Weekend Plans: Lime Cilantro Rice, After Multiple Attempts
I’ve seen dozens of tweets from people learning how to make sourdough. For about a month, people posting their sourdough starter was an entire sub-genre. People were discussing different yeasts and different ways to deal with the fact that stores were short on yeast, flour, and other bread-making staples. With summer just around the corner, people have stopped wanting the oven to be on and discussions of 375 degrees for 30 minutes versus 350 degrees for 35 minutes have slowed to a trickle (I imagine we’ll see them again come fall).
Given that my local stores haven’t had a problem delivering bread, the main carb that I have been absolutely obsessing over was Chipotle’s lime cilantro rice.
There were years where Chipotle was the closest restaurant to my workplace and if you’re 2 hours into a 12 hour shift, a burrito the size of a nerf football is one of the things that will help you get from here to there. While I’m not in that particular place anymore, I did find myself in a place where I’d go there once a week, maybe once every other week, on the way home. Only $20 to get dinner, no plates to clean up, easy peasy.
So when the lockdown started, man. I was stuck without my Chipotle rice. I did the “google the recipe” thing and, of course, found multiple recipes from multiple people all claiming to have worked at Chipotle and this, seriously, was Chipotle’s secret recipe.
None of them did it for me. But one little trick here, one little trick there… I think I’ve got it.
I make my rice in a little rice cooker. It makes 1 1/3rd cups of rice like magic (two scoops from the enclosed 2/3rd cup). Before telling the cooker to cook, throw a bay leaf in there (you’ll be pulling the bay leaf out when you’re done).
While the rice is cooking, get your fresh cilantro, your knife, and your cutting board. You’ll want a good handful of cilantro. Recipes all say stuff like “tablespoon” but if you buy fresh cilantro, how in the heck do you measure a tablespoon? It’s like going into the back yard and getting a tablespoon of grass. I grab and rip a handful of cilantro off of the bunch of cilantro I buy, then I chop it up. Don’t just grab the leaves, either! Chop up the stems that you grab. Like, chop it up FINE.
Something like this:
Only six or seven times, not twice.
Then I get a lime and zest it. I have this zester. You see the thing that looks like a can opener? I use that part of the tool to pull off 4 long strips from the rind of the lime. Then I take my kitchen shears and cut the long strips into tiny little pieces. Mix those in with the Cilantro.
Then, cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice into a measuring cup. Get a reamer and just ream the heck out of each half of the lime. You want that debris. The debris is good. Now look at your measuring cup. How much lime juice do you have? Well, add half that much lemon juice.
When the rice is done, put it into a big metal bowl, add your cilantro, lime rind, salt and juice as you mix it up like you saw the guy in the back of the Chipotle do it a hundred times.
What got me each time was the little things. I didn’t know about the bay leaf. I didn’t know about the lemon juice rounding out the lime juice. It’s with THAT recipe that I finally figured out how to make rice that doesn’t merely remind me of Chipotle.
Now that I’ve FINALLY perfected the recipe, I’m probably going to make that this weekend.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is Alice being interrupted in her browsing of the book collection.)
I’ve never had a rice cooker. I’ve never used a rice cooker. I’ve always done – boil the water, put in the rice, let it sit covered for 20 mins. I sometimes alternate with just boiling it like I would do pasta, and draining it and that’s workable, too.
How does a rice cooker work? How does it improve on that? It must – people wouldn’t just use a gadget for the sake of a gadget, would they?Report
I’ve got this one:
It’s got one button. One button? How in the hell does a device only have one freakin’ button? Well, it’s got one button.
You fill the reservoir up about halfway with water (there are marks on the side of it) and then you dump in 2 scoops of rice (each scoop is 2/3rds of a cup). Put the lid on. Press the button. Walk away. Or, heck, stay there and prepare other ingredients. It’s all good.
After the rice is automatically cooked, the cooker will click and move from “cook” to “warm”. Serve your rice.
There is an additional steam tray that you can put on the cooker and then you put the lid on that. The steam from the rice water goes through this tray first before being released and you can have some nice steamed veggies with your rice if you’re so inclined. (I’ve never used mine.)
Now, I bought my rice cooker in February back when we didn’t know how bad it was going to get. It was being sold for $20 at my local King Sooper’s and I figured that, hey, for $20, what’s the worst that could happen?
It’s a lovely device. I see that Amazon sells rice cookers that are more than $200. This is absurd. Don’t pay that. That’s crazy.
The one I have was $20, makes rice perfectly, and you don’t have to pay attention to it.
Additional information: I have messed up rice on the stovetop more than once. I make it too al dente. The rice cooker just makes it and it’s good.
