Monday 14 January 2008

Egyptian rice

Polish: ryż
Aymara: arusa
Turkish: pirinç
Wolof: maalo
Thai: ข้าว
Tagalog: palay
Caló: corpiche
Samoan: alaisa
Mongolian: тутрага
Maori: raihi
Malay: padi
Chechen: дуга
Arabic: أرز
Icelandic: hrísgrjón

This Egyptian method of cooking rice is one of many Egyptian ways, since they eat a lot of rice. If you use yasmin rice, the savour will be magic. First you have to wash the rice several times, until the water from washing is clean and not milky. You should not break the rice grains, so wash it carefully.

1 cup washed rice
1 spoon clarified butter (ghee or Butterschmalz, you can do it at home, I will show you how but not today)
salt

1. Ghee has to be melted and hot in the pot. Drain two spoons of rice and fry them until light brown. If ghee was really hot, your rice may puff but that is not a problem



2. When ready, add the rest of rice and water. How much? Just to cover the rice and 1 cm more. Add salt (usually half spoon) and try if the water tastes good. Add more salt if needed.

3. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes without mixing. When rice absorbs all the water, let it rest on a very low heat some minutes more. It should be loose and shouldn't stick to the bottom of the pot.



2 comments:

Karima said...

hey they make this rice other way too
take vermechelli like 1-2 handfuls
cook them in pot hot oil until they brown almost black and add rice and water boil first 3 minit in high temperature after cover pot and in slow heat boil until its ready
2 cups rice 4 same cup water
i lived before in egypt and there they teach me

Ewa said...

Hi Karima! Thank you for your comment! I learned the vermicelli-rice method too, but the most delicious for me is the Egyptian onion rice (you can find it next to Egyptian fish recipe)... I could eat it everyday (me, who doesn't like rice at all) :) Thanks for your comment, have a great day!