rice is fully gelatinized, it is soft and palatable; if it's not fully gelatinized, it is undercooked and slightly crunchy.
"After gelatinization, continued heating begins to break down those swollen starch granules. Pasting refers to the increased viscosity of the surrounding liquid through agitation; in other words, stirring up rice after it has gelled makes it sticky, and, in extreme cases, mushy [therefore, overcooked; but that is what porridge 粥 or oatmeal is].
(iv) Here is an essay about rice cooking, without real experiments to back it up: 기자명 Jeong Jae-hoon, The Science of Cooking Rice. Korea Biomedical Review (KBR), Oct 18, 2024.
https://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=25426
("Jeong Jae-hoon is a food writer and pharmacist. He covers a variety of subjects, including trends in food, wellness and medications for the journal]. This column was originally published in Korean in Joongang Ilbo on Sept. 12, 2024")
(b)
(i) After cooking and resting, the purpose to stir up rice from the bottom is so that rice at the bottom will be treated the same as rice at the top (a Web posting says that rice at the bottom is closer to heating, and another says the reason is the rice got less contact with water during the cooking.
(ii) One website hints that preparing sushi rice is similar or identical. There is also another website which states that the above is not suited for long-grain rice.
(c)
(i) Sonoko SAKA-I 酒井 園子
(ii) "Sakai's recipe, from her latest cookbook, 'wafu cooking' "
(A) Sonoko Sakai, Wafu Cooking; Everyday recipes with Japanese style. Knopf, Nov 12, 2024.
(B) Japanese-English dictionary:
* wafū 和風 【わふう】 (n): "See [antonym] 洋風) Japanese style"
(iii) "One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was a bag of Hokkaido nanatsuboshi white rice"
The nanatsuboshi is a rice brand (from Hokkaido) which is written in hiragana (ななつぼし), not kanji -- but it (brand) means 七つ星 (made up of nanatsu (Japanese pronunciation for 七) and hoshi (Japanese pronunciation for the noun 星, where the h is softened to b as the kanji is not in the starting position of the compound noun).
``````````````NYT
To hear the cook, writer and teacher Sonoko Sakai tell it, “1955 is the year my mother was liberated.” Several things happened that year: Sakai was born, but more liberating still for her mother? The birth of the first home rice cooker as we know it (automatic, electric).
The son of a similarly “liberated” Korean woman, I was raised on rice-cooker rice, the chirping bells and whistles of the cooker signaling dinnertime. Both elemental and overlooked, rice was the main starch in our house, one of the first things I learned to cook as a child, but it wasn’t until I started making it on the stovetop that I really understood how it cooks, and how much better it could taste. I’m convinced that it’s the fire under the pot that produces a flavor worth striving for, something a rice cooker can’t achieve. Eating a bowl of perfect stovetop white rice — or at least rice that’s more perfect than you’ve ever had it — is like wearing glasses for the first time. Everything comes into focus: grains that are shiny, fluffy and tender, yet somehow still individual, sticky and standing. Grains that are ready to take flight, the dandelion fuzz of carbohydrates.
Sakai’s recipe, from her latest cookbook, “Wafu Cooking,” confirmed for me that you don’t need a fancy rice cooker to make brilliant rice. “All you need,” she said to me reassuringly over the phone, “is a saucepan with a heavy bottom and lid.” The rest is technique: a brief rinse (no need to wait for the water to run clear), a longer soak, a shorter cook and two separate but successive rests — before and after the rice is fluffed. “Don’t mash it,” Sakai said of the fluffing stage. “It’s like a pillow.” Note that most of this time is inactive. I say this before I tell you: It takes one hour to make flawless white rice.
Few recipes change my mind about the fundamentals of my own cooking. But as Sakai said, “Rice is sacred.” Her recipe, which considers each grain, taught me that the best way to cook rice is to first understand the crop. Grains grown in water can take on water. You can’t really oversoak them, she said, because they take the water they need and leave the rest. That’s why Japanese home cooks rinse and soak their rice overnight: to speed up the process for the morning, when rice is served with leftovers from the night before — a fish, an egg, a soup, a vegetable. I love Sakai’s rice topped with tuna mayo or crispy bacon and mirin-basted eggs. Dal and rice, a complete protein, is a regular staple on my table. Have you ever seasoned fresh sushi rice with a little salt, sugar and rice vinegar? Wrap scoops of that with crisp sheets of nori, maybe even sneak a sliver of avocado or crab in there, and relish in your own makeshift California rolls. Did you even know that you could do that, that you could build a life around rice?
One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was a bag of Hokkaido Nanatsuboshi white rice from my friend Junnan. According to the bag, it was milled just days earlier. I had never eaten rice that fresh before. I made a pot one night, and again another night, and a few times more until all of it was gone, and I was sad. The gift of rice that fresh — good rice — is worth more than a Wagyu steak or a diamond engagement ring in my book. And it’s not that you need just-milled heritage rice flown in from Japan to enjoy that wealth: Whatever medium- or short-grain rice you can find at the store works. If you can maximize its character — individual grains that each want to be loved, celebrated and steamed until soft — a world of quiet, everyday joy may open up for you.
Eric Kim has been a food and cooking columnist for The Times since 2021.
[recipe:] Basic White Rice
Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
1½ cups/300 grams medium- or short-grain white rice (see Tip)
1. In a fine-mesh strainer, rinse the rice under cold running water for 30 seconds. Drain completely. Add the rice and 1¾ cups (400 milliliters) water to a heavy-bottomed small (2-quart) saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Set aside to soak for at least 30 minutes and up to 8 hours at a cool room temperature.
2. Place the pot over medium heat, uncovered, and heat until the water bubbles vigorously around the edges of the pot. Cover, reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting and cook, without lifting the lid, for 15 minutes.
3. Remove the pot from the burner and let the rice rest, still covered, for 15 minutes. Uncover and gently fluff the rice to let excess steam escape: Using a paddle or wooden spoon, turn the rice over so the rice on the bottom is on top. Cover and let the rice rest for a final 5 minutes before enjoying.
Tip: When it comes to rice, “medium” and “short” refer to the length of the grain, but these terms also signal differences in texture, notably softness and stickiness. When buying white rice at the store for this recipe, look for Asian or Californian varieties, such as sushi rice, which comes in both medium- and short-grain, and Calrose rice, which is a reliable, easy-to-find medium-grain variety.
Yield: About 5 cups cooked rice
Adapted from "Wafu Cooking," by Sonoko Sakai (Knopft, 2024).
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发表于 2-26-2025 13:00:11
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