Rice cooking is an art. I can vouch for this statement after cooking rice for the past 10 months. 

The perfect plate of rice is not so easy to cook. The rice needs to be fluffy, every grain separated from the rest in a non-sticky manner (unless it is sticky rice) and no under or overcooking. It should look like those dreamy advertisements of biryani that you see on the sites of Behrouz, Biryani by Kilo and the likes. Although their biryani does not always have this dreamy texture. 😅

People usually ignore the subtle art of cooking rice when they begin cooking. At least I did because my dear Mom said that “chaawal banane me kya hai?” (What is there to even cook in rice?) And that is why the very first batch of rice that I ever prepared was sticky and wet. (Let us not remind ourselves of Venom’s mouth here 🤓)

It looks like that I soaked the rice for more than 2 hours. And then added dollops of water. And then cooked the rice to 6-7 whistles. 

No wonder my Biryani like Basmati chaawal turned out to be the Japanese sticky rice variant!

The next time I soaked the rice for the recommended 2 hours but ended up adding slightly lesser but still copious amounts of water and then cooking for 4 whistles. The result – the risotto/khichdi like texture.

I think my brain totally underestimates the power of the quantity of water required in cooking. And also the might of pre-soaking. 

So I have had cases when I cooked the U.P. special Tehri for a group of friends and the rice turned out to be sticky and glutinous instead of the expected “Khile Khile chaawal” as my grandfather used to say when my Mom cooked rice. 

It was as if I’m cooking for someone who is having digestive issues and wants wet rice texture. 

So I decided that I’ll be careful with water, soaking time and number of whistles. 

But when have things in life gone according to a plan? 🤣

So one day, I decided to first boil channa/black gram and then rice. I did not clean the pressure cooker properly with nimboo-ki-Shakti-waala Vim bar. Only water cleanse and then I added my 2 hour pre-soaked Basmati rice with enough water so that the first line of my index finger is touching water if I put it in the pressure cook and touch the base, and only 4 whistles on slow flame. 

The steam did not form for the first 20 minutes and then I decided that enough was enough, and I should bring the flame to medium to quicken the process.

Oooooh the process quickened too much!

After 2 whistles, I started smelling a burnt aroma. I thought my racy mind was playing games with me. So I waited for another 2 whistles.

The burnt “aroma” was very pronounced now and I was relieved that my mind was all right. 🤓

After half an hour, I opened the pressure cooker. It was not surprising but the rice was burnt at the base. The surprising thing was that the rice did not separate out in chunks and came out of the pressure cooker like a pancake/thick chilla/frittata. 

So I basically got a burnt base rice pancake. I should have cooked biryani or Tehri and I could have got a new type of dish that I would have christened “The Burnt Rice Pancake”. 

Because in an imperfect world, if dimsums could become gyozas, then my humble steamed rice could become this new dish!

It would not be palatable of course! But I ate it with dal and mixed veggies. No food waste at any cost!