Look at this beautiful snow white rice….doesn’t it look so yummy?
When I was a little girl in 1970s, there was a shortage of rice nationwide. The rice was expensive to many Koreans and not many people could afford it. Korean government even did the campaign nationwide encouraging people to cook rice together with other grains or legumes like Barley,beans,..etc
Every lunch time in my school, teachers went through students’ lunch boxes and anyone with white rice lunch box had to clean school restrooms or classrooms as punishment.
Every meal time at home, I was very careful to finish every single grain of rice in my bowl. Otherwise,my grandmother would yell at me “this is the rice your grandfather harvested only with one hand”.(My grandfather lost one arm by an accident) Nowadays,there is more than enough rice in Korea and everybody can afford it but many people try to cook rice with other grains not for economical reason but for health reason.
Still,white rice is a main starch in Korean diet and I would like to share a tip on how to cook white rice with velvety texture interior and shiny exterior.

*Ingredients (4 portions)
White rice: 2 1/2 cups
Water: 3 cups

1.Washing rice
Pour water in the rice and using your hand gently make circls around. Becareful not to rub rice grain so hard. Drain the water, get new water,and wash rice with a hand again. Repeat this process several times (at least 4-5times)until the water gets clear.
Many Koreans try not to wash rice too much for they believe that rice nutritions get diluted into the water. But thoroughly washed rice tastes much better and looks shiner. Save rice rinsed water and use it as a stock for stew.
You can rinse your face with rice water. It makes your face very moist.

2.Measuring water
The ratio of rice and water is 1:1.2.
After washing the rice, you can totally drain the water,put rice in a pot, and pour right amount of water on it.
However,it can be too much labor and wet rice can be stucked on your corander making it very difficult to get it off. What I do is, and many Koreans do this way, I simply wash rice in a pot I am going to cook rice in and measure water with my hand.,br> Put your hand on top of rice and fill the water until it reached border line of your finger and back side of hand. You can also use your index finger and fill the water up to first segment of the finger.
Leave it for 30minutes (You will see water has reduced because rice has soaked up water. Don’t add more water!)

3.Cooking rice [5-5-5 minute tactic]
If you have a electronic rice cooker, all you have to do now is to cover the lid and press the button “Cooking”.
If you cook rice in a pot,start with very high heat until boiling with lid on. Reduce the heat to medium and leave it for about 5minutes.
Open the lid a bit and take a look inside…has water almost gone?
Then,reduce the heat one more time to very very low and leave it for 5-7minutes
Turn the heat off and leave the rice on the stove for additional 5 minutes.
Open the lid and ,using plastic or wooden spoon, gently mix it upside down trying not to crush the rice.

Have you ever seen standing comedy show of Comedian Margaret Cho?
She talked about her Korean mother who told her to glue school art project with cooked rice. Yep,this is it. the picture above is the rice her mom was talking about.
She was not just joking. I,too, used this rice many times as a glue at school or home.

When I was in culinary school, I had a chance to cook Korean rice and many of my American classmates asked me what I do to make rice so sticky. Korean rice is short grain rice like what people call “sushi rice” and it’s sticky when cooked because of the starch content. Unlike rice from Southeast Asia or North America, Korean rice is moist and sticks together rather than falling apart. Korean rice is short grain rice and has a lot more starch than long grain rice. Because it is highly glutinous,It makes it rather easy to eat with chopsticks.

Because of cold winter temperature in Korea,rice can be planted only once a year. The planting season is in May-June, and harvesting takes place in October-November. The rice is country’s most important agricultural commodity and is also the main source of carbohydrate in people’s diet. Rice is the central element of the main course in any Korean meal. Rice along with Kimchi, soup and some other vegetable side dishes is the typical meal eaten in most Korean homes.

If you want to buy this rice and don’t have Korean grocery store near you, try to find a rice with label “Sushi rice”in your local grocery store.