AH-HA! Now I’m Cooking With Broadband

I’ve been trying to cook more often to save some money. Unfortunately I have less time to cook now than when I was being an out of work bum.  Since many of my culinary experiments make dining out look very cheap and fast, my recent goals in cooking have been to come up with new recipes that are fast and cheaper than eating out.  And that brings me to rice.  

Rice is cheap.  Really, really cheap even the "expensive" organic or specialty brands are cheap compared to almost any other food and with a microwave rice is fast.  I’m not a fan of instant rice and I prefer Basmati or Jasmine rice for the flavor so I’m willing to take a little extra time to prepare "the good stuff." With instant rice I could have dinner done if five minutes (may have to start timing myself) but spending 20-30 min cooking - most of that just watching the microwave do its thing- is worth it to me.

After spending some time tweaking it I think I’ve found a recipe for rice that beats rice+soy sauce, rice+butter, rice+hot sauce or whatever other meager attempts at flavoring you might try.  This recipe works well all on its own as a meal or snack and is great with a topping of hummus and olive oil.

Spiced Basmati Rice

1 cup Dry Basmati Rice

2 cups Water

1/2 Tbsp Butter

2 whole Cardamom Pods - Lightly Crushed

1 inch Cinnamon Stick

2 whole cloves

2 tsp Cumin Seed

Mix it all in a microwave safe bowl cover and nuke it for 5 min. Then lower the power to 50% and give it another 15 min.  Make sure the water is absorbed and let it rest for 5 min.  Fluff it with a fork and make sure it’s a fork - so help me I’ll hurt someone for using a spoon. Spoons crush the rice grains and leave it a sticky mess. If you want it fluffy and light use a fork … FORK.  Eat and enjoy.