Friday, March 25, 2016

The Sweet Smell of Success (Cooking Edition)

You guys, my apartment smells incredible tonight. And it's because of rice.

No, no, not Condoleezza Rice.
But thanks for playing.
A couple of days ago, Drummer Boy and I went grocery shopping. Because we had an afternoon together, and I needed groceries. So we took a slow, romantic stroll...through Target. He pushed the cart.

Romantic AF, in case you're wondering.
When we shop together, Drummer Boy usually tosses a few things into my cart because a) he thinks I'll enjoy them or b) he likes them and wants them available when he visits. And that's fine with me. I don't care what you do in the bedroom; if you don't feel comfortable mingling your grocery preferences with those of your significant other, then you're probably not as intimate a couple as you think you are.

Dr. Ruth absolutely backs me up on this. Trust me.
Anyway. First he slipped in a package of King's Hawaiian Rolls. OMG. Yaaassss. Perfume, flowers, lingerie...all crap compared to a package of King's Hawaiian Rolls for romantic impact, IMHO.

Sweet yeasty roll porn. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Then, a few aisles later, he tossed in a bag of jasmine rice.

Exactly like this. Have mercy.

I didn't know what to think. Rice? Jasmine rice? Seems a tad bit random, but what do I know? Putting jasmine rice in your girlfriend's shopping cart could be some ancient fertility ritual, as far as I know. But hey, if Drummer Boy wants to put his rice in my basket, I'm all for it.

Sounds like a fertility ritual to me.

As it happened, he wanted to show me how to make perfect rice in the microwave. Which didn't exactly pan out, because actually it turned out perfectly awful. I forgot to tell him that my microwave is insanely overpowered, and you can't cook anything for as long as the recipe says or you'll end up with [insert food name here] jerky. His sweet face was so disappointed, I almost ate some anyway. Almost.

Anyway, he left me the rest of the bag, so tonight I made teriyaki chicken and jasmine rice. But I cooked it by my method, which I finally recently perfected after a few mishaps of my own, edibility-wise. My method is to melt some butter in a pan on medium-high heat, then saute the uncooked rice for five to 10 minutes until it starts to get toasty.

My stars, when I did that, something amazing happened. Precocious Daughter said the apartment smelled like cookies. And it did!

Like a scented candle you can eat!
(Please don't eat scented candles. That's gross.)
The combination of warm butter and the naturally sweet fragrance of jasmine rice smelled like home-baked yummy goodness, you guys.

But that was just step one. Step two in my rice-making routine is to add HOT water to the sauteed rice. It has to be hot, so that it comes to a boil almost immediately on hitting the pan. Add a bit of salt, give it a good stir, and let it boil for about a minute, then cover and reduce heat. Twenty minutes later, remove it from heat, take off the cover, and let it sit for five minutes. Fluff with fork, as the saying goes, and you have some delicious-ass rice.

But I'm leaving out the most important part. For those 20 minutes that the jasmine rice was cooking, the apartment smelled better and better until I thought I was going to have a grain-induced orgasm. It was incredible. If I'd known jasmine rice smelled so good, I would have stopped using the boring old white rice years ago.

You're dead to me.

The teriyaki chicken with the moist, tender jasmine rice was delicious. I'll leave it for another post to rave about how you should never, EVER buy teriyaki sauce because it's so easy to make fresh at home. Also, baby corn should win some kind of award for being both adorable and tasty.

The point is, the apartment continued to smell like heaven for hours. I fell asleep to the sweet, lingering fragrance of the amazing dinner I'd made. PDaughter loved it, by the way, which only made it sweeter.

So enormous hugs and kisses to Drummer Boy for introducing me to a new delight, one that I can actually eat. Next time you come over, I'll teach you my way of cooking rice.

We'll put on some Marvin Gaye and see where dinner leads.


1 comment:

  1. "Putting rice in my basket" is my new favorite euphemism.

    ReplyDelete

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