If you only have rice every other month or so? If you are good at making it on the stovetop?
Don’t buy the device.
If, however, you feel like having it every week or so and aren’t good at making it on the stovetop?
Hey, $20 is $20.Report
Ok, at $20, why not try it? The ability to fire and forget is something I prize in my “boil water for tea” gadget. OrderedReport
We still use the rice cooker K bought herself in college. It’s so easy to use–a 2-to-1 ratio of water to rice, put the lid on, push the button, go on with the rest of your meal prep. It’s a fantastic device.
Her mother gave us another rice cooker that is twice as big and just as easy to use despite having twice as many buttons (we have yet to use the second button).Report
It also works great for oatmeal, which is super helpful if you want a hearty breakfast but don’t have time in the AM to make it. I hear other grains work well too but haven’t tried.
My sons love rice and I suck at cooking it. A colleague of mine was appalled to learn I was using quick-cook bag rice* and got me one as a gift. It’s been wonderful.
* She’s Chinese so rice is a very important food for her. She didn’t even believe that quick-cook bag rice existed and had to ask a cousin about it. As a form of payback, I was appalled to overhear her ordering pasta from a diner. In NYC. I’m Italian… no no no. She’ll be getting some quality pasta to make at home as a gift soon.Report
Holy cow, oatmeal.
That’s not a summertime breakfast but I can totally see trying that in the rice cooker come October.Report
I eat it year ’round (bad teeth means crunchy cereal is not so good). I zap it in the microwave with milk and a small handful of extra-dark chocolate chocolate chips.
Microwaved oatmeal is not *great* but for just one person….it’s good enough.
If you have a powerful microwave like my new one is, invest in some deep bowls, though. The first few times I made oatmeal in my new microwave it boiled over. (Shorter cooking time or lower power seem not to cook it enough)Report
Maybe that’s something I need to do a deep dive into.
Decent Microwave Cookery. Pretty much the only thing I make in the microwave is eggs. (As opposed to reheating. I reheat darn near everything in the microwave. But cooking in the first place? Unless Hot Pockets count, I don’t.)Report
I don’t think I eat rice enough to justify another thing that takes up space in my (too small) kitchen but I know people who eat a lot of rice love their rice cookers. (I might make rice once a month). But yeah, I use the “boil a pot of water, dump in rice, turn down heat, cover” method, or if I am already doing something that takes a 350 degree oven, there’s also a good way of doing oven rice – I think it’s similar proportions of rice and water and you cover the vessel and it’s either 20 or 30 minutes. Been a while since I did it but I have a recipe in my “More from Less” cookbook (a Mennonite cookbook that is frugal but surprisingly solid recipes).
I suppose there’s a way to do rice in a slow cooker, I have one of those, but really for me? I only make a tiny bit at a time (live alone) and the stovetop method works okay. Well, except for that time I forgot to turn the heat down and scorched the Hell out of one of my favorite pans. I don’t think I ever did get the burned rice out of it…
I dunno. I have to make a Lowe’s run at some point because the catchplate for my screen door latch broke (I hope it is replaceable, in the sense of being able to buy just a new catchplate) and I need lubricant for the tracks of the garage door. Other than that, meh – maybe work in the yard a bit if it’s not too humid.
The weeks seem to go fast but every day seems eternally long…Report
Before this year, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’d made rice. (Using rice as an ingredient? Sure. All the time. Rice as a side in and of itself? Maybe… twice?)
The good thing about this little rice cooker is that it makes just over a cup of rice and you’re done. You end up with a TON of rice. Seriously. 5 or 6 servings and that’s *ME* saying what a serving is. Have some of it fresh out of the cooker and put the rest in the fridge and you’re good.
I’m not saying that the day won’t come where we put the rice cooker next to the bread maker in the storage closet… but I am saying that that day is not yet near.Report
Sometime in the last year (don’t really remember when), I tried a chicken tikka masala recipe. It called for Basmati rice. I think that’s the only rice I want to eat now. Soooooooooooo good.Report
I just made vegetable tikka masala with chicken. Some might call it chicken tikka masala.Report
I have bought 3 of these one as gift two for me. I use one at work $12 some of the best money I ever spent. Two of the enclose scoops 3 scoops water pop in microwave hit rice button voila rice! Booklet that comes with it gives times if no rice botton somerhing like 9 minutes. I love it
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004RDFG/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apap_3lkRbxljENnqTReport
Looks simple enough. Have you tried making pasta with it or just rice?Report
Just rice, I mean how hard is pasta on the stove? Rice and steaming vegetables are probably only thing s I properly cook in microwave
Though I also cook oatmeal in microwave but usually in a deep bowl since it’s just for me.Report