When it comes to cooking rice, I consider myself something of a less muscular version of John Henry, the steel-driving man who could out pound a steam driver. I may be nothing special with a sledgehammer, but I can cook rice better than any rice cooker. I don’t even measure the amounts of rice or water I add to the pot. I just pour the rice from from a 25 pound sack until it looks like enough. And then I stick my finger in it.
rice
Make Plov, not war
Plov is a hearty and meaty rice-based meal from Central Asia. The dish is widely considered the progenitor of rice pilaf and a cousin to paella. Native to present-day Uzbekistan, plov has spread throughout the former Soviet republic, where it varies by region. Some renditions include chickpeas. Azerbaijani plov contains dried fruit. Ukrainian plov is often made with chicken.
Ma’s Chicken Congee
A cocktail of rain, wind and even a little snow assaulted the farmers market last week. The fairweather hipsters stayed home. So did the lemonade stand. Altogether, more farmers showed up than customers, and coffee was the only thing that sold out, because everyone’s hands were cold. There was a steaming cauldron of chicken congee for sale at the Vietnamese sandwich stall, and had the cardboard bowls not run out, the congee would probably have sold out, too.
