Sticky rice, fluffy rice, gummy, gluey rice, bland, wet or crunchy rice. I have made all of these things.
I remember rice as my first culinary challenge out of college. If I can just cook rice, I thought, I can feed myself. And while the instructions on the sack always seemed so simple, so straight forward, the results were rarely good. My Chinese roommate had a little electric rice cooker that she swore by, and I loved the beautifully steamed rice that she produced, but even that little gadget alluded my attempts. For a while, I gave up and accepted half-soggy, half-crunchy bland rice.
It was very sad.
Because we Arabs love our rice! Like our friends farther east, from India all the way to Japan, we love our rice. Our rice style is more similar to Indian rice, and every time I dig into a vibrant dish of biryani, it reminds me of home. Arabs pride themselves in producing light, fluffy rice, with a nutty and rich flavor, well seasoned enough to stand on its own. We love to serve mounds of fluffy white rice, warmly spiced with the flavors of allspice, turmeric, cinnamon or nutmeg, topped with buttery pine nuts or almonds fried in ghee. For a simple childish favorite, we serve this with just a scoop of fresh plain yogurt, and we call it rooz ma' laban. Please, mama, we would beg my mother, can we skip the sauce and just have rooz ma' laban?
Can you blame me?
After watching my mother, badgering her with questions, and then (this was the hard part), actually doing what she told me to do, I learned how to make a decent pot of rice. If you want to make delicious rice that will wake up any basic fish, chicken or steak meal, look no further.