On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:00:59 -0600, Melba's Jammin'
wrote:

My first thought is that tomato sauce is too thick. Try it with tomato
juice. You should be able to cook the raw rice in tomato juice without
trouble. Or use half water and half tomato juice.


I missed the tomato SAUCE-tomato JUICE nuance. I had always used
tomato SOUP to make tomato flavored cooked rice. If you use an
automatic rice cooker just thin the soup more, 2 water to 1 soup. The
cooker OFF switch will trip when the rice is almost dry (it starts to
climb above the boiling point of water.) Cancel my earlier post about
adding in the tomato soup just before the rice is fully cooked.
Always use a teflon coated pot. That stuff sticks onto bare metal
like glue.

If you have trouble cooking rice buy a cheap automatic rice cooker,
$30. Its such a labor saver. Add rice and water. Switch on and go
do something more interesting including goofing off. A soft click and
the rice is done. You will never burn rice. I love rice that had
been charred on a ceramic pot. As kids we would fight to grab that
first. Automatic rice cooker raised Asian kids will never know the
pleasures of rice patties with charred edges. Correction. You can
order this as "rice in a hot pot" from a Chinese restaurant. Do check
first if the pot used is metal or ceramic. Only the ceramic pot will
make the grade.

If you want a complete meal-in-one add chopped onions, peas, diced
carrots, ginger and garlic to the unboiled rice. Then cook. The
extra lean ground beef goes in when the rice is almost cooked. Use a
spatula to stir the ground beef in throughly with the rice. The wet
heat cooks the beef crumbs to a delicious texture, preferably slightly
rare, to retain the juices. If the rice is already cooked you can
cheat by adding water to recook and then add the ground beef.

Instead of tomato soup use meat extract such as OXO or Bovril.
They're delicious.

For those who need a quick easy to prepare nutritious meal another
ancient Chinese secret is to add some precooked oil* and soy sauce to
taste and crack a one or two raw eggs into the bowl. Then add piping
hot rice over this and stir the mix until the rice is throughly coated
with egg and sauce mix. Again it is delicious and the rice smooth.
You can enhance the serving with pepper, sprinkle some fried shallots
(available prepackaged at Chinese grocers) or any other stuff you
want, for example boiled peas and carrots, leafy veggies and shredded
meat. There's no recipie. Use your imagination, or like me, whatever
happens to be in the fridge.

Chinese always pour on top of a meal a little precooked oil to
"smooth" the food. Cook sliced ginger and shallots or onions in raw
oil until crisp. Keep the fired stuff as spices to sprinkle ontop
your food. They're delicious. The cooked oil is put in a bottle
dispenser to be added on top of your food as one would add a sauce.

I have food intolerances some of which are soy products, gluten,
legumes and a number of other things I lump together under plant
proteins. Uncooked oil causes mild inflammation in my mouth and
oesophagus. There is bloating and discomfort in the belly and in the
GI tract. My ancestors msut have noticed that and therefore cooked
their oil first (oxidize certain molecules?). I truly believe a lot
of vague chronic dietary and health problems have their origins in
mild food intolerance that we ignore because they are bearable
discomforts. My punishment was Chronjic fatigue Syndrome. However,
health issues are an entirely different subject altogether best
discussed elsewhere.