The Adventures of Krystal Kid: The Rice Chronicles (part 1)

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Rice Chronicles (part 1)

Everyone knows that college students have a steady diet of Ramen Noodles. It's quick and easy, and can usually be made in your dorm room in the microwave or a hot pot. I'll admit I ate my share of ramen noodles when I was in school. But once I graduated and started learning to cook, I swore I'd never eat them again. For the most part I haven't. My sister in law makes a salad with uncooked ramen noodles broken up in it. I force it down, but I don't enjoy it.
What allowed me to break from the standard college fair was the discovery of rice. I'd always loved rice, but never really made it. It always seemed so much trouble. You have to get just the right amount of rice and water. Cook it at the right temperature for just the right amount of time. Ramen noodles are almost fool proof.
Then one day a fraternity brother of mine, Adam, introduced me to the wonder of a rice cooker. I've lost count of how many evenings we'd spend in his dorm room cooking a big pot of rice and pigging out. I enjoyed it so much that one Christmas my parents bought me my very own rice cooker. I put many miles on that sucker and I still have it.

These pictures are over a year old. Sadly, my rice cooker's lid was involved in a tragic accident when I moved and it suffered a Knob amputation. Currently it is getting a knob transplant, so hopefully it will be back in service soon.
Once I got my very own rice cooker I had to go get the proper fixings. Sadly, most people in America really make crappy rice. It all starts with their fixation on "long grain rice." The big selling point of long grain rice is that it doesn't stick together. Who exactly decided that rice sticking together is a bad thing? The strange thing is you go through all the trouble to try and make sure it doesn't stick by using long grain rice, not stirring it while it cooks (that makes risotto, the stickiest of rice) and also the first step when it is done cooking is to "fluff" the rice.
After all that trouble what is the first thing people do when they get ready to eat their rice? They put stuff on it to make it stick back together: butter or gravy. (Or they make pudding out of it, but that's another story.)
I say to heck with all that, sticky rice rules, so buy short grained rice! The problem is, since the whole country has been deluded into thinking long grain rice is best it can be VERY difficult to find short grain. Most grocery stores, if they carry it at all, only carry small bags of it.
A friend of mine in grad school, Chester, took me to an Oriental grocery store back in Warner Robins where I acquired a 5 pound bag of short grain rice, for almost nothing. Looking back, though, I probably should have gone for a 2 pound bag. I had every jar and plastic container I could find filled with uncooked rice and shoved into cabinets everywhere. I still have about 2 pounds left 12 years later.
While I was at the store with Chester, I stocked up on the other essentials for a great rice meal that I had learned from Adam. Obviously you need Chinese sausages:

Don't bother reading the ingredients list. It is in English, but you won't like what you read. The other required addition is what I lovingly refer to as "Carpet Shavings." Officially it's one of various forms of dried, cooked, shredded meat. Think something along the lines of beef jerky that's been shoved through a food processor.

From the top down this is:

Pork Sung
Pork Fu
Beef Fu

Carpet shavings usually come in beef or pork flavor. The difference between "Fu" and "Sung" is subtle. The Sung tends to be drier (if that is possible) and have a much stronger spiciness to it. Of the three, I prefer Beef Fu. Which is just my luck as it tends to be the hardest to find. The top and bottom containers are also from my shopping trip 12 years ago. A little Fu goes a long way! Also since it's hard to find good Beef Fu, I have been stingy over the years.

When I arrived in Wilmington I immediately went to the Asian grocery store around the corner, Saigon Market. I am used to the reactions when i walk into places like that. Their first instinct is that I am obviously lost. Then when I walk up and down the aisles they are on me like white on rice (get it?) asking if they can help me find something. They are usually taken back when I tell them I am looking for Beef Fu. Apparently they don't get many white boys in asking for dried cooked shredded beef. Sadly, NO ONE ever asks for it, so they never have it in stock. In fact I had one place tell me that it didn't exist, so I brought my own container in to show them.
Finally, I gave in. After trying 3 different Asian markets in 2 cities, I decided I would have to turn to the Internet. Even then it wasn't easy to find, but I did find it. Sadly, the smallest quantity I could find was 1 pound. I suspect I'll be passing down Beef Fu in my will when I die, along with a pound or two of short grain rice.
One or two items that were staples for Adam that I pass on are the Miso Soup (which tastes like water out of an aquarium) the Norri seaweed (which smells like old dead seaweed) and "Rice Seasoning" which I lovingly referred to as either "aquarium gravel" or "fish food." You can guess how that smelled. He'd also put tofu in his Miso soup, and I don't really go for tofu. It's sort of like eating the sponge sitting on the back of the kitchen sink, squishy and bland. Usually it has no flavor, but when it does you wish it didn't.
So now lets just imagine: you've been studying hard all night and realize it's 2am and you are starving. Not even the pizza guy delivers this late, and you don't have change for the junk food machine in the lobby. In my next post I'll show you how to create a delicious, filling, one pot, meal that essentially cooks itself.
Oh and if you're allergic to MSG, don't go anywhere near carpet shavings. The reason it's still good after 12 years is that it's been dried, seasoned and preserved better than King Tut. Krystal Lovers like it steamy.