Despite the -esque in the blog title, many, many people seem to be of the opinion that I am a whizz in the kitchen. Oh, my friends, how little you know.
Now ordinarily I would be more than happy to bolster this impression relentlessly so that I can console myself with every monumental hiccup (or other -up) that I am ‘believed to be a Goddess by many’, but the Tots100 is looking for Morphy Richards Innovators and I am a woman who actually salivates at the names of household appliance manufacturers. As a sign of my utmost devotion to self-promotion and a shameless attempt to grab the coveted Innovator badge-of-honour, I am now going to share with you a closely guarded secret.
Lean in close.
You ready?
Sure?
Brace yourself.
I.
Cannot.
Cook.
Rice.
I know. You are shocked, aren’t you? I can tell by the total lack of comments in the box down there somewhere that I have rendered you speechless. But it’s true. I’m not just making it up to score points. I suck at cooking rice. To date I have served up a variety of rice that ranged from still-crunchy to one-great-big-blob without ever achieving ‘just right’ status. I have irreparably damaged two saucepans. I bet you didn’t know that you could burn rice, did you? You can. And it is jolly challenging to get off, despite my tried-and-tested rules for recovery of almost-dead pans:
- fill halfway with water and return to the heat. Boil until substances are removed from pan. Bung in dishwasher and pretend this never happened.
- leave to soak overnight with a dishwasher tablet. Rinse, bung in dishwasher and pretend this never happened.
- Spray paint pan black and pretend this never happened.
OK, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea. Worst case scenario, I take it to the recycle-depot and pretend it never happened. After the second pan-related-incident, I thought it was time to try another method: there are only so many pans you can ‘disappear’ before a DH starts asking questions, and this was getting to be like an episode of The Sopranos. So I went with the boil-in-the-bag option.
It seemed fairly simple. I followed the instructions to the letter and all was going well. Until, that is, I was required to remove the bag from the scalding-hot water with a fork. It was a bit like fishing, and I was never very good at that. The silly bag kept getting away from me so that I was required to get another fork and hold the bag in position whilst using Fork One to locate the lifting handle and lift. At this point, according to the pictogram, one just tilted the bag, ripped at perforation point, and emptied perfectly cooked rice into a dish. Not so my friend. How, in God’s name, are you supposed to simultaneously tilt and rip the stupid bag with one fork?? The rice is still absurdly hot, after all, and I now have a fork in each hand and water dripping all over the floor whilst I search for the bowl I sensibly prepared beforehand.
Once the bowl was located- under the box in which the rice bag came- I played some peculiar game of open-the-baggie with two forks until I got frustrated. It felt too much like the Generation Game and I had a worrying suspicion that at any moment Bruce Forsyth would appear in my kitchen yelling “Nice to see you, to see you….”, as a kitchen wall disappeared to reveal a studio audience of 200 strangers laughing hysterically at me trying to perform such an idiotically simple task. So I threw Fork Two across the room in the general direction of the sink and grabbed the packet firmly in both hands, burning my fingertips in the process. Ripping open the bag released a cloud of steam which burned my face, but I got the bloody rice in the dish, dumped the long-since-cooled Sweet and Sour on top of the mound of ‘perfectly-cooked-rice’ and threw it at DH as I headed out the door to A&E. On the plus side, with a scalded face and no fingerprints, I could have taken up a new career as a burglar: no-one would have been able to identify me.
You will not be surprised to learn that DH rather manfully suggested that he cook the rice in future, which was not a bad idea as my hands were wrapped in bandages so thick I wouldn’t have been able to open the fridge, much less a packet of bloody rice. Fortunately for us all I then discovered Veetee rice, which requires just two minutes in the microwave, and I no longer have to worry about losing pans, eyebrows or fingers.
But don’t tell anyone, OK?
I am incapable of cooking rice. The only way I can do it is boil in the bag, ten minutes in the microwave in a bowl with a pint of hot water on it. Don’t ask me to cope with it in a saucepan!
A great confession, hopefully your hands have now recovered. I also struggle with rice, not cooking it just the amount, always ending up with enough to feed an extra two people. I have also found a solution to my problem, bigger plates.
Glad to hear you found a solution to the too-much-for-one rice thing Andy: I have found that it is usually the right amount to save, feed the children the next day and then sweep up from the floor after they’ve spurned it in favour of sweetcorn and a slice of bread with sprinkles on.
I am delighted not be alone Nataliel
Ah, we all have ‘those’ kitchen moments, you are not alone 🙂