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To Cook Rice
In cooking rice do not put it into a double boiler and cook slowly into a pasty mass, but after cleansing it throw it into rapidly boiling salted water and keep it boiling furiously for thirty minutes. Drain into a colander and place in the oven for a few minutes.
This is the pasta method of cooking rice — a large volume of boiling water, drained off at the end — set against the absorption method the author clearly disliked. It works, with one adjustment to the timing.
- The hinge: plenty of water, hard boilUse at least 4 quarts of water per cup of rice, salted like pasta water (about 1 tablespoon per quart). The volume is what keeps the grains moving and stops them releasing starch onto each other, which is the "pasty mass" Estes is warning against.
- Thirty minutes is too long nowModern milled long-grain white rice is done in 12 to 15 minutes by this method; basmati closer to 10. Rice sold in 1911 may well have been less uniformly milled and longer in storage, which would account for some of the difference. Start testing a grain at 10 minutes and drain when the centre has just lost its chalkiness. For brown rice, 30 to 40 minutes is right.
- CleansingRinsing in several changes of cold water until it runs nearly clear removes loose surface starch. It matters less with the pasta method than with absorption cooking, but it still improves the separateness of the grains.
- The oven step"A few minutes" in the oven is best read as drying rather than further cooking. Estes gives no temperature; in a modern oven, spread the drained rice in a shallow pan and give it about 5 minutes at 300F, uncovered, shaking once. The heat drives off surface moisture and the grains fall apart cleanly.
- YieldOne cup of raw white rice gives about 3 cups cooked, enough for four as a side dish.
- What it is forThis produces dry, separate grains suited to serving under stews, curries and creamed dishes. It is the wrong treatment for risotto, rice pudding or any dish that wants the starch.
Good Things to Eat (1911) was written by Rufus Estes, born enslaved in Tennessee in 1857, who cooked for the Pullman Palace Car Company and later for the executives of a Chicago steel firm — one of the earliest cookbooks published by an African American man. The double boiler Estes dismisses was a fashionable piece of turn-of-the-century equipment, promoted for the gentle cooking of cereals and oatmeal.